Monday, October 1, 2007

Blog Post #2

Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property is the material of the Internet. But how can this owned knowledge or expression, as Charles Mann describes intellectual property in “Who Will Own Your Next Good Idea?” be prevented from being copied? Can copyright even truly exist on the Internet?

As the Internet has grown to include more people, intellectual property can reach more people. Businesses could see this as a potential to expand and profit more, but technology is prohibiting this from happening.

File-sharing sites such as the old-school Napster and the newer Kazaa and LimeWire have allowed people to share their music, software, movies, pictures, among other items with users across the world without regard to copyright limitations.

According to Mann sites like these and DVD-R and CD-R burners have caused industries to lose billions of dollars. For example the Motion Picture Association estimated a loss of $2.5 billion due to piracy in 1998.

But, some people say that these businesses already make enough money, so it’s okay to reuse the material over the Internet. Others such as John Perry Barlow from the Grateful Dead said allowing people to free access will increase their want to buy the original material.

Barlow's idea of allowing free intellectual property is becoming more common among aspiring artists and even popular ones like Radiohead. MySpace pages have blossomed many careers in the music and even acting business.

For example, iTunes offers a free download of the week for artists. One week the single was “Bom Bom Bom” by Living Things and within a few weeks, I heard the song at the base of commercials. Or just a few months ago, Cobbie Calliat’s single “Bubbly” was the giveaway for the week. Within two weeks, I heard the song playing on top 20 formatted radio stations.

Mann wrote, “Copyright should not impede artistic efforts to explain or times. Nor should we let it interfere with the relation between producers and consumers of art.” All the talk about how to regulate and prevent people from copying innovative material takes away from the uniqueness of the Internet.

It allows people to link something they like over and over to more and more people, creating an even larger target market for businesses. Review those two musicians and see where their careers are now – the music isn’t free anymore, but people are still buying it.

The media are just upset consumers are not directly buying everything from them anymore.

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