Intellectual Property

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What Is Intellectual Property?• Intellectual property: any unique product of the

human intellect that has commercial value– Books, songs, movies– Paintings, drawings– Inventions, chemical formulas, computer programs

• Intellectual property ≠ physical manifestation• Does right to own property extend to intellectual

property?

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Information Technology Changing Intellectual Property Landscape

• Value of intellectual properties much greater than value of media– Creating first copy is costly– Duplicates cost almost nothing

• Illegal copying pervasive– Internet allows copies to spread quickly and widely

• In light of advances in information technology, how should we treat intellectual property?

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Property Rights• Locke: The Second Treatise of Government• People have a right…

– to property in their own person– to their own labor– to things which they remove from Nature through

their labor

• As long as…– nobody claims more property than they can use– after someone removes something from common

state, there is plenty left over

Locke’s Notion of Property Rights

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Expanding the Argument to Intellectual Property

• Writing a play akin to making a belt buckle• Belt buckle

– Mine ore– Smelt it down– Cast it

• Writing a play– “Mine” words from English language– “Smelt” them into prose– “Cast” them into a complete play

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Analogy Is Imperfect

• If Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare simultaneously write down Hamlet, who owns it?

• If Ben “steals” the play from Will, both have it• These paradoxes weaken the argument for a natural right

to intellectual property

Ben Jonson, walker Art Library/Alamy; Shakespeare, Classic Image/Alamy

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Benefits of Intellectual Property Protection

• Some people are altruistic; some are not• Allure of wealth can be an incentive for

speculative work• Authors of U.S. Constitution recognized

benefits to limited intellectual property protection

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Limits to Intellectual Property Protection

• Giving creators rights to their inventions stimulates creativity

• Society benefits most when inventions in public domain

• Congress has struck compromise by giving authors and inventors rights for a limited time

Kinds of IP Protection

• Trade Secrets• Copyrights• Patents• Digital Rights Management

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Trademark, Service Mark

• Trademark: Identifies goods• Service mark: Identifies services• Company can establish a “brand name”• Does not expire• If brand name becomes common noun,

trademark may be lost• Companies advertise to protect their trademarks• Companies also protect trademarks by

contacting those who misuse them

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Screenshot by Xerox. Copyright © 2012 by Xerox Corporation. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

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Patent

• A public document that provides detailed description of invention

• Provides owner with exclusive right to the invention

• Owner can prevent others from making, using, or selling invention for 20 years

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Copyright• Provides owner of an original work five rights

– Reproduction– Distribution– Public display– Public performance– Production of derivative works

• Copyright-related industries represent 6% of U.S. gross domestic product (> $900 billion/yr)

• Copyright protection has expanded greatly since 1790

Benefits and harm to society that come from IP protection

• Open Source vs. protected IP• Productivity and creativity enhanced through

IP protection?• Creativity coming from sharing • Increase or lower prosperity and income

disparity?

Lawrence Lessig on Copyright

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXwB9FlkNXA• http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_stran

gling_creativity.html

Copyrighting

A. Without copyright protection, innovation would die in the digital age.

B. Innovation will never die, as it is part of the human spirit. Money is not needed as an incentive.

C. Other

What are the benefits and harm to society that comes from IP protection

Natural right to property

• John Locke (1632-1704)1. Property in their own person2. Right to their own labor3. Right to resources removed from nature through

their own labor.

Does this qualify as my natural right?

1. Tree in a forest2. Wood cut from a forest3. Corn grown by me4. Corn grown by my employee

A. 1, 2, 3, 4B. 2, 3, 4C. 2, 3D. 3, 4

Intellectual property

• Product of human intellect that has commercial value.– Music is IP, not the sheet on which it is printed.

Protecting IP

• Trade secrets – example?• Trademark – example?• Patent – example?• Copyright – example?

P2P (peer to peer) and sharing

• Napster – 1st kind– Central server has list of people (clients) who have

movies, songs etc. List consulted by clients seeking to download.

• Grokster – 2nd kind– No central directory

• BitTorrent – 3rd kind– No central directory, and file chopped up into

pieces, because

Napter and FastTrack

Fair use

• Better if– Educational– Non-fiction– Published– Excerpts only– Out of print (effect of copying on sales)

Clicker

• Professor copies journal articles and makes them available for students, with a password.

• Fair use or not?A. YESB. NO

Clicker

• Art teacher copies pictures from art book and makes slides to show to her class. Fair use or not?

A. YESB. NO

Google Books

• Google, in digitizing materials from libraries around the world, created an archive that includes many books still covered by copyright.– Many (most?) books are searchable– Those out of copyright are fully readable– Snippets of copyrighted books are shown with

search terms in context

Authors Guild v. Google

• Author’s Guild says, “Google’s copying and storing in its own database is not Fair Use.”

• Google says, “Is too!”

Fair use?

• Educational, or commercial• Non-fiction, or art, fiction etc.• Published, or not published• Excerpts only, or the whole thing• No effect of copying on sales, or reduces

sales/profitAnswer A for Yes, B for NO for each

IP wars

• “rich countries often impose unjust laws on poor countries to squeeze money out of them. Some of these laws are “intellectual property” laws, …”

• India is likely to drag the US to World Trade Organisation (WTO) if America includes it in the 'Priority Foreign Country' list for intellectual property rights, a development that could further escalate trade tensions between the two. – Feb 24, 2014

Digital Rights Management

• Schemes to control executing, viewing, copying, printing and altering of works or devices.

• May use digital encryption, or locking.

Digital Rights Management

Pros• Controls copyright

protected work

Cons• Not effective – repeated

examples of people breaking it

• Inconveniences people• Prevents legitimate copying,

as for backup, format changing for disabled etc.

• Could make works inaccessible if DRM scheme changes or service discontinued.

Info Wars

• In 1999 … • DVDs were scrambled with CSS• Windows PC’s and MACs had licensed CSS software to decrypt

DVDs.• Linux Operating System computers did not.• Jon Johansen, 16 years old in 1999, cracks the CSS software with

DeCSS.• 2066 Magazine gets successfully sued for publishing the software

– Software is not protected under free speech– They are encouraging copyright violation

• Jon Johansen gets off freehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2WAsvYo0V4

DRM vs. hard protection – bits vs. atoms

• You may legally tell people in a publication how to pick a lock.

• You may not legally tell people in a publication how to break DRM.

DRM – how content providers control it

• If a DVD player has a decrypter for the CSS scrambling system used in DRM’s, they have to abide by movie producers’ rules to avoid being accused of circumventing DRM.– Have to abide by ‘region coding’.– E.g. North American DVD players cannot play DVD

purchased in Asia.

Copyright or not, DRM or not

• Pro people say– Protection keeps creative content production alive

• Con people say– Protection stifles technological innovation

Creative Commons

• https://creativecommons.org/• Way to create a blurb about who may or may

not use copyrighted works, and how they may use it.

Is Fan Fiction legal?

Disclaimer: If I owned Star Wars, Jar Jar Binks wouldn't exist.From a Harry Potter fic: "Jo owns the characters, the plot, and my soul. I own only the spaces in between."Does fanfic make the copyright owners lose revenue?