I really dig this TED talk from USC's Johanna Blakely about how the lack of copyright and patent protection for clothing design has accelerated the creative pace of the fashion industry, and I think she nails it when she points out that digital technologies have collapsed copyright law's traditional distinction between ideas and tangible expression. It's become so easy to create, copy, remix, and share that those definitions don't really apply anymore. On the other hand, I don't think simply doing away with IP protections entirely is the answer. (I'm a lawyer, after all.) While I'm not saying fashion is easy, I would argue that it's easier for fashion designers to iterate and differentiate, and that the harm done to Gucci by ripoff handbags is much less damaging than the harm done to an author or musician by someone who copies their work -- unlike the Gucci bag, the customers for original books and music often are the same people who buy the fakes, and not everyone will seek out the original.
What's more, I often find that arguments against IP protections are often made very idealistically, where competition, remix, and creativity only produce happy results, but sometimes things get stolen simply because it's easy and cheap to make money that way, and IP laws provide protection against that sad reality. The real question, in my mind, is how best to balance those protections against creative freedoms, not whether we're protecting ideas or expressions. Anyway, it's a great presentation that everyone should watch -- check it after the break.
posted May 26th 2010 6:53PM
Im going to pose, my seamingly biased oppinion, however I will try to make it as un-biased as I can.
We live in a world, where virtually everything is (presumably) owned by someone, I grew up in "Generation Y" where computers were the thing to have, while growing up, members of my family, were in hardware sales (owned shops selling computers) and others would copy the floppy disks used and sell them for a small profit.
As much as I look @eat me's post, and I see his arguments, I cannot agree with them to the full extent I would of liked to, I do believe that the hardware (in some extents) should be patented, however, Apple's patent attempt at Multi-Touch, and other companies similar attemtps at patenting stuff like that, are stupid.
Anyway, back to the point.....
If we look at software sales across the entire industry, we have a lot of viable alternatives, in any capacity, example, Engadget staff have admitted in the past, of having to jailbreak their iPhones in order to make it useful... This is because of a policy, that has been defined by Software sales.
If we look at the PC Software market, there are people out there, that will choose to Pirate Windows OS's, other people will buy it, the rest will move to an OpenSource OS, unix/linux/etc etc (This is excluding macs btw, since Mac != PC (according to the ads))
But, when it comes down to it, Look at OpenOffice, MS Office, has practically owned that entire area of software for the last decade, until OpenOffice came around, I've known about OpenOffice for years, but it was never enough to stop me using MS Office, and well.. you only have to look at my family tree to see how I got it, until the other day, I tried it again, and wow, ive deleted MS Office from my PC, finally a viable, free, opensourced alternative has arisen.
Films, TV Shows, etc etc, are exactly the same, If something is worth the price tag you put on it, people will pay it, obviously there is a portion of the internet, the same in real life, that will never believe that something is worth that amount, but I tell you now, I have never owned so many DVDs/Blu-ray's in my entire life, then I do now.
IP Laws do have to exist to an extent, however, rather then a "If you pirate it, we will sue you" situation, why not a "well if people are pirating it, what could we have done, to make the film worth the value we are asking them to cough up"
Thats my 2 cents, sorry, its a bit long
Oxygen Misile, I am not sure what are you disagreeing/agreeing/arguing with. Tt seems our posts are about different things.
@Nilay Patel Fair enough, but big or little L, trademarks are for sure safe as stealing those is tantamount to fraud/identity-theft which everyone can relate to. So no worries about fake Nintindo VVii game consoles in similar white boxes showing up in stores.
One thing is for sure though is that too long standing of patents can and have brought industries to a standstill. ScubaPro in the 90s is the absolute worst offender that I know of, preventing competitors from using similar basic regulator designs, and even BCs and fins... everything was vaguely patented. And so ScubaPro even dictated authorized retailers and pricing, meaning limited product availability and huge profit margins. Like an aquatic Steve Job's company! ;)