Series on Intellectual Property Controversies
It might not have been how I originally wanted to spend my Saturday night, but then again if I hadn’t of gone it would have been extremely difficult to write this paper. I attended Molly Kleinman’s lecture about copyright and how it’s linked to libraries.
So there I was with my pen and note book ready to take notes for later use. She first started out just talking about the purpose of copyright. From there she gave two different points of views on copyright, first was what it means according to the constitution and then according to some big companies. Not surprisingly there was a huge difference in each definition. The Constitution states that the purpose was to promote the progress of science and useful arts. The definition according to big companies is one that I am more familiar with, or would be more like how I would define it. They state that it is to give media companies’ total control over content, forever and always. However, she came to a point in her lecture where she explained where copyright comes from, apparently it just happens. You used to need to have the symbol, © and then register your work with the copyright office, but now you don’t. Now it exists from the moment that it’s created and last for the whole life of the originator plus 70 years after death. This ties into what we talked about in class, about whether anything is actually copyrighted. Someone brought up the point that truthfully anything that you write done in a book has to of came from an idea that you got from something else. That could be your whole storyline about the guy and girl that fell in love. The point made was that there are hundreds of books with that same type of storyline with some twists of their own, but in the end they are all pretty much the same idea.
Also during her presentation she mentioned the different kinds of intellectual property, something we discussed in class. They included copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret. The differences between them are as follows; copyright protects a creative expression. Patent protects useful inventions. Trademark protects corporate identities and products and trade secret protects formulas and processes that are not easily discovered.
The central message of this text is that increasingly, outdated copyright laws are being manipulated and put to use in a ludicrous manner. This is resulting in the suppression of people’s ability to generate and share their own creative expressions.
This reading for this week was From Goods to a Good Life: Intellectual Property and Global Justice by Madhavi Sunder. The reading I chose to put into convocation with the first article was The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind by James Boyle. In Sunder’s chapter on “Fair Culture”, she specifically references Lessig’s Free Culture, saying that it is insufficient, thereafter extending its claims. Sunder attempts to extend and slightly modify Lessig’s idea by incorporating a thorough analysis of culture and the inequalities in people’s ability to claim intellectual property rights into her argument. On the other hand, Boyle’s article gives a history of what “property” is, the reach of intellectual property rights, and views on intellectual property rights. Like Lessig, Boyle also assumes a largely economic perspective, which differs from Sunder’s cultural perspective.
Over the past decade the societal view of creative society has greatly changed due to advances in computer technology and the Internet. In 1995, aware of the beginning of this change, two authors wrote articles in Wired Magazine expressing diametrically opposed views on how this technological change would take form, and how it would affect copyright law. In the article "The Emperor's Clothes Still Fit Just Fine" Lance Rose hypothesized that the criminal nature of copyright infringement would prevent it from developing into a socially acceptable practice. Thus, he wrote, we would not need to revise copyright law to prevent copyright infringement. In another article, Entitled "Intellectual Value", Esther Dyson presented a completely different view of the copyright issue. She based many her arguments on the belief that mainstream copyright infringement would proliferate in the following years, causing a radical revision of American ideas and laws towards intellectual property. What has happened since then? Who was right? This paper analyzes the situation then and now, with the knowledge that these trends are still in a state of transformation. As new software and hardware innovations make it easier to create, copy, alter, and disseminate original digital content, this discussion will be come even more critical.
Intellectual property is an incredibly complicated facet of the law. In the United States, we have many laws in place to control and limit profiting from others intellectual property. The issue is not only profiting from others intellectual property, but not purchasing the property from the originator as well. We will discuss why it is important to protect this property as well as why it is tremendously difficult to regulate all these safe guards. “Intellectual Property has the shelf life of a banana.” Bill Gates
The Internet has most publicly impacted Copyright legislation and thus this essay will focus on it specifically. Copyrights are ìoriginal works of authorship in any tangible medium of expression, Öfrom which the work can be perceived, reproduced or otherwise communicated, either directly or withÖ aidî (Bird, p.86). Not only has its existence and understanding been heightened by the general public, but violations against it have ìincreased on the Internet as far as its use and what is being used.î (Medieval Romance, p.1) ìNever before has it been so easy to violate a copyright ownerís exclusive right to copy.î (Bird, p.86) The Internet has increased piracy, it has changed legislation for both creators and infringers, it is been the precursor for harsher punishments to violators, and it has clouded jurisdiction principles.
