Intellectual Property

What constitutes intellectual property?

Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind such as inventions, literary and artistic works, designs, symbols, and names and images used in commerce. So Lessig talks about a few different things that constitutes these different forms of property. A copyright is one, which is a legal term used to describe the rights that creators have over literary and artistic works. Patents is another, which is an exclusive right that has been granted for an invention. A trademark another, which is a sign used to distinguish the goods or services from one business to another. Although that’s not all that constitutes these, what Lessig mainly discusses is getting the rights to watch, hear or see film, recorded music, radio and cable television. He talks about a “compulsory license” which he calls a “statutory license” is a license whose key terms are set by law. (Pg.57) That is by LAW. He also states that, all across the world, especially in Asia and Eastern Europe, there are businesses that do nothing but take others people’s copyrighted content, copy it, and sell it without permission. (Pg. 62) In my opinion, there is always going to be ways around copyrighted works, or just simply people breaking the law, so the only thing we can do is increase the punishments for plagiarism and hope that it would maybe open some eyes.