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Will Technology Make Our Intellectual Property Laws Obsolete?

June 22, 2009 by Douglas McLennan 2 Comments

Interesting take on the future of copyright and patent law by Eric Reasons:

Every business model relying on intellectual property law (patent and
copyright) is heading for massive deflation in our lifetimes. We’ve
seen it with the music industry and newspapers already. The software
industry is starting to feel it with the maturity of open source
software, and the migration of applications to the cloud. Television,
movies, and books are next. I’ve come to question the ability of copyright and patent law to foster innovation,
but leaving that aside, the willingness of people to collaborate and
share, and the tools provided for it on the internet, may render these
laws obsolete.

And that means:

Journalists, auto workers, record industry players, retail sales
clerks, and marketing staff are forced to go looking for work in
shrinking markets. These businesses are either suffering from old
business models based on increasingly artificial scarcity (newspapers,
music, marketing, software development), or are able to do more work
with the fewer resources due to the newly created efficiency
(retailers). In short, businesses relying on artificial scarcity
created by intellectual property law, are businesses most susceptible
to deflation.

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Comments

  1. ann martin says

    June 22, 2009 at 12:47 am

    Add photographers to your list.

    Reply
  2. umbrarchist says

    August 8, 2009 at 3:38 am

    Technology is changing the distribution of knowledge and information. A large percentage of the information is BS. We are confusing the children with so much BS and most adults haven't sorted it out.
    Why talk about patents and not planned obsolescence? How much have Americans lost on the depreciation of automobiles since the Moon landing? Why have kids read Catcher in the Rye and not know 700 year old double-entry accounting? Who cares if there is a copyright on Catcher in the Rye?
    http://www.quantumcritics.com/20070704123/busines…

    Reply

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Douglas McLennan

I’m the founder and editor of ArtsJournal, which was founded in September 1999 and aggregates arts and culture news from all over the internet. The site is also home to some 60 arts bloggers. I’m a … [Read More...]

About diacritical

Our culture is undergoing profound changes. Our expectations for what culture can (or should) do for us are changing. Relationships between those who make and distribute culture and those who consume it are changing. And our definitions of what artists are, how they work, and how we access them and their work are changing. So... [Read more]

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