INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
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At one time, the idea was that anyone who made a better mouse trap would see the world beating a path to his door. Today, with innovations occurring daily, and profits high from some innovations, especially pharmaceuticals, the world beats a path to the lab or workshop to imitate and perhaps improve on that mouse-trap. In other words, new ideas do not last long, and unless they are sometimes protected by law, ideas are nearly worthless. That is one side of the Intellectual Property argument: anyone who creates something should have the end-product protected from theft, imitation, and a use that may not have been originally foreseen. In other words, companies as well as individuals who have created something, hardware or software, even though it may exist only on a disk, (as long as it is more than an idea- but produced, or plans drawn up, copyright or patented) are entitled to the fruits of their labors or research. The other side of this argument results in companies utilizing what is described as "Tarzan economicsa..Desperately holding on to one vine- their old business model- until they can grab hold of the next one" (Levy, 2001, p. 60). While Levy deals primarily with the effect of Napster on the music and recording industry, perhaps the most serious battle about Intellectual property comes with the AIDS crisis, especially in poorer nations. The argument here is clear: the pharmaceutical companies who spend billions on R & R feel they are
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known as "block-busting" where a developer moves in a black family, sees real estate values in that neighborhood plummet, and he then buys up the real estate at a far lesser price than before. There Intellectual Property adherents claim that anyone competing by manufacturing and distributing generic versions of their drugs is doing a form of "pill-busting"- trying to lower the price, reduce profit, and in the end, not really satisfying anyone. Rights of innovators, therefore, must be weighed against public needs and ability to pay for "protected" goods. Profitability is healthy, of course, but not at the outrageous pricing policies that are damaging to nations' health.
Of course, while much recent news focuses on the pharmaceutical industry, this represents only one aspect of the battle over intellectual property, and the right to protect creativity against knock-offs, imitators and hackers.
There are two important technologies involved in the fight for, or against, intellectual property rights as well as its limitations. The Napster case, already mentioned earlier, is merely one such contentious argument currently. The original idea which made Napster a world-wide phenomenon was that its software technology afforded
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1486
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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