Issue #9
May 2002
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Intellectual Property (2) by Sten Grynir In last month's article, I described developments in the treatment of intellectual property that are threatening our right to use copyrighted material in perfectly reasonable ways, and extensions of patent law that are leading to permanent monopolies, in contravention of the intent of the framers of the constitution. In the current article, I propose some remedies.
With regard to copyrights, a critical need is for legislation that would restore the traditional concept of fair use. The traditional concept permits the copying of copyrighted works for personal use; the copyright is intended to protect authors and publishers from unauthorized copying for profit. The bizarre idea that the creator or distributor of a work has the right to dictate how you will use it personally, and when and under what circumstances a work purchased by the consumer a be accessed, viewed or used, is new, and is intended to bolster illegitimate control by the distributor of the work. Under laws recently passed, it is a felony to view a legitimately purchased DVD movie on your PC if the distributor intended the movie to be only viewed on a DVD player. The right of the consumer to use a purchased work as he or she pleases, as long as no commercial purpose is involved, must be restored. Furthermore, the burden of proof that the right is being abused must rest with the distributor; placing the burden of proof of innocent use on the purchaser must be repealed. The creeping expansion of the time period covered by copyright must be stopped; the time after which a work is in the public domain must be restored to its prior value. Excerpting and quoting of a copyrighted work for scholarly purposes, political debate or satire is an element of free speech that must also be restored to its former protections.
With regard to patents, several steps must be taken. The Patent Office must be given sufficient resources to thoroughly investigate the existence of prior art; currently, the Patent Office is granting patents on common, well-known processes, and is depending on competitors of the patent holder to challenge the patent on the grounds of obviousness and prior art. When the patent holder is a major corporation with vast resources, and those affected by patents that should never have been granted are small companies or individuals, the theoretical right to sue to overturn the patent is in fact ludicrous. Second, the Patent Office must stop extending patents that would otherwise expire. Trivial alterations to the original patent must no longer be grounds for patent extensions. Third, time periods covered by patents mIust be shortened. Fourth, inventions developed with public funds, as most drugs and much technology is nowadays, must redound to the public good, either by being freely licensable at reasonable fees (perhaps after a short monopoly period for a private company that might have participated in the development), or by being placed immediately in the public domain. Fifth, the criminalization of reverse-engineering and other consumer-friendly techniques must be repealed. Sixth, using the excuse of conforming to restrictive international standards must stop.
As things stand now, your Tivo is illegal; writing a program to view a DVD or listen to a CD on a computer running the Linux operating system if the distributor intended only the use of a stand-alone player or a computer running Windows is a felony; and recently the legality of watching television using a Tivo-like gadget that fast-forwards through commercials has been declared to be theft of services.
When we buy something, we should have the right to do with it as we please. Granting corporations the broad power to dictate our use of these things, and even worse, to snoop through our private possessions without court order in order to ascertain that we are using them as they desire, is intolerable and must be corrected.
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