Mapping the Issues: Current Problems Facing Creativity, Innovation and Intellectual Property

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1. What is the Purpose of Intellectual Property?
1.1 Building Public Knowledge, Encouraging Creativity and Public Learning
1.2 Who Administers Intellectual Property?

2. The Crisis in Creativity and Innovation
2.1 The Creative Cycle
2.2 The Misuse of Intellectual Property
2.3 A Problem for Economists
2.4 A Problem for Civil Liberties

3. Balance
3.1 Society and Economy
3.2 Human Rights and Intellectual Property Rights

4. Expanding Scope of Intellectual Property
4.1 Owning Basic Information: Patenting the Human Genome
4.2 Expanding and Strengthening IP Rights: The Software Case
4.3 Ideas as Property
4.4 Facts as Property
4.5 Appropriating Traditional Knowledge (TK)

5. The Length of Term and Incentives
5.1 Encouraging Dead Authors
5.2 Who Benefits – ‘Creators’ or ‘Owners’?
5.3 How Efficient is Copyright?
5.4 How Well Does Copyright Encourage Creativity?
5.5 Locking Up Culture: The Problem of Obsolete Rights and Orphan Works
5.6 Accelerating Technological Innovation and the Length of Term

6. Access
6.1 Open Access Movement and Education
6.2 Access to Public Archives and the Public Domain
6.3 Digital Rights Management and Rights of Use and Access
6.4 Access to Medicine

7. International Development
7.1 Economic Protectionism, Knowledge Transfer and International Development
7.2 Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs)
7.3 TRIPs-Plus
7.4 Cultural Diversity

8. Ethical and Social Aspects of Intellectual Property
8.1 Should Complex Ethical and Social Questions be Subject to Trade Regulation?

1. What is the Purpose of Intellectual Property?
1.1 Building Public Knowledge, Encouraging Creativity and Public Learning
The purpose of intellectual property rights, such as copyrights and patents, is to build a broad, accessible field of knowledge and culture that is accessible to all. The ultimate objective, is, and always has been, to facilitate an open domain of human knowledge and expression.

The period that a copyright or patent is active (its ‘term’) has always been limited, and for good reasons. The primary aim of these rights is encourage new creative activity, by providing protection for upfront investment in time and costs. Terms are limited because it has long been recognised that long, or even perpetual, rights do not encourage the production of new work but rather the continuing intensive marketing and exploitation of old works. Long terms do not encourage creativity, but rather stasis. Whereas, shorter terms encourage innovation and more dynamic competition.

1.2 Who Administers Intellectual Property?
Almost all states in the world now have some form of intellectual property regime, but the laws differ from country to country. At the international level, all countries that belong to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are signatories to the . Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Treaty (TRIPs). The international treaties on intellectual property law are subject to, and administered by, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) based in Geneva.

For further information go to
http://www.wipo.org
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/trips_e.htm
http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2004dltr0009.html
http://www.cic.unb.br/docentes/pedro/trabs/wipo-stats.html

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2. The Crisis in Creativity and Innovation
Copyrights and patents have always been limited in scope. That is, they apply only to certain kinds of work or product, and with specific conditions attached. Crucially, the purpose of such rights has never been to ‘enclose’ what is already in the public domain. Their purpose is to encourage new developments in science, technology and culture, not to move public assets into private hands.

2.2 The Creative Cycle
For such laws to work properly there has to be a free flow of knowledge and ideas. That is, a public domain from which existing knowledge and expressions can be drawn up, recombined and made into new properties. If the rights given are too broad or extensive - i.e. given for too many years, or over vital common knowledge assets - the virtuous cycle of creativity dries up.

2.3 The Misuse of Intellectual Property
Today, however, creative activities are beset by problems. The social purpose of intellectual properties is being obscured. We are witnessing a ‘land grab’. This view - that intellectual property is about privatising public assets, and protecting national economies against competition - is threatening the genuine innovation and competition that are vital to a dynamic economy and healthy society.

Expanding laws are making it increasingly difficult to copy and recombine elements of common knowledge into new scientific and cultural products. Barriers are being erected across the domain of human knowledge and expression. As the fences go up, the ability of mind to roam across open fields of knowledge and culture is impeded.

Creativity and innovation have always been founded on emulating, or copying, what already exists and then attempting to improve upon it. Copyrights and patents have long sought to aid that process by encouraging, and rewarding, investment. However, when policy makers use such laws as a means of privatising public assets, those laws are no longer about encouraging innovation, but rather, about impeding it.

It is dangerous for the economy, and for civil liberties, to confuse creativity and innovation with intellectual property. More intellectual property - more laws, longer terms, and stronger enforcement - does not mean more creativity and innovation. Human ingenuity is diverse and complex. It occurs within the minds of individuals and between individuals. It is an evolutionary faculty of human societies, and is not, and cannot be, simplistically confined to ‘research & development’ departments of particular industries.

