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Intellectual property education is the teaching of explanations of and arguments concerning intellectual property laws, especially copyright and related violations. Proponents argue that such education should be implemented because of increasing copyright infringement by students (and the general population). Detractors argue that such education is tantamount to forced indoctrination of propaganda.
1 History and reasoning
For most of its history, copyright was only an issue for publishers and authors. But in modern times, nearly everything done with computers, especially those on networks, is covered by copyright law, and may infringe on copyright laws.
Electronic copies of files, by their very nature have little to no individual value, because making electronic copies of information costs little. A computer easily creates and destroys copies of materials. This has led to widespread perceived abuse and infringement on copyright laws by the general public. In order to curb this perceived abuse the copyright holders have lobbied to pass more and more restrictive laws. Members of the public generally have little understanding of and sympathy with the arcane structures and absolutist character of copyright.
One school of thought, advocated by commentators including Richard Stallman and Jessica Litman , holds that if the expectations and habits of the public conflict with copyright, it is copyright which must adjust.
Many members of the intellectual property establishment reach the opposite conclusion: digital technology means that all citizens must now learn to understand and respect copyright as it stands. Since the rules of copyright often run contrary to users' self-interest, a great deal of education may be required to prevent violation of these laws.
In the United States, intellectual property education was strongly advocated in 1995 by USPTO head Bruce Lehman's Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights for the Information Infrastructure Task Force. As they put it, children must learn to "just say yes" to licensing. Since then, calls for IP education in schools have been ongoing. Two developments in 2003 have been the introduction of legislative proposal HR-2517 in the U.S. House of Representatives by Howard Berman, entitled the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2003; and the launch, by the MPAA, of an IPE campaign in American schools (news coverage: [1],[2],[3]).
2 Misconceptions
Many proponents of intellectual property education make some common mistakes:
- They assert that copying CDs is wrong. As with blank consumer music and video tape, in the US, blank music CDs have a mandatory royalty included in their price, as do music CD recorders. Those royalties are distributed to those in the music business through copyright collective associations. Copying music using these systems is a lawful, licensed use which benefits the copyright holders. 17 USC 109 (1) says that lawfully made copies may be sold. Computer CD recorders and blank computer CDs do not include these royalty payments (see blank media tax) and if not made lawfully may not be lawfully sold.
- Under US law, the and fair usecopyrighted and trademarked, the fair use doctrine permits their use in certain contexts without prior permission. The fair use doctrine is a body of law and court decisions which provides for limitations and exceptions to copyright protection in the Unit doctrine permit purchasers to make copies for personal and family use without paying royalties.
- Under US law, first-sale doctrineThe first-sale doctrine is an exception to copyright codified in the US Copyright Act, section 109. The doctrine of first sale allows the purchaser to transfer (i. sell, rent, or give away) a particular, legally acquired copy of protected work without per permits owners of a copy of a protected work to transfer ownership without permission or paying royalties. Digital Rights Management and Product Activation by its nature prevents this.
- They ignore history. Copyright holders have tried to impair the development of technology which upset their business model for generations, attempting to stop player pianos, cable TV and VCRs.
- They ignore provisions in copyright law for non-profit archives and libraries to make and lend copies of works.
- Many times they will try to claim copyright on non-copyrightable items such as; letter decorations (fonts), facts (phone books), listing of ingredients(recipes), figures (labor statisticts), the works of the US Government, and materials in public domain without any transformative effort or work besides digitizing or hosting them.
- They may pay insufficient attention to the fact that, like fair use, copying for educational purposes is a copying right owned by society, not one granted to them under US law.
- They note that copyrighted works will eventually become public domain without noting the great increase in copyright terms, such that essentially nothing produced during the lifetime of any student will enter the public domain during that life. For those retiring and retired today, that public domain right has been repeatedly approached and then taken away, as some copyright holders have lobbied Congress over 20 times to extend copyrights just before their copyrights were about to expire.
- They ignore that the license and not sold argument was settled back in 1908 and 1913 by the U.S. Supreme Court (BOBBS-MERRILL CO. v. STRAUS, 210 U.S. 339 (1908) in cases of copyright and BAUER & CIE v. O'DONNELL, 229 U.S. 1 (1913) for patent) different than some of the lower courts have inturpeted it in cases such as MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc.. Likewise many of the lower courts adhere to the older rulings when answering this question in cases such as Softman v. AdobeSoftman Products Company LLC versus Adobe Systems Inc was a matter that went before the United States Central District Court of California in 2001. Adobe contended that Softman infringed its copyright and violating the terms of Adobe's licenses by selling. Since protected materials are sold then exceptions to copyright found in 107-122 apply and there is no legal grounds for an individual to agree to an EULA or "Shrink-Wrap" license , except that collusion among software makers have made it commonplace to include them.
- Digital Rights management and Activation techniques allow the content holders to decide, dictate, and enforce their own exclusive rights on the materials instead of Congress.
- They compare a civil infraction (most consumer copyright infringement) with the crimes of murder and theft of property (piracy).
Alternative views include the view that the reason copyright holders are seeing infringement problems is that their efforts to extend the time they have monopolies and impose restrictions on use have caused people to be scornful of them; then perceive them as simply acquisitive, seeking to change the law maximize their gain at the expense of most of the society from which they benefit and on which they depend for their income. Solutions of those with this view involve such things as returning to a copyright term no longer than the patent term, so that people can see works entering the public domain during their lives and will see actual benefit as a result.
