oh, I am so glad that I saw this post via Deepa! I completely agree with what you're saying here, especially especially this: I have very little patience with the concept of "intellectual property rights"; their rise is part and parcel of the neoliberalization first of so-called advanced industrial societies, and then the rest of the world; the shredding of social safety nets globally; the commercialization of scholarship and the reduction of the value of all knowledge to the price it is projected to fetch in the so-called "free market"; the patent-ization of scientific research part and parcel with increased corporate profiteering therefrom. IPR are used systematically to disenfranchise and disempower vulnerable groups at all levels of societies globally, and then, the disenfranchisement complete, to sell that content back to those groups at immense profit--but only at fair market price, of course.

Do you mind if I ETA my post to add a link here, too?