Digital Speculation

Unknown to the general populace, the formation of a new aristocracy is in its fledgling stages. A small group of entrepreneurs have plans to create an environment in which thoughts, ideas, and creativity are no longer free. Paradoxically, the cornerstone of their plans rests on the very institutions created to protect such intellectual rights – copyright laws.

Who are these menacing entrepreneurs and what exactly do they plan to do? Surprisingly, they are a group of highly regarded physicists, engineers, computer scientists, biologists, and chemical engineers; in fact, MIT’s very own Robert Langer is part of the group. These academics work for Intellectual Ventures, a company that was founded six years ago and has managed to keep a low profile since. The company essentially pays scientists to daydream and come up with various ideas for inventions. The company does not implement these ideas, but rather maintains a quickly growing patent portfolio. The business then sues people who try to implement these patented ideas.

During the industrial revolution, there were few people who controlled the means of production – that is, the capital, resources, and infrastructure necessary to produce manufactured goods. Companies such as Intellectual Ventures patent software designs, computer algorithms, and ideas of media use; however, they do not develop such ideas. Such digital speculation might create a new type of aristocracy. Once again few people will have access to the means of production, which now take the more abstract form of copyrights.

Legislation such as the Millennium Copyright Act prevents information, software, and media usage from assuming their natural position in the world as free entities. The natural trend for software and media is to become free; this is evinced by the proliferation of open source communities and the increased popularity of person-to-person networks such as LimeWire.
I believe that suitable changes in copyright law must occur in the future in order to prevent the stagnation of technological production caused by a small patent-holding aristocracy.

Hopefully all software, media, and sources of academic information will fall under either the Creative Commons or GNU free documentation license. In this way, the community is largely free to edit and improve the original creations. The Creative Commons license allows licensed work to be distributed easily; yet, the creator still maintains many rights. For example, the work may be redistributed in a confidential format (not open source). Also, some creative commons licenses prevent other people from using work for commercial purposes. The GNU free documentation license is more liberal in the sense that it gives readers the right to copy and modify the work (even for commercial use).

The copyright system is an old system that needs radical reform because it was not created under the same conditions that exist today. Digital media, especially software and the corresponding computer code, should not treated as proprietary. It is ridiculous when a company which does not develop technology, but instead is only interested in buying patents and thereafter suing, prevents the community from working on certain projects. In such scenarios, patents and copyrights are detrimental to society because they inhibit the creation of new software and technologies.