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Infoanarchism is an umbrella term for various groups of people who are opposed to forms of intellectual property, such as copyright and patents, and censorship in general. The term was coined in a TIME Magazine article called "The Infoanarchist" in July 2000. The article was about Ian Clarke, known as the original designer and lead developer of Freenet.[1] The anti-copyright movement includes a wide range of groups and views. Infoanarchists have emerged as part of the broader copyright social conflict and copyright debate. Infoanarchists have mixed views on the right to individual privacy, with some supporting its active enforcement and others wishing to push the responsibility to the citizen.

Infoanarchists may encourage and practice the use of anonymous networks, like Freenet, Entropy, Tor or I2P, to protect against legal attacks, as they make it difficult for observers, or any middleman, to determine what traffic is going across the network. They can be used by whistleblowers, political dissidents, or for unrestricted copying.

While Crypto-anarchism is focused on confidential, untraceable communication between individuals, the term Infoanarchism focuses more on the public anonymous availability of informational resources.

Prominent inforanarchist bloggers include Anarcho-Queer and RageMovement. All of whom are present on the micro-blogging website, tumblr. These anarchists are predominantly syndicalist, communist, or socialist anarchists and have advocated online information be private although information published by the creator may be used among users collectively without any need of credit being due. Online infoanarchists justify their ideology claiming that when purposely published information becomes available then that, in turn, signifies a right for unlimited use of that information.

See also[edit]



  • Vaidhyanathan, Siva (2004). The Anarchist in the Library. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-08984-4.