Podcast Summary:

Podcast: New Books Network – Library Science Channel
Episode: Dagmar Schafer, "Ownership of Knowledge: Beyond Intellectual Property" (MIT Press, 2023)
Host: Jen Hoyer
Guests: Dagmar Schafer, Annapurna Mamidipudi, Marius Buning
Published: January 1, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode features editors Dagmar Schafer, Annapurna Mamidipudi, and Marius Buning discussing their groundbreaking volume, Ownership of Knowledge: Beyond Intellectual Property (MIT Press, 2023). The conversation challenges mainstream concepts of knowledge ownership, arguing for a broader understanding that transcends traditional legal and intellectual property frameworks by centering technology, practice, and social dynamics.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Goals of the Project ([05:02]–[08:29])

• The book was conceived around the disconnect between scholars of law, science, and technology regarding knowledge ownership.
• Each editor came from distinct backgrounds—history, engineering, law—and realized their shared frustration with how ownership is removed from people engaged in making and knowing.
• Their collaboration began in both formal academic spaces and informal, personal conversations.
  • Memorable moment: Dagmar and Annapurna’s realization of their shared interests during a bike ride along Lake Michigan ([06:25]–[07:42]).

Quote (Dagmar Schafer, 06:25):
"…we were both very frustrated in the way in which it is discussion. Ownership is taken from people through our work... And so how do you actually stop that as a historian, as an NGO worker, as somebody who looks at the sciences from law?"

2. Conceptual Foundations: The 'Knowable' and the 'Ownable' ([08:30]–[13:56])

• The book interrogates what kinds of knowledge are considered 'ownable' and how that changes based on context.
• Ownership and knowledge are always already entangled—the distinction is artificial and problematic.
  • Annapurna highlights how, among craftspeople, having knowledge (such as a weaving technique) does not equate to owning it ([11:38]–[13:05]).
  • Dagmar draws on Chinese philosophy and embodied practice: true knowledge involves performing, possessing, and communicating it—all at once ([09:26]–[11:36]).
  • Marius emphasizes that legal and historical perspectives on knowledge and ownership must be examined together.

Quote (Marius Buning, 13:14):
"One cannot talk about something... just by talking about ownership without discussing its epistemology and vice versa. The two are always intrinsically linked."

3. Case Studies: Examining Ownership Through Diverse Lenses

A. History of Intellectual Property Law (Book Publishing) ([14:50]–[16:50])

• Marius’s chapter analyzes how law students are taught the history of intellectual property—often in a "fairy tale" narrative, progressing from disorder to modernity ([14:50]).
• This framing naturalizes the expansion of legal regimes, overlooking alternative models and the multitudinous ways knowledge is or could be owned.
• The divide between “the logic of history” and “the logic of law” shapes not just how we own knowledge but also how we know ownership itself.

Quote (Marius Buning, 16:22):
"This is not just a story of ownership of knowledge, but also the knowledge of ownership."

B. Authorizing Knowledge: Practice and Social Context (Music, Weaving, Science Pedagogy, Craft) ([17:45]–[21:42])

• Annapurna and Viren Murthy’s chapter on Carnatic music in South India shows that ownership emerges from performance—not from legal recognition.
  • Inclusion and exclusion operate through bodily relationships (who is allowed to perform), revealing how social context shapes epistemic authority ([17:45]–[20:35]).
• The editors propose that word (naming), body (performance/practice), and object (materialization) are all means by which knowledge is authorized and owned.
• Cases from craft, science classrooms, and Batik traditions exemplify these multifaceted regimes.

Quote (Annapurna Mamidipudi, 20:06):
"You perform what you know, and that's how you have that knowledge. Then the knowledge is located in bodies and relationships… So the way in which it will operate, the inclusion and exclusion will happen through how bodies include and exclude."

C. Erasure and Power Through Naming (Craft Knowledge in Pre-modern China) ([21:42]–[25:28])

• Dagmar’s chapter demonstrates how literati in China controlled ownership by naming knowledge and practices, systematically erasing the identities and expertise of craftspeople.
• This practice enabled collective branding, such as "cultural heritage," while diminishing individual attribution—contrasting with European models focused on invention and personal achievement.
• She also points out the error in assuming that formal copyright law is the only way a society “owns” knowledge.

