Intellectual+Property+and+Copyright+Infringement

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it."

-Thomas Jefferson

=Intellectual Property and Copyright Infringement=

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 * Intellectual property is property that can be protected under law, including copyrightable works, ideas, discoveries and inventions.
 * Intellectual property differs from other forms of property because it is intangible - that is, it is a product of human imagination.
 * Copyright law protects intellectual property, because it grants authors the exclusive privilege to reproduce, distribute, perform, or display their creative works.
 * However, the rise of the internet and with it the digital age, has caused the lines between what is and what is not considered to be intellectual property to be skewered
 * Rapid advances in compression technology have facilitated massive amounts of file sharing and piracy on the Internet
 * It is therefore no surprise copyright infringement is on the rise
 * All developed countries have their own copyright legislation but, since copyright infringment is a global problem, WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) was established to combat the problem on an international level.

Piracy in the Music Industry

 * Copyright infringement or music piracy, as it is more widely known, has risen very rapidly, in pace with the growth and power of the internet.
 * TMusic piracy has been largely facilitated by peer-to-peer file sharing
 * Jerry Silver, vice president of New Media, EMI, has said, “The threat to the industry is not MP3s but the arrival of a consumer distribution channel that is not controlled by the music industry.”
 * The music industry has cracked down on music pirates, such as Napster, but the problem persists
 * Illegal users (consumers) think they are simply affecting the very wealthy music industry; however infringement also affects music industry employment at all levels of the value chain

Digital Rights Management (DRM) and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

 * DRM technologies allow users to view and manage content in a controlled fashion.
 * For example, a DRM system may allow a piece of recorded music to be played but not copied
 * The DMCA provides a legal infrastructure for control of piracy activities, enabled by DRM.
 * The DMCA, for the first time in history, does not make the copyright the crime but rather the creation of tools to violate copyright became the crime.
 * This of course is not without controversy itself, as it brings up questions of whether user rights, such as the now infamous right of “fair use” have been violated.

Significant Dates

 * 1709: The British Parliament passes the world’s first copyright law in 1709, named “The Statute of Anne”.
 * 1996: The World Intellectual Property (WIPO) creates "WIPO Copyright Treaty", providing global protection for authors of artistic works (WIPO, 2004)
 * 1998: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is signed into law by President Clinton on October 28.
 * 2002: The IFPI, an organization that represents the recording industry worldwide, estimates the value of pirate market is US $4.6 billion, including 1.1 billion units of pirated audio disc //sold//, (IFPI, Sec. 2.0).
 * 2004: The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) files copyright infringement lawsuits against 531 individual computer users offering copyrighted music for free over P2P (RIAA, 2004).
 * 2005: The United States government proposes the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2005, increasing criminal penalties against music piracy (IOL, 2005).

Fair Use

 * An important exception to the rule of copyright infringement is the concept known as fair use.
 * Under fair use in certain cases a user can legally copy or make a derivative work, even if the copyright owner objects.
 * Under fair use users are allowed to make “mix tapes” or compilations of their favorite songs from their own personal collection or the radio for their own personal enjoyment in a more convenient format, in what is known as “format shifting”
 * Consumers have the right to listen to their own music collection for their own personal use, they do not have the right, however, to make their music collections available to others by uploading them onto the Internet for public downloading

Conclusion

 * The concept of intellectual property and copyright has become more important with the rise of piracy during as the Internet fully emerges
 * The RIAA has had little success fight piracy with DRM technology and the DMCA
 * Not everybody pirates music and few bad apples does not ruin the bunch, therefore, it is important to protect users rights under fair use
 * "The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors but to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” (US Supreme Court, 1999)
 * "Everyone loses when music piracy prevails - the original author, the music label, accompanying musicians and music studio personnel, honest retailers, consumers of pirated music, and most importantly the creation of original works." (RIAA, 2003).
 * “What it seems to boil down to is finding the balance between producer and user rights.” – John P. Barlow