This is the final essay I wrote for Media Law and Ethics.
The World Intellectual Property Organization refers to intellectual property as “creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works… and designs used in commerce” (WIPO). Throughout the course we have been reminded that IP law exists to stimulate creativity and inventiveness. Yet, today much innovation is stifled by career patent companies that use their rights and the law to prohibit further expansion of their ideas. In the absence of an empirical definition of creativity, a handful of music, movie, and software companies have defined the word in dollars. If it makes millions it’s creative, and it belongs to us.
Current interpretation and enforcement of IP law does not acknowledge that nothing is created in a vacuum. If tomorrow’s technology is built on yesterday’s knowledge, then it is interpretive as well as transformative. And the collaboration produced does not deserve protection above and beyond that of the original sources.
Years ago I helped videotape an event occasioned by the retirement of an international chemical company’s patent attorney. He gave a long speech that detailed the history of some of the company’s most successful products. I still remember how he noted several products that the company did not invent, but merely patented. He in fact claimed that getting a patent was easy once you met the requirements (novelty, usefulness, nonobviousness). As a young creative that information left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Today, I have mixed feelings about the extension of copyrights. But changing current laws will only become more difficult with an increasingly bipolar government and constituency. I understand wanting to hold on to something you created. However, if balancing creativity against the right to monopolize profits from one’s inventions is the goal, then future interpretations of IP law must change drastically. We need to celebrate transformative, non-competing uses of material as copyright success stories, not demonize the courts and government for failing to protect information owners. Juries, judges, and legislators must work harder to “split the baby in half”. One portion of law I feel definitely needs to be repealed is a technical amendment added to a bill that allows sound recordings to be considered “works for hire” (Love). This automatic conveyance of ownership rights to record companies mocks the idea of copyright stimulating creativity.
Going forward, the ethical responsibility to respect other people’s work remains intact. Choosing to totally disregard current laws would have the same stifling effect on creativity the current “user as criminal” culture has engendered. But at the same time, the next generation of artists needs to work harder at changing the political landscape. Choosing to patronize open source and Creative Commons licensed artists, as well as using these less restrictive models for some of our own work is a beginning. Without a new example of how copyright and patent laws can benefit creators and society at large, corporations will continue to confiscate the work of others and hoard their own creations with no intentions of ever releasing the knowledge to the public.
Works Cited
Creative Commons. “Creative Commons.” Creativecommons.org. Creative Commons. Web. 18 Dec. 2010.<http://creativecommons.org/>.
Love, Courtney. “Courtney Love Does the Math – Courtney Love – Salon.com.” Salon.com. 14 June 2000. Web. 18 Dec. 2010. <http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2000/06/14/love>.
“Mission | Open Source Initiative.” Opensource.org. Web. 18 Dec. 2010. <http://www.opensource.org/>.
WIPO. “What Is Intellectual Property?” Wipo.int. World Intellectual Property Organization. Web. 18 Dec. 2010.
<http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/>.