Intellectual Property in an Interconnected Digital World

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Intellectual Property in an Interconnected Digital World

Introduction

The concept of intellectual property, copyrights, and patents has been around for many years. The ancient Greeks had already started to attribute authorship of works to individuals. The purpose is to encourage people to make new inventions by rewarding them with the exclusive right to "own" their ideas. Laws have been made to prohibit people from taking other people's ideas unlawfully (i.e., stealing) and in general, these laws have been successful in preventing the crime before it is done, and punishing the criminals after it is done. However, in recent years, the new phenomena of the Internet and digital technology will change both the concept of intellectual property and its regulations.

The Internet and digital technology has made it easier than ever to exchange information between any two points across the globe. It enables everyone to publish their ideas instantly to a world-wide audience. While it is a great revolution that has brought a whole new world of possibilities to humankind, it also poses a threat to the intellectual property laws as it allows anyone to easily obtain any information, including copyrighted materials, without even taking so much effort as to leave their bedrooms. On this essay, I am going to discuss this issue in general and analyze a specific case of music file sharing over the Internet.

The Internet and Digital Technology

Intellectual property such as a design of a machine, a new algorithm, or a music composition has always taken the media of a physical substance. For example, a design would take the form of a blueprint; an algorithm would be a part of a thesis paper; and a music composition would be eithe...

... middle of paper ...

...m's royalty to the artist is 50% of the gross sales. MP3.com handles all the cost of running their service, duplicating the CD, packaging and shipping with no extra charge to the artists.

I believe that almost all people have at least a basic appreciation of the art and it is not naïve to think that people would actually buy an MP3 file when they could download it for free. I personally will buy a song for a dollar, knowing that I'm supporting the musician by doing so.

Sources

Stallman, R. "Why Software should be free". Computers, Ethics and Society Values, edited by Johnson D. and Nissenbaum, H. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 1995.

Warwick, S. (1999) "Is Copyright Ethical?" 4th Annual Ethics and Technology Conference, Boston College, June 1999.

http://www.2near.com/edge/editorials/mp3.html

http://www.eff.org/cafe/cafe_kriz1.html

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