SKOPJE, Macedonia, July 29 (UPI) -- The Internet and other new technologies may have revolutionized the world but it has caused intense confusion in intellectual property and copyright. This is the second part of an analysis of the consequences. Part 1 ran Friday.
In commentaries written in 1999-2000 for "The Industry Standard" Harvard law professor, Lawrence Lessig observed: "There is growing skepticism among academics about whether such state-imposed monopolies (as copyright) help a rapidly evolving market such as the Internet. What is "novel," "non-obvious" or "useful" is hard enough to know in a relatively stable field. In a transforming market, it's nearly impossible ..."
The very concept of intellectual property is being radically transformed by the onslaught of new technologies. The myth of intellectual property postulates that entrepreneurs assume the risks associated with publishing books, recording records and inventing only because -- and where -- the rights to intellectual property are well defined and enforced. In the absence of such rights, creative people are unlikely to make their works accessible to the public. Ultimately, it is the public that pays the price of piracy and other violations of intellectual property rights, goes the refrain.
This is untrue. In the United States only a few authors actually live by their pen. Even fewer musicians, not to mention actors, eke out more than a subsistence level income from their craft. Those who do can no longer be considered merely creative people. Madonna, Michael Jackson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and John Grisham are businessmen at least as much as they are artists.
Intellectual property is a relatively new notion. In the near past, no one considered knowledge or the fruits of creativity (artwork, designs) as "patentable," or as someone's "property." The artist was but a mere channel through which divine grace flowed. Texts, discoveries, inventions, works of art and music, designs -- all belonged to the community and could be replicated freely. True, the chosen ones, the conduits, were revered. But they were rarely financially rewarded.
Well into the 19th century, artists and innovators were commissioned -- and salaried -- to produce their works of art and contrivances. The advent of the Industrial Revolution -- and the imagery of the romantic lone inventor toiling on his brainchild in a basement or, later, a garage -- gave rise to the modern patent. The more massive the markets became, the more sophisticated the sales and marketing techniques, the bigger the financial stakes -- the larger loomed the issue of intellectual property.
Intellectual property rights are less about the intellect and more about property. In every single year of the last decade, the global turnover in intellectual property has outweighed the total industrial production of the world. These markets being global, the monopolists of intellectual products fight unfair competition globally. A pirate in Skopje, Macedonia, is in direct rivalry with Bill Gates, depriving Microsoft of present and future revenue, challenging its monopolistic status as well as jeopardizing its competition-deterring image.
But the inane expansion of intellectual property rights may merely be a final spasm, threatened by the ubiquity of the Internet as they are. Free scholarly online publications nibble at the heels of their pricey and anticompetitive offline counterparts. Electronic publishing poses a threat -- however distant -- to print publishing. Napster-like peer-to-peer networks undermine the foundations of the music and film industries. Open source software is encroaching on the turf of proprietary applications. It is very easy and cheap to publish and distribute content on the Internet; the barriers to entry are virtually nil.
As processors grow speedier, storage larger, applications multi-featured, broadband access all-pervasive, and the Internet goes wireless, individuals are increasingly able to emulate much larger scale organizations successfully. A single person, working from home, with less than $2,000 worth of equipment, can publish a Webzine, author software, write music, shoot digital films, design products or communicate with millions and his work will be indistinguishable from the offerings of the most endowed corporations and institutions.
Obviously, no individual can match the capital assets, the marketing clout, the market positioning, the global branding, the sales organization and the distribution network of the likes of Sony, or Microsoft. In an age of information glut, it is still the marketing, the media campaign, the distribution, and the sales that determine the economic outcome.
This advantage, however, is also being eroded, albeit glacially.
The Internet is essentially a free marketing and -- in the case of digital goods -- distribution channel. It directly reaches 200 million people all over the world. Even with a minimum investment, the likelihood of being seen by surprisingly large numbers of consumers is high. Various business models are emerging or reasserting themselves -- from ad.-sponsored content to packaged open source software.
Many creative people -- artists, authors, innovators -- are repelled by the commercialization of their intellect and muse. They seek and find alternatives to the behemoths of manufacturing, marketing and distribution that today control the bulk of intellectual property. Many of them go freelance. Indie music labels, independent cinema, print on demand publishing, all are omens of things to come.
This inexorably leads to dis-intermediation -- the removal of middlemen between producer or creator and consumer. The Internet enables niche marketing and restores the balance between the creative genius and the commercial exploiters of his product. This is a return to pre-industrial times when artisans ruled the economic scene.
Work mobility increases in this landscape of shifting allegiances, head-hunting, remote collaboration, contract and agency work, and similar labor market trends. Intellectual property is likely to become as atomized as labor and to revert to its true owners -- the inspired folks. They, in turn, will negotiate licensing deals directly with their end users and customers.
Capital, design, engineering, and labor intensive goods -- computer chips, cruise missiles, and passenger cars -- will still necessitate the coordination of a massive workforce in multiple locations. But even here, in the old industrial landscape, the intellectual contribution to the collective effort will likely be outsourced to roving freelancers who will maintain an ownership stake in their designs or inventions.
This intimate relationship between creative person and consumer is the way it has always been. We may yet look back on the 20th century and note with amazement the transient and aberrant phase of intermediation -- the Sony's, Microsoft's, and Forgent's of this world.
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