Writing 09
Should intellectual property be afforded the same, more, or less protections than physical property? In today's world, do IP laws encourage or prevent innovation?
With physical property, the lines of ownership are pretty much as clear as they can be. If you own a thing, then it's yours. You have the rights to use it and keep it, and others can't simply take it from you. Ownership over intellectual property is a much more complicated issue. How do we dictate who owns ideas?
For "inventions," we have patents that people can own to protect others from benefitting monetarily from their ideas. I think the idea of patents is a good one that encourages innovation. Someone can have the confidence that a lot of time spent developing some new product/process/etc will be protected and that people won't be able to just steal the fruit of their hard work. The system isn't perfect, of course, and patent trolls are a perfect example of a big flaw in the system. While the patent system exists to protect and benefit people's own hard work, these trolls represent the complete opposite of this idea by benefiting lazily off the hard work of others. That being said, I still believe the existence of the patent system causes a lot more good than bad.
In the world of software, patents are a contentious issue. Big companies are constantly encouraging their employees to patent code inventions (patents which that company will almost certainly own) and keep them private. This approach to software development is in stark contrast to how things used to be where virtually all software was shared without any questions asked. Having a completely shared, open, and free marketplace is attractive in a lot of ways, but I don't really believe it's the clear cut best option. Like it or not, people are motivated by money. It's great that some really smart developers just want to write great code and share it for the sake of the thing itself, but that just isn't everyone. I think the potential of benefitting monetarily from some groundbreaking code invention is a great motivator and a good argument for why proprietary code isn't a completely evil thing.
As with code, there are also arguments for how to protect other (copy-written) digital content. DRM seems like a pretty much across the board bad word in the software development community, but honestly I completely see its necessity. I actually worked on a DRM system for video streaming in Chrome over last summer, and had a great time. Modern day film and TV have massive budgets and require thousands of hours of work from countless people. I believe they have the right to get paid for and protect the content they produce. Rather than argue over whether or not DRM is ethical, I believe spending effort on making it unobtrusive and easy to use would be a much better use of time.
I honestly believe a lot of piracy is due to convenience, not just money. A lot of content isn't available in foreign markets, and a lot of platforms just have bad delivery options. I think Spotify is a great example of how to fight piracy. It's a super convenient, fairly priced service that offers people exactly what they want. We hardly ever hear about music piracy anymore because at this point, it's simply more trouble than it's worth.
With physical property, the lines of ownership are pretty much as clear as they can be. If you own a thing, then it's yours. You have the rights to use it and keep it, and others can't simply take it from you. Ownership over intellectual property is a much more complicated issue. How do we dictate who owns ideas?
For "inventions," we have patents that people can own to protect others from benefitting monetarily from their ideas. I think the idea of patents is a good one that encourages innovation. Someone can have the confidence that a lot of time spent developing some new product/process/etc will be protected and that people won't be able to just steal the fruit of their hard work. The system isn't perfect, of course, and patent trolls are a perfect example of a big flaw in the system. While the patent system exists to protect and benefit people's own hard work, these trolls represent the complete opposite of this idea by benefiting lazily off the hard work of others. That being said, I still believe the existence of the patent system causes a lot more good than bad.
In the world of software, patents are a contentious issue. Big companies are constantly encouraging their employees to patent code inventions (patents which that company will almost certainly own) and keep them private. This approach to software development is in stark contrast to how things used to be where virtually all software was shared without any questions asked. Having a completely shared, open, and free marketplace is attractive in a lot of ways, but I don't really believe it's the clear cut best option. Like it or not, people are motivated by money. It's great that some really smart developers just want to write great code and share it for the sake of the thing itself, but that just isn't everyone. I think the potential of benefitting monetarily from some groundbreaking code invention is a great motivator and a good argument for why proprietary code isn't a completely evil thing.
As with code, there are also arguments for how to protect other (copy-written) digital content. DRM seems like a pretty much across the board bad word in the software development community, but honestly I completely see its necessity. I actually worked on a DRM system for video streaming in Chrome over last summer, and had a great time. Modern day film and TV have massive budgets and require thousands of hours of work from countless people. I believe they have the right to get paid for and protect the content they produce. Rather than argue over whether or not DRM is ethical, I believe spending effort on making it unobtrusive and easy to use would be a much better use of time.
I honestly believe a lot of piracy is due to convenience, not just money. A lot of content isn't available in foreign markets, and a lot of platforms just have bad delivery options. I think Spotify is a great example of how to fight piracy. It's a super convenient, fairly priced service that offers people exactly what they want. We hardly ever hear about music piracy anymore because at this point, it's simply more trouble than it's worth.
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