We all have the right documentation to protect our properties. However, what about the intellectual properties? Is there a way to protect them?
There sure is – Copyright Act!
Copyright plays a significant role in protecting your intellectual property. The copyright act does not only protect the new works but also ensures that creators get adequate compensation.
Copyright registration is optional as it only protects the expression of ideas and the idea itself. Nonetheless, having a copyright is ideal.
The concept of copyright was acceptable when there was no internet. However, after the advent of the internet, many questions were raised on how copyright laws work. This created a group of Anti-Copyright Advocacy.
That being said, we have now entered our main topic of discussion. Most people know what a copyright act is and what it does. However, only a few people know about the anti-copyright groups.
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Who Are Anti-Copyright Advocacy Groups?
Many traditional anarchists refuse to accept copyright laws. With the recent development of BitTorrent and Peer-To-Peer file sharing, the media have termed it a copyright war.
When this war was out in public in 2003, The Pirate Bay was one of the active members fighting against the copyright laws.
Although the Pirate Bay website has been banned in many nations today, you can still access the pirated content on thenewpiratebay.org.
This was when the term Anti-Copyright Advocacy Group was born. This group of people believed that everything on the internet needs to be free. These groups of people were considered Anti-Copyright insofar as they were opposing the current copyright laws.
Once the issue of the copyright laws started getting public attention, groups like Pirate Cinema and The League Of Noble Peers started advancing forward with more radical arguments.
What Are The Anti-Copyright Arguments?
The anti-copyright advocates were clear about their concerns regarding the copyright laws. In fact, we have also gone through their argument and have found that their argument does hold some truth to an extent.
1. Economic Arguments
When talking about the economic argument, one thing that was quite intriguing was its intellectual monopoly. Here, in the case of both patents and copyright, two laws play an important role.
- The right to buy and sell.
- The right to know how other people make use of the things you sell.
The first right is not controversial; the controversy or the arguments start with the second right. Because it is hard to control what people do with the products once, it is handed down to them.
According to copyright laws, even if you have purchased it, you must abide by the rules and take care of the product accordingly. But the anti-copyright argument advocates are placing is that if they have purchased something, that is theirs, and they can use it however they want.
2. Information Technology Arguments
As we move strongly with information technology and the whole digitized universe, this argument is the key to the whole copyright issue.
Now, with copyright laws, you cannot use anyone’s intellectual property for your cause. That means, even if you are using any brand name in your content, you need to take permission from the brand itself.
However, with Web 2.0, the landscape has changed. People use digital content to share information. Now, this also includes talking about different companies from all around the world and using their content.
Although they might be sharing information with the world, users often do not realize that they are engaging in copyright infringements.
Experts of the industry believe that the copyright laws cannot cope with the dynamic changes in the digital world and therefore have become obsolete.
3. Cultural Arguments
- Creative common: with digital exposure, people have started creating content originating from the same idea. Now that is unacceptable under the copyright laws. But the same copyright laws accept the idea.
- Freedom Of Knowledge: Anti-Copyright advocacy groups have argued about the freedom of knowledge. These groups take the freedom of knowledge as their right and believe it to be fundamental in realizing the right to education.
Take Away
That’s it for this article. We have tried to summarize everything in this small article to at least get the basics right. If you are interested in knowing more about these arguments, reach out to us. We will be happy to help you wit
