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.

Technological developments have made it cheaper and easier to make copies of information. Printing was a great advance: it eliminated the need for hand copying of documents. Photocopying and computers have made it even easier to make copies of written documents. Photography and sound recordings have done the same for visual and audio material. The ability to protect intellectual property is being undermined by technology. Yet there is a strong push to expand the scope of ownership of information. [1]

Furthermore, 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 and technology as the most important opponent

There is a strong case for opposing intellectual property. Among other things, it often retards innovation and exploits Third World peoples. Most of the usual arguments for intellectual property are under attack by the opposition. In particular, the metaphor of the marketplace of ideas provides no justification for ownership of ideas accroding to them. The opposition strongly advocates intellectual products not to be owned, as in the case of everyday language. Strategies against intellectual property include civil disobedience, promotion of non-owned information, and fostering of a more cooperative society. The group of the opposition is growing fast and has sopporters all over the world, especially in the Eastern countries and other thirth world countries. The inequal chances for poor and rich, as a result of the IPP, are recognized by more and more people around the world.

A load of new programs for ripping and illigal downloads has entered the market. All of them competing in convenience of use and ease of ripping. So ripping has never been so easy before.

2008 - 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). As a result there will be also less patent software available. A side affect will also be that people will make more use of internet, because "everything is for free online"

As a strong argument the following is used by the opposition: The original rationale for copyrights and patents was to foster artistic and practical creative work by giving a short-term monopoly over certain uses of the work. This monopoly was granted to an individual or corporation by government. The government's power to grant a monopoly is corrupting. The biggest owners of intellectual property have sought to expand it well beyond any sensible rationale. [2]

2009 - knowledge sharing increased & the way to differentiate changes for businesses

In 2009, IPP will keep diminishing. Because of the Open Standards, Open Contents, fewer patents and copyrights, knowledge sharing will be increased in 2009. Which is very positive, knowledge sharing is needed to prevent reinventing the wheel.
On one hand software companies or mutinationals, thus the companies that normanlly own the patents, will be discouraged to innovate, because having patents is not profitable anymore, everything is standardized.
But on the other hand, the fact that everything is standardized, calls for other kinds of innovation ex. if it will be possible to play a Sony vide game on a X-Box, Sony and Microsoft would be forced really compete on the quality of the game.
For software companies, the differentiation would be emphasized on the service they deliver, because the software is standardized. Now it is already the case that 70% of the IT- revenue comes from services, while only 30% comes from manufacture.

2010 - Last struggle to survive

Traditional intermediars (businesses whcih where selling/distributing music, movies, software on the internet) businesses have either completely or partly changed their businesses or diminished. Because ripping & illigally downloading is unstoppable at the moment and the technology has advanced so far that software for ripping has become the_state_of_the_art technology in the field and people are thinking of ways to make business from that. Software businesses generate the revenue by their service businesses, no longer by the sales of software. They differentiate in terms of the quality of their services and are doing quite well.

Laws and regulations become even stronger then before. High sentences for internet crimes are set. Internet crime law sentences has been set on the same level as general law sentences as a way to stop illigal use of IP. The technology doesn't support the IPP law in terms of tracing illigal downloaders and revealing internet crime.

Software development gets a boost and very high quality and innovative software are developed in contribution of the software developing community of the internet. New, evolutionary algoritms are invented/developed.

On the other hand depression of 3th world countries because of the strong and numerous IP laws. Innovation or any other form of business in the 3th world countries, especially on the internet, are being stagnated by the IPP laws. Existing and upcoming SME are diminishing as a result of IP laws.

As a result of all the freely available and manupilatable data on teh internet, misleading and not reliable information arise online. The exixting technology are not intended yet to protect this kind of misuse and manupilation of data by any means of tracking down the perpetrator.

2011 - Falling down of IP

A war between the big companies (10% of the business world) & stakeholders & SME & 3th world countries (90% of the business world) is inclining to end in favor of the latter. A lot of software businesses providing programs for free downloads have arised. Anticipating on the going trend of ripping and illigal downloading with the following way of thinking: "If you can't circumvent difficulties, you should make business out of it."

It looks like the battle between rippers and businesses and stakeholders have been ended in the favor of the rippers. There is no way of stopping the rippers because of the explode of the ripping "community" and the enabling technology. The businesses that have bared loses in this battle has already come up with ways to make new business out of the current situation.

In the meantime new ways of internet criminality have arised. The Government comes with rules against criminality online.