Even in modern economies, huge amounts of scientific discovery, technological advance and cultural creativity occur without the support and encouragement of intellectual property laws. Even within specific industries, where copyrights and patents are vital to businesses, much of the creative process lays, rightly, outside of such regulatory instruments.

2.4 A Problem for Economists
For many industries, intellectual property rights are essential, but policy makers must strike a balance. If the system is too harsh, too rigid, if it spreads to the wrong areas, the economic benefits become outweighed by negatives - the costs of producing new works becomes too great and innovation and competition are choked off. That’s a problem for economists.

2.5 A Problem for Civil Liberties
But, that isn’t the only problem. When the system becomes unbalanced, laws originally designed to regulate industries, become laws that regulate individuals. This is already happening. Once you would have to be a business determined upon piracy to break copyright law. Now a child can break the law with a click of a mouse. Overbearing and extremely complex laws are being used to regulate individual behaviour. That’s a problem for civil liberties.

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3. Balance
But, that is not the only way that an expanding system of intellectual property rights is running into trouble.

3.1 Society and Economy
The economy is, and should be viewed as, an aspect of society as a whole. The economy is the way society distributes its wealth and assets. Society is not, and should not be viewed as, an aspect of the economy. Intellectual properties are rights granted by societies to achieve particular ends. Where there is an immediate conflict between the need of society and the IP right that has been granted, the latter must give way.

3.2 Human Rights and Intellectual Property
The centrality of human rights to the issue of balance is apparent when we look at Section 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There, the rights of creators of scientific and cultural products are balanced by the rights of user communities to access such products. However, though the rights of creators are a human right, they are clearly subordinate to more fundamental, or primary human rights, such as the right to human dignity.

Basic human rights should never be subordinated to intellectual property rights. In other words, copyrights and patents not only have to be balanced against economic considerations, but also against ethical and moral questions.

For further information go to
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

Let’s now look at some specific problems that have developed in recent years; some economic in character, some ethical, some both.

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4. The Expanding Scope of Intellectual Property
In the last thirty years or so, the subject matter over which private property rights can be extended - its ‘scope’ - has been dramatically expanded.

For example:

4.1 Owning Basic Information: Patenting the Human Genome
Until recently, we owned our bodies - indeed, for many philosophers, the ownership of one’s own body - the fact that we were not slaves - was the essential precondition from which human dignity and, by extension, all private property stemmed. Our individual DNA maps are the result of generations of ancestral development. The possibility of patenting genes for uses in industrial process has caused intense debate with respect to the ethical, legal, economic and political aspects of biotech research. These questions are complex and we need clear principles to help us navigate through them.

For further information go to
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/random-bits/2002-December/000992.html
http://www.scidev.net/Editorials/index.cfm?fuseaction=readEditorials&itemid=
70&language=1
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/patents.shtml
http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/lectures/

4.2 Strong or Weaker IP Rights? The Software Case
In the 1980s, some countries gradually adapted copyright laws - designed originally for literary and artistic works - to cover computer code. In the last five years, some countries have also allowed software to be patented. The assumption is that more and stronger intellectual property means more creativity and innovation.

However, the Free and Open Source Software Movements (FOSS) have shown that a more fluid approach to creative production can get us over the innovation blockages that copyright, in fact, creates. By unlocking the creative dynamism of large numbers of people, it creates more robust and adaptable software that is economically viable. FOSS is now central to some very big companies, such as IBM, Apple and Hewlett Packard. Yet, many policy makers often regard it as marginal, preferring to believe in an ideology that says that collaboration is inimical to competition and that more, and stronger, rights will lead to more, and better, innovation.

The economic success of FOSS demonstrates very clearly that innovation and creativity manifest themselves in complex and heterogeneous ways; that, more intellectual property, and higher levels of protection, do not mean more innovation and better competition.

For further information on FOSS go to:
http://www.gnu.org
http://www.linux.org/
http://www.linuxjournal.com/
http://www.kernel.org/
http://www.debian.org/
http://www.redhat.com/
http://www.w3.org/IPR/

For further information on the broader issues of collaborative practice and intellectual property go to
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/CODE/location.html
http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/kamil-idris-7july2003.pdf
http://www.cic.unb.br/docentes/pedro/trabs/wipo-stats.html

4.3 Ideas as Property
The ‘scope’ of protection has also developed in other, alarming, ways in recent years. There used to be a principle that ideas themselves should never be copyrighted or patented - and with good reason. But some jurisdictions are now breaching this principle, and, as with all extensions to IP law, there is increasing pressure for all governments to join in and ‘level-up’. For example, the US gives patents to business methods. Initially, the method was linked to a computer-based process, but that requirement is becoming optional. Such laws are not encouraging innovation, but rather creating unjustifiable barriers to competition.

