Copyright and Intellectual Property Paper Example

A Brief History of Copyright

Copyright can be defined as the legal, specifically, proprietary mechanisms that guide the regulation, distribution and reproduction of cultural products (Kretschmer, Bently & Deazley, 2010). It is mostly understood that copyright came to fruition around the 1700s with writers writing correspondences to each other on the value of the work that they were doing. It was during the period that lawyers as well became interested in copyright as a legal endeavor. It is important to note that the invention of the printing press also had significant influence on the way copyright developed. Essentially, when the introduction of legal influence began, copyrights were treated as protecting intellectual property. In this way, creative production was given the characteristics of property protection. Essentially, copyright holders have a bundle of rights to their productions. Some of these rights include: the right to make copies; the right to produce derivatives from the copyrighted works; the right to publicly display the works and exclusive rights to the performance of said works (Kretschmer, Bently & Deazley, 2010).

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Copyright intellectual property has about two major characteristics. One of them is that it gives exclusivity. In essence, it allows for the owner to have full rights to deny the use of disuse of the work. Compared to land, the copyright grants the owner exclusive rights to the use of the piece of the said land. The second characteristic that copyrights afford is the right to transfer to other third parties at the owner's discretion. In this way, the creative property owner is given the right to transfer their property to other parties they deem worthy. The same could be likened to transferring land as a form of technical inheritance. The two listed characteristics led to legal terms such as 'piracy'. Piracy like in the seas simply means stealing from another. Interestingly, copyright laws operate under the commandment that states, "Thou shall not steal". The provisions of modern copyright law show a deep inclination to the eighth commandment stated above. The following is a discussion of the history of copyright and the influences digitization has had on copyright.

Introduction

Copyright as property protections renders the reward for individuals taking the time effort and investment to turn abstractions into concrete representations (Baldwin, 2014). The same author puts it that treating copyright as concrete property like land and others enables for a society with equity. In this way, members of society are able to appreciate each-others work and vice versa. In essence, copyright leads to inclusion and equality. Supposing a society that does not treat copyright as property, the inherent order of the day would be that a small portion of individuals feast on the effort of others and therefore leading to inequality in the society. Essentially, copyright is a way to appreciate and reward the creations of concrete from abstract. However, a counter argument is given on the need for strict copyrighting. The notion dictates that copyrighting may to an extent lead to the public not gaining access to the materials that would be helpful in aiding the promotion of the knowledge of society as a whole. It is from the notion that the concern over digitization occurs. On the same point, authors have argued that treating copyright as property plays a major role in hindering the distribution of culture. In this way, the authors suggest that instead of extending copyright laws, governments should do more to circumvent the laws in ways that promote the distribution of culture to the society. However, before discussing digitization and copyright implications, it is important to note that the theories surrounding copyright are both positive and negative to the creators (Leaffer, 1995). Briefly, some laws dictate that effort rather than talent should be rewarded posing that some creators gain much more than they had invested in their work while still others experience the inverse. On the other hand, some put it that copyright gives the incentive to create more work and produce more culture to be consumed by society.

Digital technologies have revolutionized the way most procedures were carried out in the past. Essentially, digitization has led to information dispersing easily through the internet that has about one billion users worldwide (Leaffer, 1995). Not only has the digitization of things made them easy, it has also led to fairly complex decisions to be made on the distribution of products. One good example is the libraries. The operation of libraries has become relatively easy owing to the use of computers to help librarians in cataloguing. Before discussing the digital influence to copyright, it is also important to note the few products that are considered copyrightable in the modern world. The following is a list of products that can have copyrights in the United States: music, pictorial, sculptural and graphic representations, literary works, motion pictures, sound recordings and architectural works. The following are observed to be easily converted to digital form in the modern age. Owing to the internet, their distribution could be vast and uncontrolled if not taken care of from the beginning.

