• Background: Intellectual property debate takes many forms- from Trips to DRM
• Debate: Inhibits innovation
• Country Comparison: Europe has adopted similar intellectual property laws
• Recent Legislation: 1998 Copyright Act

Background

• Intellectual property rights are temporary grants of monopoly to reward innovative activity. It protects the creators and keeps the incentives for producing more innovative material. Consumers pay higher prices for the protected product but benefit from the added innovation over time. In theory, intellectual property rights serve to balance private interest with public good. The public interest is protected by the fair use doctrine, which allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders for educational, research, or review purposes.
• A World Trade Organization agreement known as Trips (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) is a controversial measure that obligates member nations honor a rigid set of rules that protect the intellectual property of key industries such as pharmaceuticals, software, biotech, and entertainment. The agreement is controversial because it prohibits the reproduction of, for example, life-saving medications or innovations that would boost economic performance in underdeveloped countries.
• A subsection of the intellectual property debate has been over the fair use and distribution of digital media. No legislation controlled the reproduction of copyright digital material for personal use until Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998. It strengthened United States copyright law by prohibiting the circumvention of technology that controls access to a work. This measure became controversial because it imposed legal limitations on the use of legitimately acquired digital media.
• The music and movie industries are major stakeholders in the protection of intellectual property. They have used digital rights management (DRM) to protect copyright files since the popularity of online file-trading services have detracted from sales. Music, and more recently, movie executives have quickly come to realize that DRM simply does not work because all copy-protection systems can be defeated. While having little effect on piracy, DRM has hurt sales by limiting legitimate use of legally purchased media. As a result, the music industry has started to embrace unprotected music.

Debate

• Opponents contend that the corporate effort to patent any technical advance undermines innovation by restricting the flow of ideas, inhibiting public creativity by making it harder for other people to obtain and build upon existing works. The anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA have prevented consumers from actively making a fair use of content protected by technological measures and strengthens the position of the copyrightholders.
• Intellectual property needs protection in order to provide sufficient incentives for further innovation.

Country Comparison

• An international copyright treaties have been implemented in most member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization, which includes most member states of the European Union. The European copyright protection statute requires members to implement legal protections for technological prevention measures.

Recent Legislation

• Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, also known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, extended 1976 copyright terms in the United States by 20 years. The 1976 Copyright Act protected work until the end of the author's life plus 50 years, or 75 years for a work of corporate authorship.