Wired looks at a new book that explores how corporations and other “content owners” are using intellectual property law to seize control of information, news, art, music, symbols and other cultural intangibles.

Should the Girl Scouts have to fork over a fee to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers every time its young members want to sing “Happy Birthday” to one another?

Should the organizers of athletic events have to seek permission from the United States Olympic Committee to use the word “Olympics” in the titles of their events?

Should the owners of McAllan’s, a sausage stand in Denmark, have to worry that their business name violates a trademark owned by the McDonald’s fast–food chain?

Anyone who responds with an emphatic, “Well, of course not,” will find a frustrating sort of pleasure in Brand Name Bullies ($25, 2005, John Wiley & Sons), by activist David Bollier.

As the title suggests, the book is an intense critique of the U.S. copyright and trademark system and the corporations that use it as a weapon against competitors and anyone else who might threaten them. Bollier argues that the court’s willingness to let corporations get away with such bullying is increasingly eroding our “cultural commons” — the collection of images, stories, sounds and other creative expressions that, due to their significance and prevalence, no longer belong to any single person or company.

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