According to lecture four notes from COM 3413, intellectual
property is protect by copyright laws whose purpose is to create a delicate
balance between the rights of creators of intellectual property and the rights
of consumers. The topic of intellectual
property is interesting to me because, with new technological innovations, the
need for tangible products, such as CDs, books made of paper, and handwritten letters,
are becoming obsolete and this is causing issues with our current copy right
laws. I fear that with tangible products
being replaced by digital products, copyright laws may change to favor more
strongly the creators of digital intellectual property and leave the consumer
out in the cold. There is a trend in the
United States for copyright laws to favor monopolies and this trend is being augmented
by “oligopolistic” disposition of the United States’ cultural industries
(Grimes 2006, p. 971). According to
Grimes in her article, the digital and intellectual properties of our current
century are very different from the “plots of land and printed texts” that our
copy right laws were originally intended to safe guard (Grimes 2006, p. 972). According to lecture four from COM 3413, many
corporations feel that a great deal of money is on the line due to intellectual
property falling into the public domain and the first sale rule, which allows
the purchaser of a product, such as a DVD, to resell or give away the product
without the producers consent. These
producers are lobbying to shift copyright laws to favor the creators over the
consumers. Many producers of
intellectual property have tried to safeguard their profits from those
individuals who wish to avoid paying to own that intellectual property. According to class lecture three, in 2011 the
Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was designed to stop illegal downloads by
allowing internet companies to ban certain sites that allowed illegal
downloads, was debated in the House of Representatives. However, the balance between protecting
intellectual property and net neutrality has been delayed. According to the text, public outcry over
SOPA and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) stopped Congress from
voting on the two acts and delayed a solution that might balance protecting the
rights of consumers and producers. Though
the public’s outcry over these acts halted a decision, this does not mean that
future legal acts favoring the creators of intellectual property will not
arise. Corporations owning intellectual property that are their cash
cows will do whatever it takes to ensure that their properties continue to
generate money, even if it is at the consumers’ expense.
Reference
Grimes, M. Sara. 2006.
Online multiplayer games: a virtual space for intellectual property
debates?. New Media and Society, 971,
972.
