INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property

This paper analyses an educational issue and the legal/ethical aspects of the issue. The issue is “Intellectual Property”.

Why are Copyright and Patent laws unethical?

Copyright and patent laws are unethical because they can be used to abridge the [freedom of] copying, use, distribution, and modification of published information.

Why is the abridgement of the [freedom of] copying, use, distribution, and modification of published information unethical?

The abridgement of the [freedom of] copying, use, distribution, and modification of published information (as defined in USC 17) is unethical for three main reasons, all taken in conjunction with each other:

Arbitrary copying, use, distribution, and modification of published information generally does not cause harm to anyone. When someone makes a copy of a certain piece of information that is published, there is no information lost. The person from which the information is copied (say an author or an inventor) retains the information in exactly the same state. What has happened is that two copies of the same piece of published information arise. What is done with the second copy does not affect what is done with the first copy, ceterus paribus (Schumpeter 2000).

Abridgement of the [freedom of] copying, use, distribution, and modification of published information generally causes harm to the progress of the sciences and the arts. One instance is in the case of software. Suppose I publish a program that does rational drug design (makes it easier to find drugs for diseases) and is generally found useful by individuals all over. Suppose you're able to modify the program and make it even better at rational drug design and distribute it (Strike & Soltis 2004). I can, under current Copyright and Patent law, for whatever reasons I wish, control you and prevent you from doing this even though your modification would be beneficial to everyone. This causes a lot of harm to people, even though the modification itself does not cause harm to me.

Abridgement of the [freedom of] copying, use, distribution, and modification of published information also abridges your freedom of speech, expression, and your freedom to think freely. As in the above situation, suppose I publish a program for drug design, and claim all "intellectual property rights" associated with the creation. You can't even begin to do research (legally) on the program without licensing it from me, i.e., your freedom to even think about what the program does and improve its workings is abridged. Further, you're forbidden from repeating the program (and its improvements) to someone else (Miert 2006). In other words, you're forbidden from telling people what your thoughts are, even if they are so uncreative as to be identical to what you've heard or seen before. What this ultimately boils down to is that your freedom to obtain knowledge, store and process that knowledge, and spread that knowledge as you see fit, is abridged. Thus people are constantly forced to re-invent the wheel rather than copy and use or modify existing information.

Several other such instances ...