INTERNET PROTECTON: Intellectual Property Rights and the First Ammendment
By ae_d
"If the Internet is to flourish, the creators of the information on our information superhighway must be protected. Intellectual property rights must be respected. If First Amendment rights are used as a justification for violating property rights, the next step will be the loss of some or all of these rights, as government bodies move in."
It was Mark Rost who said it, as the lead of the Silicon Valley Chapter of the "Task Force for Responsibility and Freedom on the Internet" (Solutions - Not "Explanations," 2004, para.4). Now what did he mean about that?
Mark Rost was right where he said that the intellectual property rights of (original) creators on the internet must be protected. This is supported by the fact that abusers abound in www. McGowan (2004) explains that "Technology [now] has a ratchet of its own-it continued to make copying cheaper and easier than ever, and the combination of digital content and networks such as the Internet enabled widespread, high-volume, high-quality copying" (p.283). This is what made mass infringement of copyrights possible.
For greater profit, authors claim ‘originality' of their works, as pirates steal the audience of original music-makers; others take advantage of copyrights to protect them from blackmail or even pointless controversy or reckless news-reporting. Unethical online offenders now even go so far as breaching personal privacy and classified information ("Freedom of Speech at Risk in Cyberspace," 2004, para.1-44). On this one side, the originals indeed need to be granted a formal ownership of their works. On the other side though...
If the First Amendment does intercede in granting copyrights, then the abusive copyright violators would also benefit from it. As McGowan (2004) pointed in his article "Why the First Amendment Cannot Dictate Copyright Policy," the court resists this action (through government bodies) because it aims to repress against "copiers" who might want to take advantage of a copyrights protection. This suggests that the First Amendment is not essentially against "freedom of expression" (more so to those who only want to protect their works from abuse by using legitimate copyrights as defense) (p.284).
This is also exactly what Mark Rost had in mind in his notable statement. "Copiers" or internet thieves could use [the First Amendment] "as a justification for violating property rights... [then the] loss of... all rights." That was exactly what he meant.
Therefore, since the First Amendment could not supply for the need, this is where the "Task Force for Responsibility and Freedom on the Internet" should fill in. -
[*They had begun their action with the distribution of a "Net-Surfer's Simple Guide to Copyright" (Solutions - Not "Explanations," 2004, para.4). One of the sites that provide the Task Force's "Guide to Copyright" is http://www.emf.net/.*]
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References
McGowan, David (2004). Why the First Amendment Cannot Dictate Copyright Policy. The University of Pittsburgh Law Review, Vol.65:281. Retrieved January 23, 2007 from http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/telecom/beviercopyrighttrespassandthefirstamendment.pdf
Solutions - Not "Explanations" (2004). Freedom Magazine: Church of Scientology International. Retrieved January 23, 2007 from http://www.freedommag.org/
Freedom of Speech at Risk in Cyberspace (2004). Freedom Magazine: Church of Scientology International. Retrieved January 23, 2007 from http://www.cyberspacefreedom.org/risk.htm