Quote (Dagmar Schafer, 23:21):
"The literati, so the scholars…name everything. And that's because they can name it, they can actually own what they know… It’s the literati who define what kind of expertise these people actually have."

4. The Politics of Knowledge and the Scholar’s Role ([25:28]–[34:57])

• The book’s final section addresses how scholarship itself legitimizes certain knowers while delegitimizing others.
• Scholars possess more power than they often realize: by defining, naming, and classifying, they shape and sometimes erase ownership and legitimacy ([29:45]–[33:38]).
  • Dagmar provides a challenge to find a case where knowledge and ownership are not conditioned by each other.
  • The editors urge knowledge workers to be “very careful” with this power, warning against perpetuating inequality by fragmenting and differentiating forms of knowledge.
• The “toolkit” offered invites scholars to treat words, bodies, and objects as equally valid sites for epistemology and ownership—not just abstractions in text.

Quote (Dagmar Schafer, 30:08):
"I want all knowledge workers…to realize, realize how much power they actually have and what they are doing sometimes with words…we destroy systems and we also keep them up, right?…I want them to really seriously think to what they're doing and then be very conscientious with like what they are doing."

Notable Quotes & Moments

• Challenging Disciplinary Divides
  (Dagmar Schafer, 06:25): “Ownership is taken from people through our work…how do you actually stop that as a historian, as an NGO worker, as somebody who looks at the sciences from law?”

• The Knowable/Ownable Distinction
  (Annapurna Mamidipudi, 13:05): “What is considered having knowledge and what is considered owning knowledge just don't fit with craftspeople…you don't own the right to weave [a motif] because it’s cultural property and anybody can weave it.”

• Social and Bodily Ownership in Music
  (Annapurna Mamidipudi, 20:06): “If the knowledge is performed as music is, then the ownership is through performance… The knowledge is located in bodies and relationships.”

• Scholarly Power and Responsibility
  (Dagmar Schafer, 30:08): “We destroy systems and we also keep them up… alerting us all to this fact… there's a huge impact with the work we are doing.”

• A Call to Re-examine and Expand Analytical Tools
  (Annapurna Mamidipudi, 27:51): “If we treat words, bodies, objects, all as…on equal terms, as kinds of instantiations of ownership or of knowledge…then what can we come up with?”

Timestamps of Important Segments

• Introducing the Editors ([01:21]–[05:02])
• Project Origins and Motivations ([05:02]–[08:29])
• Theoretical Foundation: Knowable vs. Ownable ([08:30]–[13:56])
• Case Study: Legal History & Tradition in IP ([14:50]–[16:50])
• Case Study: Music & Performance as Knowledge ([17:45]–[21:42])
• Case Study: Power and Naming in China ([21:42]–[25:28])
• Scholarship and the Politics of Knowledge ([25:28]–[34:57])
• Looking Forward: Next Projects ([35:26]–[39:58])

Looking Forward: Next Steps and Projects ([35:26]–[39:58])

• Annapurna: Collaborative cross-disciplinary workshops bringing practitioners (weavers, potters, gardeners, linguists) together with scholars to develop “intermediate languages” through practice.
• Marius: ERC project on the history of printing privileges in early modern Europe, exploring the genealogy and alternatives to copyright.
• Dagmar: Further work on the knowable/ownable distinction in NGO and innovation contexts, plus a new book project rethinking historical comparison.

Conclusion

This episode offers a rich and nuanced examination of how we conceive and structure the ownership of knowledge beyond the bounds of intellectual property law. The editors' interdisciplinary perspectives illuminate the inseparability of knowing and owning, the mechanisms by which knowledge is legitimized or erased, and the ethical responsibilities of scholars in shaping these regimes. Their work challenges listeners to scrutinize the “common sense” distinctions promoted by legal and academic traditions and provides conceptual and practical tools for a more equitable and accurate engagement with knowledge in society.