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Mar. 29  2024
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No Intellectual Right, Collapsing Property

Intellectual property is an issue all around us. Many illegal copies from books and phonograph records to software programs are being circulated every day.

Source  :  NACEP

Intellectual property is an issue all around us. Many illegal copies from books and phonograph records to software programs are being circulated every day. Just 10% of Korea claim to have never used illegal copies. Have about you?
The notion of intellectual property came about when a metallic plate was invented in 1440. After Gutenberg invented the printing press, Germans could read texts other than religious ones. In the eighteenth century the emergence of a middle class and innovations in printing transformed the German market for information. Suddenly the public was inundated with new novels, plays, poems, and philosophy. The metallic plate invention created the mass production of paperback books and allowed human to exchange information in a new way
So what was the problem? It was that Germany then consisted of about 350 tiny states, each with its own laws. When writers published books in one state, printers in adjacent states were free to copy it -- and did. Indeed, some states actively encouraged such piracy (as it is now called). If one state closed its borders to unauthorized editions from another state, the printers simply shifted location -- they could always operate somewhere. As a result, book sales soared while writers starved. Serious writers, whose books have ever taken longer to sell, were especially affected. They denounced unauthorized editions -- and were denounced back by the people who printed them. Writers had considered themselves vehicles for an inspiration from Heaven. How could they lay claim to what had come from God? "Piracy" helped keep the price of books down, benefitting the public and facilitating the spread of ideas. Was it moral to restrict the flow of knowledge for writers' private gain?
But now the intellectual property of this kind of physical medium is not the big issue anymore. It is the problem of massive numbers of illegal copies in new digital net working systems. The rapid development of daily technology makes copying and circulation much easier than before and it also makes it harder to prohibit illegal copies.
It is hard to count the mass of information in nowadays. Information became the new power of national community. As a result of the importance of information, a public ownership of information, like Copyleft has been established. Copylefter are nervous about monopoly of information, subordination of information by advanced countries, interception of circulating information, interference of sharing information and so on. Copyright is not just interference with the sharing of information. It is rather to activate the information industry and encourage more information sharing. If copyleft wanted to claim the right to access information, the right of knowing, the right of possessing the culture, they also need to care about their social obligations.
However intellectual property is knowledge or expression that is owned by someone. It has three customary domains: copyright, patent, and trademark (a fourth form, trade secrets, is sometimes included). Copyrighted songs, patented drugs, and trademarked soft drinks have been familiar denizens of the ordinary landscape, but the growth of digital technology has pushed intellectual property into new territory. Nowadays one might best define intellectual property as anything that can be sold in commercial form. It is the primary product of the Information Age.
After the prohibition of mp3 (Motion Picture Expert Group Player3), a new definition of intellectual property and revision laws have become necessary issues. Copyright, however is more than just other intellectual property. Copyright is as you well know, a protection that is extended to both published and unpublished works of literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, pictorial and certain other intellectual creations, provided such works are fixed in tangible medium.
In certain countries, the notion "Copyright" has a wider meaning than "author's rights" and, in addition to literary and artistic works, also extends to the producers of sound recordings (phonogram, whether disks or tapes), to the broadcasters of broadcasts and the creators of distinctive typographical arrangements of publications.
Today it is widely believed that personal computers, cable television, the Internet, and the telephone system are converging into a giant hose that will spray huge amounts of data -- intellectual property -- into our living rooms. So some say there is no way to prohibit illegal copying and that it is the characteristics of the digital networking system to share and circulate informations to public. It is real true words. However, as you certainly know, even though it is too hard to follow the rapid developing technology and prohibit the copying, rights must be protected. Some copyright laws provide computer programs that are to be protected as literary works.
On one part, copylefter insist copyright interferes sharing of information. Copyright law's purpose is not to shut off information sharing. It is for protection of the creator's inherent right. For example if there are beautiful expressions in a novel, the copyright law is trying to protect the expressions, not the ideas in it. Movies that obviously cannot be seen for free, represent the culture industry. Most people accept this fact. Despite this, in the Internet and other where there are many investigations to show a movie free. In this way, showing a movie for free certainly develops a profound movie industry. May be not. It is very hard to do all apply for all movies. So consequently for the movie industry to develop, we must pay each showing movie and even though the technology develop, it is not enlightened to showing movie free by using new media.
The transformation of intellectual property into electronic form creates new problems. Therefore to follow the rapid new technology development, and to find the new right in new media mean restrictions using new suitable rights. New copyright laws such as a law of connect intellectual property or a law of transmission are being created. Just like a child needs new clothes as he grows up, the copyright laws need to be reformed to fit the changing world.
In the world of information power, to develop the technology, to motivate, the creative writer (not only writer, but also programmers, composers, performers, ...etc.) must gain profit. Copyright is the regulatory authority for the marketplace of ideas. This reality cannot be ignored. It lays out the economic ground rules to create the hubbub of debate that the Founders believed necessary for democracy -- one reason that they included copyright in the Constitution
But there is also a problem in nowadays copyright. From the survey of 500 netizens of dissatisfaction in the present law of copyright, 32.6% believe it is too expensive to use charged information on the Internet. Incomplete information (13.1%) , restriction of accessing information (3.1%) , interruption of music file service-mp3 (1.5%) , ambiguity of information pay indication (1.5%) ... 34.7% of people feel no dissatisfaction.
The cause of these secular surnames of global problems exist not only for one country, so the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) has been established. The WIPO is an intergovernmental organization with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. It is one of the 16 specialized agencies of the United Nations system of organizations. The WIPO is responsible for the promotion of the protection of intellectual property throughout the world through cooperation among states, and for the administration of various multilateral treaties dealing with the legal and administrative aspects of intellectual property.
Today the marketplace of ideas is being shaken up by the competing demands of technology, finance, and law. Large sums of money are at stake. Change seems inevitable.






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