In week 10 of spring semester we discussed chapter 11’s Intellectual Property Law. “Property establishes a relationship of legal exclusion between an owner and other people regarding limited resources.” In this chapter, we learn that the Constitution allows Congress “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors to the exclusive Right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
The Statute of Anne (the first modern form of copyright law) was introduced after the printing press was invented. Before this time, books would have to be hand written and for this reason they were ve...
The World Intellectual Property Organization, Intellectual property is the ‘products of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, any symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce’. Intellectual Properties such as Patents, designs, trademarks and copyrights are protected by laws. The US government offers different types of protection for these properties. The Lanham Act (15 U.S.C.A. Section 1051 et seq., also known as the Trademark Act of 1946, provides protection for trademarks. A trademark is defined as a name, word, symbol, or device or any combination thereof, adopted and used by a manufacturer or merchant to identify its goods and distinguish them from those manufactured and sold by others.
Intellectual property is property resulting from intellectual, creative processes. A product that was created because of someone’s individual thought process. Examples includes books, designs, music, art work, and computer files. (Miller R. J., 2011, p. 114) In the music industry a copyright is an important tool for artist to use to protect themselves from infringers. A copyright is the exclusive right of an author or originator of a literary or artistic production to publish, print, or sell that production for a statutory period of time. A copyright has the same monopolistic nature as a patent or trademark, but it differs in that it applies exclusively to works of art, literature, and other works of authorship (including computer programs). (Miller R. J., 2011, p. 125)
Intellectual property (IP) is defined as property that is developed through an intellectual and creative processes. Intellectual property falls under the category of property known as intangible rights, which includes patents (inventions of processes, machines, manufactures, and compositions of matter), copyrights (original artistic and literary works of), trademarks (commercial symbols), and trade secrets ((product formulas, patterns, designs). Intellectual property rights has a significant value to both individuals and businesses, providing in the case of large companies, over one half of their value on return. Since intellectual property rights are so important to the U.S. economy and its citizens, federal and state law provides protection, for example, civil damages and criminal penalties to be assessed against infringers. Due to the importance of intellectual property to a business, I don’t think that its protection and enforcement is going to be a thing of the past.
We have to remind legislators that intellectual property rights are a socially-conferred privilege rather than an inalienable right, that copying is not always evil (and in some cases is actually socially beneficial) and that there is a huge difference between wholesale piracy'the mass-production and sale of illegal copies of protected worksand the filesharing that most internet users go in for.
...on in her book Copyright Clarity by asserting that the originators of copyright law intended the protection of intellectual property to encourage creativity among inventors, not stifle it.
Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement are two terms that mean different things yet are routinely mentioned as synonyms for each other. This is not the case. The underlying reasoning for people who choose to plagiarize and infringe on copyrights involve some of the same ethics and morals, but from a legal standpoint these terms mean different things. This paper will point out the similarities and differences between the two terms. It will first give some meaning and perspective behind each term then it will go into the details of what each term means. It will point out the types of plagiarism that routinely show in academia and what is covered under Copyright law protection. It will go on to compare and contrast the two concepts.
Intellectual property is the ownership of ideas as well as the control over the tangible or virtual representation of those ideas. Software is intellectual property, as are books, movies, and music.Like music performers and authors, software developers use copyright laws to protect their work and their investment in the field. The theft of intellectual property thus eliminates the resources used to develop newer and better products.
Intellectual property is information, original ideas and expressions of the persons mind that have profitable value and are protected under copyright, patent, service mark, trademark/trade secret regulation from replication, violation, and dilution. Intellectual property includes brand items, formulas, inventions, data, designs and the work of artists. It is one of the most tradable properties in the technology market.