Blog 9/4 - Copyrights

With the comment from Bill Gates regarding copyright communist, I think it’s very interesting that he put the responsibility of intellectual rights on the individuals, though being influenced by the economic view of the software industry I don’t blame him. Being the former president of Microsoft Corporation, Bill must have had ton experience with software piracy. Those who believe that there should be no incentive to produce their own intellectual property are often labeled as a copyright communist. I don’t think that Bill himself, called Lessig a copyright communist because he have no problem with intellectual copyright but are more worry about the effect of government and economic hold of the intellectual property.

The people that in my opinion fit into different criteria of copyrights activists are:

1. Copyright Communists
People who believe that all intellectual property should be free to use without incentive. The product should be for the general good and everyone should be able to use it with no prerequisite.

2. Copyright Liberals
People who believe that individuals should have control to their intellectual property and that whenever someone uses their idea or product, permission need to be obtained. They believe that more ideas will flourish with the means of incentive and competition to do well.

3. Copyright Conservatives
People who believe that intellectual properties ideally should be share but also trust in the rule set by the government and creative common that intellectual property to give credits and recognition to the creator when it is due.

4. Copyright Fundamentalists
This is very similar to copyright conservatives. The individual’s ideas that they believe in intellectual property will probably not change very often even as technology grew. Fundamentalists usually firmly believe in the foundation of their set given rule such as copyright laws.

5. Copyright Libertarians
I think that this is very similar to the copyright liberals beside the fact that their view can change when the world become more progressive and more people are sharing their ideas together. The main goal itself is to make information known to the public for the greater good but still support the artist.

illustration used by creative commons - ideas by Mathias Klang