Forms of Digitization Innovation in Copyright

The digital age is without a doubt leading to more dissemination of information. In essence, it can be termed to be enabling innovation. Fair use, therefore, is the main avenue for ensuring proper and fair dissemination of information is a digital age that is relatively unpredictable (Baldwin, 2014). Creations such as mash-ups and remixes are a new form of culture that the internet has introduced. In this way, copyright is being provided many more avenues and possibilities for distribution. However, the internet lacks any fair use policies for its creators. In many ways, the avenues are making it harder to copyright material as well as authorizing its distribution among peers. One problem that the internet presents to creators is that laws on copyright are not uniform everywhere in the world, for this reason, some creators have little rights to their productions ones they hit the internet. In the same way, the technologies used to avoid infringement on the internet are expensive and not available to all creators equally. Essentially, the internet infringes on copyright by allowing uncontrolled distribution of material as well as unauthorized sharing.

Another implication on technology, apart from ease of distribution is the rapidity with which accurate copies of information can be made. Digitization has allowed for scanning and photocopy, recording and video-taping in ways that are significantly effective in producing the correct version of the original. As opposed to the earlier method of copying and translating, the use of technology even allows a cross-platform for multiple people to make corrections and alterations to intellectual materials produces by others. A third influence that digitization has brought to copyright is the ability to store vast amounts of information. As opposed to having a book from the library, reading it and returning the book, technology has allowed for compaction of materials and in turn having the ability to store several books, albums and pictures for a very long time (Leaffer, 1995). In this way, the compressed copies that are close to the originals as possible -apart from the fact that they are from different sources can be sold for much cheaper prices. In essence, it is difficult to convince consumers to buy from the main source while they can get the same material from an internet anonymous source that sells it much cheaper. However, the same technology problem poses concerns that buyers should consider. Firstly, buyers are not sure of the authenticity of the content compared to the originals. The digitization brought by technology is making it hard to monitor the ethical implications of information distribution. Another concern to buyers is that the creators have no flexibility to dictate the distribution of their products using computer systems. The point is explained by the lack of resources to protect intellectual property from infringement by other computer systems.

A final problem that digitization has caused to copyright, is that the systems developing to copy, distribute and store content are not advancing fast enough to protect the intellectual property rights of owners. For instance, books have statements of copyright clearly printed on them. The copyright law of hardcopy print prevents products from being distributed unfairly. However, the systems that are developing to bypass copyright laws far much surpass the systems that are meant to protect the rights of the creators. Essentially, technology could be leading to more forms of piracy than in developing better ways to mitigate the practice of infringement of any type of digitized product.

The impact of communication technology on copyright infringement is important to look at in order to find out the forms that promote infringement the most. The first form is radio and television. As the first technological representations of intellectual information, radio and television have played a role in influencing copyright. The 1900s were the years that most radio broadcasting were in their conception. The medium played a great role in disseminating information to the greater public more than any other. People who could not read could listen to the news and entertaining programs throughout the available stations. The advent of television also led to vast dissemination of information. It was from these sources that the need to copyright materials such as music and motion pictures came from advertiser engagement. Advertisers could incur the payment of creative production while allowing the general public to indulge in the works produced (Leaffer, 1995). Another form that promoted infringement is the use of satellite communication systems to pass copyrighted information to people with receivers.

Challenges and Opportunities in Copyright

Digitization offers several challenges and opportunities for copyrighting. The various technological trends emerging and causing infringement could be mitigated using the same avenues that the information is being passed through. Essentially, an example would be to use the technology available to mark products in ways that they cannot be distributed without authorization. For example, there are some internet sites that employ features that prevent users from copy-pasting or even taking screen shots of the pages (Baldwin, 2014). In essence, finding the ways that pirates use for infringement and blocking them would go further than setting up legislations to protect intellectual rights-it is fighting fire with more fire. On this note, a number of challenges and opportunities have been posed to deal with the issue of copyright in the digital age.

One of the most notable challenges to copyright in the digital age is the maintenance of a clear framework for exclusive rights. In essence, there has been a dire need for the frameworks available to offer exclusive rights to the protection of material. The existing frameworks require constant improvement on the rate at which technology itself is innovating. International frameworks are difficult to set up in the internet owing to its deep and extensive nature. A second challenge posed for copyright in the digital age is technological adjustments and their flexibility (Baldwin, 2014). The global community is not as flexible in setting up frameworks to clearly define copyright policies. The technology adjustments therefore remain behind the flexible and numerous ways invented to infringe on copyrig...