Blog#2 Intellectual Property

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.