Intellectual Property: Protecting ideas in the new information
economy
What is intellectual property?
Economies are based on the trade and exchange
of commodities. In today's new information economy ideas
are becoming more and more valuable as commodities. This
information economy is based upon a new framework of intellectual
property (IP) rights.
Intellectual property (IP) constitutes
the ideas, designs, inventions, or concepts created by a
person or organisation. The framework of IP rights extends
to cover such things as corporate brands, the development
of e-commerce, and the increasing consolidation (or convergence
) of media and telecommunications corporations.
Intellectual property law is primarily
aimed at controlling the use of such things created by the
work of an individual or organisation, and at ensuring that
the benefits of the use or copying of the goods resulting
from those works are transmitted back to their originators.
The concept of intellectual property began
as a means of recognising an author's creation of a work
- usually literary or artistic - and their right to any
benefits that might arise as a result of the sale of the
work. But it was not until the nineteenth century that intellectual
property became an important part of industrial economic
practice.
The requirements of the business world
were markedly different from those of the arts world, so
new concepts of intellectual property, such as trademarks,
were developed. The recent development of computers and
information technology, and especially of the Internet,
has pushed the bounds of intellectual property still further;
global agreements have recently been reached for the protection
of IP rights within computerised databases.
Intellectual property laws and regulations
centre on the following categories:
Copyright - the control over literary,
artistic and other works;
Patents - the control over new technological innovations;
Trademarks - the control over names and logos; and
Databases - the controls over the assemblage of information.
The Internet has been
built on principles that challenge the concept of 'intellectual
property'.
The nature of the Internet system challenges
traditional concepts of intellectual property, for example:
The Internet as a public 'commons'
Thus the basic building blocks of the
Internet have never been regarded as private property regulated
by the vagaries of the market and the profit motive. These
core resources have been held as "commons", providing
a neutral platform for further building, open to all, without
the restrictions imposed by individual or corporate ownership.
This has allowed a decentralised innovation to take place
that has been responsible for the remarkable growth of the
Internet when compared with other technologies where private,
including intellectual, property dominated. The Internet
has grown far faster than the railroad, electricity use,
the telephone or television.
The principles upon which the development
of the Internet has been based are under threat from corporate
interests. At first, they paid little attention to the Internet.
When they did, their reaction was to try to replace it with
closed and controlled systems owned by them. They have sought
to fence off the "commons" and bring it within
the domain of private property and the market.
This particularly threatens future Internet
development. Broadband technology, allowing high-speed multimedia
distribution, could take the proven power of the Internet's
decentralised innovation model into new realms of content
creation, promising a tremendous flowering of artistic and
cultural development. But the corporations that would like
to extend their control over other media now threaten to
do the same here through ownership of the broadband distribution
technologies and network and the imposition of copyright
law.
As the Foundation
for Information and Policy research points out:
"Any digital information can be disseminated
globally, irreversibly and instantly. Yet new copyright
laws seek to curb and criminalise the creation of software
which allows people fair use of information, promotes competition
through compatibility, or employs fundamental ideas in mathematics
on which restrictions have been sought through patenting."
Software as a public good not a commercial
venture
"Free software is a matter of freedom:
people should be free to use software in all the ways that
are socially useful. Software differs from material objects--such
as chairs, sandwiches, and gasoline--in that it can be copied
and changed much more easily.
These possibilities make software as useful as it is; we
believe software users should be able to make use of them."
- Free
Software Foundation
This common ownership of the Internet
core has encouraged the growth of open source and free software.
Major examples of this are the GNU/Linux operating system
and the Apache server; both owe their existence to the Internet
and have been able to compete favourably with proprietary
commercial products.
The claim is that copyright should protect
the rights of creators. In practice, copyright is often
used to protect or strengthen a particular business model
that separates content creators from their audience and
imposes the power of an intermediary. The intermediary has
become increasingly unnecessary in the age of Internet.
By creating new distribution methods based on making direct
connections between users and providers, the Internet makes
possible new innovative business models. A good example
of this has been the growth of shareware software distribution.
Similar models can be, and are being, developed in other
fields such as music distribution.
The use of computers holds out great possibilities
to developing countries in helping them overcome existing
barriers to their growth. However, attempts to impose a
particular restrictive philosophy of intellectual property
can impose the viewpoint of the strong on those who have
little power to resist.
As part of its Internet Rights work, APC
joins with others to defend the "commons" of the
Internet from attempts at its "enclosure". We
support the Free Software movement and the development of
Open Source business models as alternatives to the intellectual
property model, particularly for use in the developing countries.
References
Intellectual Property:
www.internetrights.org.uk/briefings/ip
Copyright:
"How Copyright became controversial": Page: 3
http://www.cfp2002.org/proceedings/proceedings/clark.pdf
Open Source:
http://rights.apc.org/software/
Free Software:
Free Software Foundation:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html
ICT Policy & Internet Rights
