Group items tagged

The goal of creating the limited monopoly called an intellectual property right is to provide the minimum necessary incentive to encourage the desired level of innovation

When someone takes your car, they have the car and you do not. When, because of some new technology, someone is able to get access to the MP3 file of your new song, they have the file and so do you. You did not lose the song. What you may have lost is the opportunity to sell the song to that person or to the people with whom they “share” the file. We should not be indifferent to this kind of loss; it is a serious concern.

we should pause before increasing the level of rights, changing the architecture of our communications networks, creating new crimes, and so on.

The downside dominates the field, the upside is invisible.

Until the triumph of DVDs, the videocassette rental market made up more than 50 percent of the movie industry’s revenues

A cheaper copying technology definitely caused losses. But it also provided substantial gains, gains that far outweighed the losses.

“fair use”

The defense is not “I trespassed on your land, but I was starving.” It is “I did not trespass on your land. I walked on the public road that runs through it, a road you never owned in the first place.”

“Yes, I trespassed on your land, which was wrong, I admit. But I was starving and looking for food. Please give me a break.” This is simply inaccurate.

One cannot start from the presumption that the rights holder has absolute rights over all possible uses and therefore that any time a citizen makes use of the work in any way, the rights holder is entitled to get paid or to claim “piracy” if he does not get paid.

Fair use

for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

purpose and character of the use

nature of the copyrighted work

amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole

effect of the use upon the potential market

a multitude of dangers:

overly broad rights will chill speech, criticism, or scientific progress

discourage “follow-on” innovation;

hurts consumers or citizens while being less subject to antitrust regulation

We restrict the length of intellectual property rights. (At least, we used to. The framers thought it so important to do so that they put the need to have a limited term in the Constitution itself

when the content industries come asking for additional or new rights, for new penalties, for the criminalization of certain types of technology, we should take into account the gains that the Internet has brought them, as well as the costs

“Decompilation” was fair use

Without interoperability, we could never take our existing documents or spreadsheets or datasets and move to a new program, even if it was better

Internet Threat—“cheaper copying requires greater control

The Sony Court declared that because video recorders were capable of substantial noninfringing uses, the manufacturers of those devices were not guilty of contributory infringement.

middle-class school deemphasized individual expression and in-depth analysis and rewarded the dutiful completion of specified rote tasks

Some students learn to take orders and others learn to chart a course of action and delegate responsibility.

“hidden curriculum”

When school environments casually yet consistently deemphasize the intellectual benefits of higher education, students become less imaginative about their futures.

College should be “sold” to all students as an opportunity to experience an intellectual awakening.

Access to higher education means that your values and interests can govern your choices.