Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Harvard shocker: Crimson rails against piracy, endorses university 'three strikes' penalty

It's less than a mile from Harvard Law School's Berkman Center to the offices of the Harvard Crimson. But it doesn't seem that the Berkman Center's ideas have made that short journey south. From a Crimson editorial that ran Monday:
Recently, the Motion Picture Association of America began sending thousands of letters to colleges and universities across the country, reminding them of their obligation to set up a "written plan to effectively combat the unauthorized distribution of copyright material by users of the institution's network" under the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008. Because we believe that intellectual property rights are important and the unauthorized downloading of copyrighted music, movies, and television programs is wrong, we applaud this move and hope that universities abide by the guidelines set down in the HEOA.

Our support for the MPAA’s actions is based on our belief that the unauthorized downloading of music, movies, and television programs, although easy, is questionable at the most basic level. In our postindustrial economy, the protection of intellectual property rights is important for several reasons. First, these rights must be safeguarded in order to provide an incentive for innovation. Without any guarantee of legitimacy, entrepreneurs will have no motivation to create new intellectual property, as it could be stolen at any time. Second, at a broader level, intellectual property rights are important because each person has a fundamental right to enjoy the fruits of his or her mental labor. Intellectual entrepreneurship requires a broad societal commitment to the rule of law and the importance of private enterprise.
Read the whole, excellent, thing.

7 comments:

  1. "Without any guarantee of legitimacy, entrepreneurs will have no motivation to create new intellectual property, as it could be stolen at any time."

    So ... you are claiming that no new "intellectual property" was EVER created in the HISTORY OF MANKIND until copyright laws were passed?

    Huh?

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  2. Its the idea that it now costs money to create intellectual property and more money to protect it. What would be the point of making IP when all that's going to happen is someone will steal what you worked hard for only for you to see no return. Point being is that you wouldn't want to work hard to get a nice car just to have someone steal it.

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  3. "entrepreneurs" will have no motivation to create new intellectual property.

    Not "Author" nor "Inventor"

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  4. What a shockingly warped world view.
    In fact, the period of industrialisation of Western economies, when 'intellectual property' protection was weakest, was the period of most rapid development.

    All evidence points to the fact that a strong patent/copyright system impedes innovation, and only serves to benefit those with vested interests.

    Post war, the United States also accelerated their industrial development by stealing the intellectual property of others.
    FOr example, the United States blackmailed the UK with post war loans to acquire aerospace technology like jet engines, and robbed post-war Germany of it technology and scientists for the US space/military programs.

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  5. Anon at 9:06 PM,

    In response to your "question", no such claim is or ever has been made, and to set it up as a strawman is just plain silly.

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  6. Anon 12/15/10 5:08 -

    "All evidence points to the fact that a strong patent/copyright system impedes innovation, and only serves to benefit those with vested interests."

    What evidence would that be?

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  7. What's really newsworthy here is not that the editorial is particularly wise in its substance (e.g., it seems to think IP rights holders are "Internet Protocol-rights holders") but rather that at least one student does not think piracy is acceptable. Hurray for that. All is not lost.

    It is also curious that the author seems to think Netflix is evidence that the entertainment industry is evolving. In fact, some rights holders have very aggressively attempted to restrict the functionality of Netflix. Hulu is a sound example, but citing Netflix is like attributing the Betamax to Universral.

    ReplyDelete

Comments here are moderated. I appreciate substantive comments, whether or not they agree with what I've written. Stay on topic, and be civil. Comments that contain name-calling, personal attacks, or the like will be rejected. If you want to rant about how evil the RIAA and MPAA are, and how entertainment companies' employees and attorneys are bad people, there are plenty of other places for you to go.

 
http://copyrightsandcampaigns.blogspot.com/