Intellectual property education

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Intellectual property education refers to the idea that students in schools should be required to listen to explanations of and arguments concerning intellectual property laws, especially copyright and related violations (as coined by secondary and tertiary school educator Shaheen Lakhan). Proponents argue that such education should be implemented because of increasing copyright infringement by students (and the general population). Detractors argue that such education is tantamount to forced indoctrination of propaganda.

Table of contents

1 History and Reasoning 2 Misconceptions 2.1 References

History and Reasoning

For most of its history, copyright was only an issue for publishers and authors. But because of an accident of modern technology, nearly everything done with computers, especially those on networks, is covered by copyright law, and may be infringing.

Electronic copies of files, by their very nature have little to no individual value. A computer can, and does, easily create and destroy copies of materials. This has led to abuse and wide spread infringemnt by the general public. In order to curb this abuse the copyright holders have lobbied congress to pass more and more restrictive laws. Members of the public have little understanding of or sympathy with the arcane structures and absolutist character of copyright.

One school of thought, advocated by commentators including Richard Stallman and Jessica Litman, holds that if the expectations and habits of the public conflict with copyright, it is copyright which must adjust.

Many members of the intellectual property establishment reach the opposite conclusion: digital technology means that all citizens must now learn to understand and respect copyright as it stands. Since the rules of copyright often run contrary to users' self-interest and copyright infringement is a victimless crime, a great deal of education may be required to prevent it.

Intellectual property education was strongly advocated in 1995 by USPTO head Bruce Lehman's Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights for the Information Infrastructure Task Force. As they put it, children must learn to "just say yes" to licensing. Since then, calls for IP education in schools have been ongoing.

Two developments in 2003 have been the introduction of legislative proposal HR-2517 in the U.S. House of Representatives by Howard Berman, entitled the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2003; and the launch, by the MPAA, of an IPE campaign in American schools (news coverage: [2],class="external">[1).

Misconceptions

Many proponents of intellectual property education make some common mistakes:

• They assert that copying CDs is wrong. As with blank consumer music and video tape, in the US, blank music CDs have a mandatory royalty included in their price as do music CD recorders. Those royalties are distributed to those in the music business through copyright collective associations. Copying music using these systems is a lawful, licensed use which benefits the copyright holders. Computer CD recorders and blank computer CDs do not include these royalty payments (see blank media tax).

• Under US law, the Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs and fair use doctrine permit purchasers to make copies for personal and family use without paying royalties.

• Under US law, first sale doctrine permits owners of a copy of a protected work to transfer ownership without permission or paying royalties. Digital Rights Management and Product Activation by its nature prevents this.

• They ignore history. Copyright holders have tried to impair the development of technology which upset their business model for generations, attempting to stop player pianos, cable TV and VCRs.

• They ignore provisions in copyright law for non-profit archives and libraries to make and lend copies of works.

• Many times they will try to claim copyright on non-copyrightable items such as; letter decorations (fonts), facts (phone books), listing of ingredients(recipes), figures (labor statisticts), the works of the US Government, and materials in public domain without any transformative effort or work besides digitizing or hosting them.

• They may pay insufficient attention to the fact that, like fair use, copying for educational purposes is a copying right owned by society, not one granted to them under US law.

• They note that copyrighted works will eventually become public domain without noting the great increase in copyright terms, such that essentially nothing produced during the lifetime of any student will enter the public domain during that life. For those retiring and retired today, that public domain right has been repeatedly approached and then taken away, as some copyright holders have lobbied Congress over 20 times to extend copyrights just before their copyrights were about to expire.

• They ignore that the license and not sold argument was settled back in 1908 and 1913 by the U.S. Supreme Court (BOBBS-MERRILL CO. v. STRAUS, 210 U.S. 339 (1908) in cases of copyrigh and BAUER & CIE v. O'DONNELL, 229 U.S. 1 (1913) for patent) different than some of the lower courts have inturpeted it in cases such as MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc.. Likewise many of the lower courts adhere to the older rulings when answering this question in cases such as SoftMan v. Adobe. Since protected materials are sold then exceptions to copyright found in 107-122 apply and there is no legal grounds for an individual to agree to an EULA or "Shrink-Wrap" license , except that collusion among software makers have made it commonplace to include them.

• Digital Rights management and Activation techniques allow the content holders to decide, dictate, and enforce their own exclusive rights on the materials instead of Congress.

• They compare a civil infraction (most consumer copyright infringement) with the crimes of murder and theft of property (piracy).

Alternative views include the view that the reason copyright holders are seeing infringement problems is that their efforts to extend the time they have monopolies and impose restrictions on use have caused people to be scornful of them; then perceive them as simply acquisitive, seeking to change the law maximize their gain at the expense of most of the society from which they benefit and on which they depend for their income. Solutions of those with this view involve such things as returning to a copyright term no longer than the patent term, so that people can see works entering the public domain during their lives and will see actual benefit as a result.

See also: philosophy of copyright

References

1. Richard Stallman, Reevaluating Copyright: The Public Must Prevail, Oregon Law Review 75(1) 1996.
2. Jessica Litman, Digital Copyright, Prometheus Books, 2001.
3. Bruce A. Lehman (chair), Information Infrastructure Task Force Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights, Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure - Part 3 (Education), 1995.
4. Cui, Mei. Intellectual Property Issues in Middle Schools of the United States and the People’s Republic of China, Mastes Thesis, Concordia University, River Forest, IL. 1999.
5. International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA). “USTR 2002 'Special 301' Decisions and IIPA Estimated U.S. Trade Losses Due to Copyright Piracy.” IIPA Online. [1]
6. Shaheen Lakhan, Stop Piracy with Edification: Intellectual Property Education in School - Education Today - NZ. Issue 6:2003
7. Oliver R. Goodenough, "The Future of Intellectual Property: Broadening the Sense of `Ought'", European Intellectual Property Review, 24(6) 2002.