Property

This weeks readings have been fascinating to say the least.

Lessig's chapter on intellectual property and ownership rights is very interesting. This is a topic I haven't really given much attention although after reading this chapter, I now realize how dangerous limiting access to creative property can be to our society.

On the surface the statement appears to be a "no-brainer" : intellectual property should be protected the same as actual property. What's interesting about this viewpoint is how fundamentally basic it sounds, but how damaging absolute authorial control of intellectual property can be. Controlling access to creative property to a select few, creates a vacuum for new ideas. Lessig argues that the establishment dictates how intellectual property will be distributed, and the establishment will do whatever in its power to maintain their power.

I also found it extremely interesting that as technology (namely the Internet) has developed the apparent need to protect one's creative work has increased. Lessig's four modalities highlight the balance that is needed to control user access, and throughout our history copyright laws, technological advances, society values, and marketing schemes have been used to control the access to creative property. The White Paper in 1995 illustrates this point as the "warriors" pushed for tighter regulation of intellectual property through changes in all four regulatory modalities. What's the problem with industry wanting to protect it's way of doing business? Lessig argues, "It is the duty of policy makers, in other words, to assure that the changes they
create, in response to the request of those hurt by changing technology, are changes that preserve the incentives and opportunities for innovation" (128). The danger is that the changes to intellectual property rights will circumvent the checks and balances in place and stifle new ideas and thus prevent progress.