The Friendly Guide to Regulating the Internet: Copyright as Incentive for Content Creation
Another addition to The Friendly Guide to Regulating the Internet
This is intellectual property in a nutshell: IP hurts, but we need it. It encourages the creation of speech by limiting the creation of speech. IP is a confusing concept that is sometimes great, sometimes dangerous, sometimes unnecessary, and thanks to the Internet, a part of your everyday life.
The Friendly Guide to Regulating the Internet: Copyright as Incentive for Content Creation
2015-12-29 Update
FriendlyToS is no longer on the Internet. The content of the originally referenced post has been reproduced below.
Understanding why Internet regulations are the way that they are is confusing. So, FriendlyToS is creating The Friendly Guide to Regulating the Internet, a set of brief introductions to the most important concepts in Internet regulations. Here is part five, the love/hate relationship between the Internet and copyright.
Copyright as Incentive for Content Creation
Talk is cheap, listening is even cheaper, and saying the really cool and original thing you just heard somebody else say is virtually free. Since our nation’s founding there has been lengthy arguments among academics, professionals, and politicians about the positive and negative impacts of intellectual property (IP). With the emergence of the Internet, some pretty convincing arguments have been made that copyright hurts our nation’s economy by forcing an artificial price onto something that is naturally free - consuming and reusing an idea.
If anybody could copy and sell your great American novel, why would you invest months or years writing it? You are probably motivated by a creative need to express yourself. But, you also need to eat. The people that create great art and innovation need to cover the expenses of life, and IP makes it possible for many more people to create the ideas that impact our nation while earning a livelihood.
This is intellectual property in a nutshell: IP hurts, but we need it. It encourages the creation of speech by limiting the creation of speech. IP is a confusing concept that is sometimes great, sometimes dangerous, sometimes unnecessary, and thanks to the Internet, a part of your everyday life.
