Scenario 2 : Everything on the web are freely available - No existing Intellectual Property
Rationale
The rationale behind intellectual property protection (IPP) and copyright systems was to stimulate scientific research and creative works like writing, painting; Intellectual property protection is considered help people to protect what they have founded (ideas, science, music, books). But in this way further scientific research based on available results is inhibited and slowed down.
Intellectual property is considered to help the owners of the idea’s and creative works, but does it really helps them to protect their property?
• A lot of times “patents are used to suppress innovation” [1]; companies buy patents from the original inventors to protect their current business. Although the original inventor gets paid something in such cases, patents are used in a wrong way here. Instead of promoting further development of their ideas, their ideas got stocked here.
• Independent developers of ideas are mostly ignored and if someone at a company had a great idea, the patent on the idea is owned by the company and not by the employee, the company earns most of the profits. If we look at IPP in this way, is it than really stimulating innovation?
• Publishers of essays, books, scientific research think that IPP helps them against plagiarism, but is that really the case? If their work is copyright protected, IP helps them against people that copy+paste exactly the same words; but what if someone writes an essay about their results with different words?
Third World people and poor people are suffering under this patent system because, among other things, they cannot use the plants that they have been using for free for centuries anymore, because now they are panted by some biotechnology firm. If we look at IP from this angle, it than is just another way to benefit the few rich people by use of the many poor people.
2006 - Drivingforces or opponents of IP?
Peoples need for information sharing and communication, the increasing need for teamwork across geographical boundaries, the globalization, the pattern of entertainment, booming of the internet industry, increasing piracy and even opposition from a relatively small group of people is revealing the demand for a world with no intellectual property.
The technology makes it possible to illegally download software, music, movies and so on. Download programs such as Napster and LimeWire are very popular. Although the IPP is intended for the purpose of protecting this kind of cases, it proves neither to be effefctive, nor enough. The need for other means/ways to protect the music, software and movie business from making huge loses, arises. More and stronger IPP laws are made in favor of the businesses and owners of patents. As a reaction on this, the opposition becomes stronger and the debates become fiercer.
2007 - opposition IP grows
stronger opposition for IP technology as most importsnat enabler
Open Standards, Open Contents replacing Patents, Copyrights
Open Standard Software are like languages; languages are used to communicate, and if we have a standard language, we can communicate, otherwise we can not. Examples of Open Standard Software are HTML, JAVA, PDF.
With the use of Open Standards the further development and innovation is encouraged; if we have different standards, than the emphasis of the competition between companies will be on the differences in standards, but with one standard, the different companies will differentiate through innovations.Open standards also create new business opportunities.
Open Standard and Open Content are more and more evolving nowadays, and because of all the benefits they offer, we think that they will keep growing. They will eventually replace patent software; because noboday would want to pay for software, if they can get almost the same software for free (as an open standard).