The Protection Of The Citizen's Intellectual Property

One of the most common, yet controversial, issues of First Amendment law is the subject of copyright and infringement. Although the subject may not seem major at first, many different issues and controversies have risen and become more common than ever over the years. The issues that have become pertinent to this subject are endless, including trademark infringement, piracy, theft, fraud, plagiarism, and many more. With the coming of age and advancement of technology, these cases have become more common and appear more often than ever before. Government officials have always been strict about copyright rulings, and have tried to deliver fair and just rulings for both parties involved under First Amendment rules. Because the owner’s work and material is protected under the First Amendment, it gets tricky when involving another party that can claim the same work of art. In short, the definition of copyright has always been cut and dry: allowing owners of creative works the right to control and profit from their creations. It is basically recognized as a form of property ownership.

Copyright is the legal right, to an inventor to perform, print, publish, film, or record artistic, literary, or musical material, and to allow others to do the same. Copyright law was developed to provide the creators and inventors of any works with powerful and effective rights of exclusivity over their creations (Patterson & Lindberg, 1991). Over the past, these rights were almost unlimited. People would use existing developments as if they were their own without any regard of the creator’s exclusive rights. The need to balance and limit such rights arose, and governments established these limits for the general good of the public.

The purpose of the copyright system has always been to promote creativity in society and protect the creators’ interests. In applying copyright laws to any creation, three basic guidelines apply. First is the fair return for a creators labor, second is “Fair Use” of the creators’ labor and finally the Progress of Science and useful Arts to further the public good. The application of these three guidelines in litigation for A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, found that the rights of reproduction, and distribution had been violated, in effect upholding the copyrights of nineteen different music companies represented under A&M Records name, this ruling had protected the music industries interests. However it would seem that the publishing industry would not be so lucky, litigation in Authors’ Guild vs. Google ruled that Google’s actions constituted fair use. Under these two scenarios’ the copyright laws’ have, effectively, protected the rights of music artists’, protected the public’s right to “fair use” and sparked new opportunities for creative growth. However, lawmakers continue to struggle to define copyright boundaries between the public’s right of use and the creators right to profit from their efforts.

Copyright laws in the United States are very important because it protects your work from someone claiming that it’s theirs. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), The main reason why intellectual property laws exist is because it protects the progress and well-being of humanity by creating and inventing new works in the areas of technology and culture. Second, the legal protection promotes innovation. Lastly, the promotion increases jobs, increases technological advancements, and spurs inventions. So this means that if you worked tirelessly to complete a research paper on a doctoral thesis for a method to reduce the risk of cancer in humans, you should be credited for that work. A random person cannot go and copy your work and claim it as their own. At the same time, if a photographer spent months traveling around the world taking pictures of beautiful places, things, people, etc. the photographer is protected from someone taking their photographs and using it for themselves, without giving the photographer credit. Unfortunately, people go even further with copyright in the photographer’s example, by taking the photographers pictures and putting it on a canvas or enlarging it, and sell it to people to make money, which is traditionally called piracy. Copyright covers both using someone’s work for an assignment and someone stealing your photographs and using it for themselves to make a profit, but I believe that piracy is greater of the two evils.

We respectfully submit this brief amicus curiae in support of the petitioners, Eldred et al. The petitioners owned the copyrights of works now in the public domain. They challenged the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) on the grounds that the act allows copyrights to exist in perpetuity and restricts free speech, so the act violates the Copyright Clause and the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Justice Ginsburg denied Eldred’s challenges, finding that the terms established by the CTEA are limited terms and that the act accommodates for petitioner’s First Amendment concerns. We submit this amicus curiae in dissent of the court opinion that upheld the CTEA.

Copyright provides artist the ability to protect their works recreation by others but the law lacks clarity of every possible dispute. The first amendment protects people’s freedom of speech and gives them ability to create anything. The problem surfaces when copyright overrides free speech and

Recent congressional proposal to pass the Stop Online Internet Piracy (SOPA) Act was one of the latest attempts by copyright owners and their supporters in Congress to criminalize intellectual property theft through the use of the Internet. The bill has not passed yet partly because of public concerns that the Act could have adversely affect the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech. These concerns over intellectual property theft as well as the potentially negative consequences of copyright protection legislations, however, are not new in the digital age. The debate over electronic theft began during 1990s when increasing number of Americans began to gain access to the Internet. To protect copyright owners, the Congress in 1997 passed No Electronic Theft (NET) Act. It was a logical response from Congress given the fact that the Internet could be used to violate copyright laws on a massive scale unless properly regulated through appropriate legislation. However, the NET Act also turned out to be largely ineffective and its scope reached beyond what was justified.

Copyright laws have been in place for over two hundred years.  They are meant to protect from the unauthorized and unlawful use of ideas and media under law, and protect the artist’s integrity. The types of media protected ranges from books to movies, from TV to picture art. In it’s own way, copyright laws have affected society and how media is distributed across the world.

