You down with IP? Yeah you know me!

This week’s lecture focused on Intellectual Property (IP).  We learned about patents, trademarks, plagiarism and copyrights.  I personally feel that using ones work without their permission for your personal gain should be criminal.  I also feel that ones creation/idea/invention should be their own forever, or at least have the rights to that material and should be the only one to profit from it.

We learned that everything from the Happy Birthday song to the shape and size of the Coca-cola soda bottle to be owned and strictly enforced against the use of.  This also relates to the Sonny Bono Term Extension Act of 1998.  This extended the copyright law to 70 years past the author’s death so that nobody could make use or profit from one’s ideas.  This came into play with Walt Disney and his beloved Mickey Mouse.  However, every time Mickey Mouse steps closer to allowing the public free use of it, a new law comes across to protect this character and to only be allowed use of by Disney.   

Copyrighting and legal issues had a new obstacle to face in the late 1990’s.  With the increase use and ease of the computer, the internet sprung up and became something everybody was using.  This brought about a new problem facing copyright laws and how it pertained to the internet.  During this time, only universities and colleges had regular easy use of scanners.  As the volume of scanners increased, students started making use of them and began scanning images to the internet.  This included Playboy pictures from their magazines that slowly began appearing across the internet.  These images allowed other people to sell and profit at the disapproval of Playboy.  This led to a landmark case in the adult industry, involving copyrights, with Playboy v Sanfilippo (1998).  Mr. Sanfilippo began putting up Playboy images on his site and profiting from the visitors.  Playboy ended up asking him twice with Mr. Sanfilippo saying he would but didn’t. Then in 1997 Playboy threatened to sue him and ultimately in 1998 took him to court for violation of copyright laws, or infringement.  The court said Playboy had to prove these images to be their own property and to prove they were being infringed upon.  This was easily done with copies of their magazine shown to the courts and helped the prompt decision to be in their favor.  The judge said it was a violation and the penalty would be accessed by the amount of infringement that had occurred.  The total number of images shown by Mr. Sanfilippo totaled 667 and came to a $3.3 million settlement to be paid to Playboy. 

That case was important for several reasons.  First being that it showed a company, Playboy, was pursing against copyright infringement.  This is a stipulation in the law and required if a company wants to sue.  Playboy actually has won over 400 cases of copyrighted material.  Secondly, Playboy became a leader in creating technology that would deter copyright violators.  Since Playboy is so profitable, they can afford to try out new ideas in combating people like Mr. Sanfilippo from profiting off them.  They developed the digital watermark.  This put a “stamp” of sorts on their images that would appear when copied.  While it wasn’t too successful, it led to other inventions on how to stop criminals from taking your work.  Third, it’s now actually considered to be better not to go after infringers as Playboy did.  Today, with companies shying away from advertising main stream, copying ones work to be shown over the internet is actually beneficial.  Companies don’t like to advertise on TV or thru direct mail, so they don’t pursue people from displaying images from their company on the net.  It’s a form of free advertising that sends people to their company’s site after viewing a clip of their copyrighted work.  It’s estimated that 42% of peer to peer users are downloading porn.  The adult industry views this as a way to eventually make a profit from interested viewers. 

Ultimately, I feel that copyright laws need to be enforced.  However, with the stipulation being that in order for you to sue you must show that you are actively pursing copiers, the companies that are using infringers as free advertisers shouldn’t ever be allowed to sue.  Instead, this creates a whole new portion to the copyright laws and should be treated differently.  I feel that it’s your right to do with your work as you choose, but then the law shouldn’t apply to you.