Intelluctual Property (IP) hot topics: creative commons, patents and other topics
In the “Ecommerce Well” paperback, it is mentioned that with the introduction of revolutionary new technologies and the Internet, changes to the field of intellectual property may occur. One such innovation is the introduction of the creative commons license. What is the creative commons idea? Since a picture is worth a thousand words ….
Credits:
Cartoon concept and design by Neeru Paharia.
Original illustrations by Ryan Junell, Photos by Matt Haughey.
This comic strip is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
There are also a number of other interesting discussions about IP today. Here is an interesting talk (some good, some not so good) by Cory Doctorow at Google which covers a wide range of topics.Cory previously worked at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He is also co-editor of the Boing Boing blog. He has also written fiction and non-fiction. So he brings an eclectic set of experiences to the talk.
On another front, this New York Times article covers some of the important contemporary issues with patents.
In this controversial article, one can see that academics are interested in revisiting the length of copyright grants. Society’s primary interest is in increasing the overall public good/utility/welfare. That is what legislation is concerned about. Copyrights are offered to encourage authors to produce new bodies of work, which in turn enrich the public space. This work is by an economics phd candidate at University of Cambridge . Of course, there are opposing opinions and actual copyright length is typically significantly longer.
Of course intellectual property is a vast area, and only a few angles were covered. You are encouraged to research further on your own, if you are interested in this area.
Update: Here is a newer article on a controversial report on fair use. (And here is a counter article saying the numbers are too high.)
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