Intellectual Property Rights Case Study

This case study will examine the moral issues of intellectual property rights and the effects they have on society. There are many varying stances on the subject of intellectual property, with people opposing either or both of intellectual property ownership and creative commons for various reasons. Mandatory copyrighting and patenting of inventions and published works has the potential to majorly restrict advancements in science and culture.

Intellectual property refers to copyrights, patents and other … over non-physical things. Ideas, inventions, formulas etc. are all subject to copyright or patent.

As Tyler writes, patents made on ideas that are not used by the patent holder are a waste of the idea: the potential for use by others to build on the idea to create products to benefit society is lost, at least until the patent expires or the holder sells permissions for a premium.

In the words of the Libertarian Party of Canada, Libertarians want “less government, lower taxes, more freedom”. Freedom is used as a broad term, implying a quest for freedom of information as well as individual freedom as citizens. Libertarians have some interesting views on media ownership and copyright laws. They believe in freedom of information for all, small government, and are generally anti-monopoly. Spreading information and power between citizens is the only sure way to benefit the whole world. Concentrated power will be used only to benefit those in power, so if power was given to the people, laws could benefit the people instead of the elite. Libertarians are seemingly conflicted over the idea of intellectual property. If someone makes something clever and unique that they worked on for years, they should have ownership of it, but since that...

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...nnot be limited, once they are put out in the world, they are free to travel and be shared as people will them to be.

Opposition to intellectual property laws are becoming increasingly common. The moral aspects of intellectual property rights are coming into question, as limiting information and ideas is not benefiting anyone but major corporations. According to Libertarians, advancements may well come to a halt in future years if monopolized ideas are not disseminated for the greater good. On the other hand, disregarding current intellectual property rights internationally is leading to corporations “losing market share dramatically” to copycats producing generic versions of otherwise brand-exclusive medications (Shah, Warsh & Kesselheim. 2013). Priorities must be considered, what is important or beneficial to citizens is rarely what is important to corporations.