Louisiana State University is accused of selling oil companies the opportunity to influence research topics or even control research.

I have the impression that many other US universities do this, and even more in other countries.

Wales (part of the UK) has given local communities control over which streets to limit to 20 mph.

Many citizens had objected to the way the Welsh government set this up.

* insiders say UK water firms knowingly break sewage laws.*

If the government really wanted this to stop, it could stop them. Seeing as the UK government can make it a crime to protest in "annoying" ways, it could, it could clearly make it a crime, punished by imprisonment, to intentionally pollute the waters.

So why doesn't it? I speculate that it is a matter of values. Under plutocratist rule, letting the "investors" extract money they are supposedly entitle do takes priority.

Advertainment is taking over movie-making. Why spend money on product advertisements to accompany some sort of show if you can have the show based entirely on your product?

The article highlights a general tendency towards milking assets that are available rather than making anything new.

To describe the result, the article falls into the intellectual pitfall of the misleading term "intellectual property", which twists thinking about any of the disparate laws that have been crammed into it.

If you want to think clearly about copyright, for instance, shun the term "intellectual property" and say you are talking about "copyright". Don't bring patents into that discussion — they are totally different from copyright. Also don't bring in trademarks, or trade secrets, or publicity rights.

For this article's point, the term "licensing rentierism" would fit better and avoid that confusion.

The US has adopted the law to conscript people in to spying on computer and phone data for US secret agencies.

It's not really "everyone" in the US that could be forced to spy in his way. But it is more people than you might think.

*Former and current U.S. officials told The Washington Post that the new language was intended to apply to data [server] storage centers, but civil liberties advocates like Goitein warn it could be used to compel any business — such as a grocery store, gym, or laundry service — to allow the National Security Agency (NSA) to scoop up data from its phones or computers.*

*"The provision effectively grants the NSA access to the communications equipment of almost any U.S. business, plus huge numbers of organizations and individuals," Goitein wrote on social media early Saturday. "It's a gift to any president who may wish to spy on political enemies, journalists, ideological opponents, etc."*