How do we strike the right balance between protecting the rights of the creators of IP and the rights of the public to access and use the work? It is a very difficult questions and there seems to be no simple answer.
MIT has concluded that ideas want to be free-- they are putting all their course material on the web for all to access from anywhere. They consider that they are really in the business of Socratic teaching-- the benefits of being inside a classroom with one of their faculty is the 'pixie dust' or magic that they are creating and that people (read students here) are willing to pay for the 'delta' factor. For everyone else, ideas and concepts are free to be used for the benefit of all humankind.
Not all Universities agree with this approach and many prohibit much in the way of course material finding its way onto the web-- to protect them from the competition.
I feel that MIT is probably right although not in one case-- it is very worthwhile to have password protected spaces where faculty and students can express themselves and exchange information and concepts without undue scrutiny by the media or others until their concepts and ideas are ready for 'prime time'.
As architects, we want some protection (copyright, trademark, utility patent or design patent) on our work so that we too may benefit from the power of the web-- to one day create value that is independent of the creator-- or as one of my students put it, to create value while lying on the beach.
Should Gino Rossetti have applied for a design patent on his 'Eureka' insight (rings of suites) in stadium design (first used in the Palace of Auburn Hills, then in the Corel centre and the new USTA facility in Flushing Meadow, NY and then copied by every other architectural firm)? Then Gino would have controlled how this design innovation was used and, btw, he would have benefited from its use via royalties. Or is it better for society if innovations are free and pass quickly into use everywhere?
We have a situation where generic drug makers are trying to make drugs available at lower costs, particularly important for the fight against aids in LDCs, for example. Yet major drug companies have the legal right to enforce their patents even if that means that less privileged folks are disenfranchised.
Patents and other IP protection are designed to encourage innovation by rewarding inventors, designers, musicians, artists, writers and so forth. By protecting their rights, they may benefit from their work for a limited period of time (typically, 17 to 20 years for patents, longer for copyright-- see next story below). On the other hand, many innovations and inventions have been stifled by firms wishing to supress them for their own benefit (e.g., so as not to canibalize sales of existing products by a better one). This is anathema to economic progress, productivity increase and to the creation of new options and alternatives within our economic system.
The Disney Company and other large firms lobbied the US Congress to extend copyright protection for their IP. The Disney Company was particularily concerned that early images of Mickey would pass into the public domain and they lobbied successfully for a copyright extension. It is perhaps ironic that Disney has so clearly benefited from material that has passed into the public domain (Grimms Fairy Tales comes to mind) yet is so vehement that their rights be extended thus denying others the same ability to take work done by others and change it and create something new with it.
| Extending Copyright-- A story about Disney and others from the Chicago Tribune |
How many people today are using Kazaa or other file sharing software to download their favourite songs from the Internet? Millions. Is this right or wrong? Are they breaking the law? Should the law be changed or should the music companies and artists change their business models to take advantage of this new technology?
Who knows. Like so many questions, the economic implications of this debate are murky, the ethics, controversial (on both sides). The best answer is... it depends.
Copyright. Dr. Bruce M. Firestone, Ottawa, Canada. October 2002.