Restrictions to Protect Intellectual Property

Restrictions to Protect Intellectual Property

Most people have heard the term,” Intellectual Property”, which means the creations of the mind, such as inventions, trademarks, or designs. In the contemporary era, people have many arguments about their lives and environment. One of the biggest arguments is about intellectual property. With the development of technology, people can share their ideas more conveniently, which is related to intellectual property. The argument is whether people should restrict intellectual property or not, which means people should protect intellectual property or abandon it. For example, some people insist that there shouldn’t be restrictions on sharing published articles because they can get some helpful ideas from other people’s articles to enhance their articles. However, this can cause some people to steal other people’s ideas without indicating the source, which harms society. Therefore, it is crucial to have restrictions protecting intellectual properties in four different areas, which are music, movies, trademarks, and patents.

To start with, having restrictions on music downloading is significant. Many people think there should not have any restrictions on music downloading, for they are able to download and share music with others whenever they want. They don’t have to go to some official websites to obtain the latest music or even new albums because they prefer to go to some P2P websites to look for new music, which is a common phenomenon nowadays. People prefer to use P2P sharing software rather than buy songs from shops or iTunes, according to the Pew Internet project (McArdle, 2010). Downloading music through P2P websites or software has some merits, which are saving more time to find music and making friends with other people who like the same kind of music. In addition, they don’t have to pay for music. Therefore, they believe that not having restrictions on music downloading can bring people more convenience. For instance, the Radiohead “pay whatever you want” to experiment shows that over sixty percent of people don’t like to pay for music. Only a few people will pay some money, because most people would like to download music though P2P services (McArdle, 2010). Most people prefer to download music because P2P services are always free. Moreover, these services always classify music into various categories. People can find more music about categories which they like, and they can share their ideas about some kinds of music with other users. Other people use some software like “iTunes” and “Google Play Store” which only cost people a little money.