Intellectual Property Rights
IPR in the Digital Age There are many issues revolving around intellectual property rights in the digital age. These issues have resulted in various lawsuits, creations of laws, new definitions, and differences of opinion. I plan to elaborate on both sides of this issue and how the digital age has enabled this to become one of the hottest controversial issues in regards to the internet and the digital age. First I would like to go into the history and background of why people are for the protection of intellectual property rights. Intellectual property rights are considered expressions of creative art worth protecting. We need intellectual property rights today because we all care about the things we own. They say innovation happens through intellectual property rights. Without intellectual property rights credit is not given where credit is due and people may be credited for ideas they did not come up with. The digital age makes the spread of these ideas less costly. Many ideas come from people in developing countries. Larger countries can get these ideas and get credit if no intellectual property rights exist. Peer to peer file sharing violates intellectual property rights. Even though it is sharing and the owner does not lose the file, the sharer does not own the file so this is still stealing. Here and there this may not seem like a lot but please keep in mind that this adds to billions and billions of potential profit loss for these up and coming artists. These same ideals pertain to sale of counterfeit goods. Seven to eight percent of goods sold are counterfeit. This adds up to lots and lots of loss over time! I also have some background information as to why many people believe the strong enforcement of intellectual property rights is over the top and unnecessary. There is a lot of money wasted on frivolous lawsuits related to arbitrary and false accusations of people stealing intellectual property rights. Also, free songs gain publicity for artists.