Identify and discuss these copyright challenges in the modern digital economy using examples from case law.

In the recent years, there has been a growing conflict between American copyright holders and website owners, both domestic and foreign, over intellectual property theft. Indeed, these copyright holders have repeatedly made attempts to block websites from committing or facilitating online piracy, while websites claim that laws that try to limit the content within websites are encouraging censorship. With the internet as an international user-controlled domain, it has been a long struggle for both sides of the conflict.

Intellectual products are considered as ‘non-excludable’ and ‘non-rival’ goods. Since intellectual products neither prevents a person to enjoy the benefits of a product over others nor does the use by the first person diminish the value of the product. Therefore, if property right over creative works are vested to the society then the price of a product will be zero, the prospect of any revenue will diminish and the incentive to create will fade. As such, there was a strong reason to implement efficient copyright term of protection. However, it is wrong to assume that copyright products are public goods because copyright law can exclude others over a fee paying consumer.

was 17th century philosopher John Locke who popularized the idea that the ideal government’s principle obligation was to protect the material property of its citizens, but perhaps just as important to the health of a nation, is the protection of the citizen’s intellectual property. Without the protection of intellectual property innovators and artists would have no rights to their creations, therefore no incentive to continue working on creating. To protect these men and women, lawmakers drafted some of the most important pieces of legislation in our nation’s history: copyright law. Copyright law guarantees that the rights to somebody’s works are held by the creator. This means that works that fall under copyright cannot be used, sold, or reproduced without the creator’s consent. This gives creators the security that their assets will not be stolen, and thus, creates and environment that encourages new innovation, and fosters artistic expression. However, copyright law today is deeply flawed, often achieving the opposite of its original purpose. Today, both individuals and large corporations use copyright law as a tool to stifle competition, and remove works that they may not like. They are able to do this through manipulation of politicians and holes in the law. From this, we have been left with a copyright system that fails to protect people from false copyright takedown claims, that has copyright terms that are much too long to be reasonably justified, and does not

A patent is the exclusive right granted by the United States government to produce and sell goods with one or more unique features (Warren, Reeve, & Duchac, 2014). Patents remain in effect for 20 years. A copyright is the exclusive right granted by U.S. government to publish and sell a literary, artistic, or musical composition (Warren, Reeve, & Duchac, 2014). A copyright remains in effect for 70 years after the original author’s death. A trademark is any unique name, term, or symbol used to identify a business and its products (Warren, Reeve, & Duchac, 2014). Trademarks are registered, remain in effect for a 10-year period, and have 10-year renewal options. The process of applying for patents, copyrights, and

Intellectual Property is a general term used to refer to independent statutory or non-statutory systems such as patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets (Drahos). Like the industrial revolution, post-war consumerism and the technology revolution, the world is currently in a state of change (Daly). Unlike those periods, however, the convergence of economic, social and environmental pressures has created an even more favourable platform for innovation (Daly). Intellectual Property plays an integral role in many functions of everyday life, specifically in encouraging innovation through product development and technological change (Daly). IP protection is also an important component of national economic policies (WIPO). Governments face complex choices regarding how to design a patent system that best serves their specific policy objectives, as well as responding to ever changing technologies and business models (WIPO). Explanations of economic growth are increasingly focusing on the power of estimated profits as motivators for innovation (Gould & Gruben, 1). This paper will first explain the premise of Intellectual Property, than give a brief theoretical background, followed by a discussion of how Intellectual Property is affected by the Economic Growth Theory, and describing the importance of Intellectual Property rights protection, as a means of demonstrating how Intellectual Property may save the world’s economies.

The Intellectual Property Department was put in place in 1990 to ensure some sort of protection when it comes to intellectual property rights. “Protection of intellectual property rights protects creativity. The efforts of writers, artists, designers, software programmers, inventors, and other talents need to be protected in order to create an environment where creativity can flourish and hard work can be rewarded.” (IP in Hong Kong, China). Hong Kong is full of creativity and innovation so that their intellectual property rights are greatly protected. Even though they are for freedom of intellectual property rights, it only pertains to ideas and creations that are beneficial to social growth and prosperity. “To balance the interest of intellectual property rights owners and the society as a whole, while a pharmaceutical invention may be protected by patent registration, a special medical treatment of a disease is not protected.” So a person could use that invention to perform surgery or diagnosis because it is relevant to the health of society and appealing to the human needs. Investors can be guaranteed protection for intellectual property because it is something Hong Kong takes seriously and needs so that their economy can grow. Ultimately, Hong Kong and China’s goal is to have the highest protection of intellectual property in line with “international standards”, which can give some peace of mind to future investors knowing that if they were to bring an idea to Hong