For further information go to
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=event_misc_iprstrat_patents

4.4 Facts as Property
There was also a long-standing principle that copyright should not be extended over facts. However, the European Union has extended copyright law to cover databases because policy makers believe stronger and broader rights mean more and better innovation. The United States rejected a similar move. Yet, a recent study points to considerable growth in the US, whereas, in the EU, copyright protection has had the opposite effect. The assumption that more and stronger rights means more and better innovation does not hold up. Again, we need to consider whether the rights granted are helping, or hindering, the economy.

For further information go to
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/4cd4941e-3cab-11d9-bb7b-00000e2511c8.html
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/39b697dc-b25e-11d9-bcc6-00000e2511c8.html

4.5 Appropriating Traditional Knowledge (TK)
Expansions in scope have also had effects on international relations and culture.

In the last ten years or so, multinational pharmaceutical companies have increasing looked towards the knowledge bases of ‘traditional’ communities in developing countries for creative ideas and knowledge. Patenting ‘new’ commercial products based on that knowledge has led to strong objections to such ‘bio-piracy’ by the effected communities.

This ‘privatisation’ of common knowledge - often developed by communities over centuries - has been hotly debated. All too frequently, there has been little consultation or benefits for the community who developed the knowledge. As a result, a number of new forms of intellectual property have been developed and tested, in order to ‘protect’ such communities. However, both the appropriations and the solutions have created complex ethical, social and cultural questions, to do with belonging, individual and community rights, creativity and ecology. We need clear principles to help us through this maze of complexity.

For further information go to:
http://www.twnside.org.sg/access.htm
http://cgkd.anu.edu.au/menus/projects.php
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/vshiva4_int.html
http://www.navdanya.org

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5. The Length of Term and Incentives
The ‘term’ - the period over which a copyright or patent is effective - has always been limited - and for very good reasons. Now, however, there is a disturbing trend towards lengthening terms, particularly in the area of copyright. But, the ‘incentives’ that copyright are supposed to provide are also questionable.

The earliest ‘term’ of copyright, given as a right to authors, was 14 years, with the option of extending for an extra 14 years. The length of copyright term has been continually extended, particularly since the 1960s. In some jurisdictions, there is now pressure to lengthen terms to 90 or 120 years, and a continual pressure for all governments to follow suit and ‘level-up’.

There are a number of problems associated with the lengthening copyright terms. Here are some examples.

5.1 Encouraging Dead Authors
Retrospectively lengthening copyright terms clearly does nothing whatever to encourage new creativity. Dead artists don’t make new works. And yet governments have done exactly this.

5.2 Who Benefits – ‘Creators’ or ‘Owners’?
There is also little evidence that longer terms will necessarily benefit living creators. For a literary work or a song to be published, its author must strike a contract with a publisher - who will print, distribute and market the work. The overwhelming majority of artists get very bad deals when they sell on their rights. Only late in a successful career, when the artist has a large and proven market, will they be in a position to secure a good deal. If longer copyright terms encouraged artists to create, there would be abundant evidence in the form of better contract terms. This is not the case. The people who gain from longer copyright terms are not creators, but rather the shareholders of large international companies who buy up the rights.

Good copyright laws would benefit the actual creators of works.

5.3 How Efficient is Copyright?
It has been estimated that 90% of earnings from copyright come from just 10% of published material. The overwhelming majority of culture captured by copyright law, will never even find a publisher. Stronger terms for copyright apply across the board whether the material covered is published or unpublished, economically valuable, or, as in the vast majority of cases, economically useless.

For further information go to
http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf
http://w1.nada.kth.se/media/Research/MusicLessons/
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_1/kretschmer/#k1

5.4 How Well Does Copyright Encourage Creativity?
Even when creative works have managed to find a publisher, the vast majority have little, or no, economic value within a few years of publication. Yet the copyright lasts for the lifetime of the author. And then for another seventy years. And, industry pressure is to make the term even longer.

Copyright laws are intended to encourage creativity. Everything created - every sentence you write, every holiday photograph you take - is automatically protected by copyright. But, did the law encourage you to take that holiday photograph? Did you think about the length of term?

A good system of copyright would ensure that incentives to investment were accurately targeted. But, a responsible system would also ensure that the potential advantages of the system were not outweighed by costs.

5.5 Locking Up Culture: The Problem of Obsolete Rights and Orphan Works
The continual increases in scope and term are locking up vast swathes of culture. Not only the cultural products specifically designed to be published and make a profit, but also the products every day activity that aren’t.

Most of the culture created in your lifetime will only become freely available when your grandchildren are old. The ‘default setting’ of copyright law means that unless you can find the author, or owner, of a copyrighted material your right to use, reuse, quote from, copy, reprint or distribute that material is severely curtailed. Finding the owner of old works can be extremely difficult. In order to be published, the copyright will have frequently been split up in a maze of contracts and licenses. Rights may have been licensed to companies that no longer exist or sold on to third parties. The author may not even know who owns the relevant right. Works whose owners cannot be found are called ‘orphan works’.

These materials may have little or no economic value in themselves, yet their cultural and economic potential, in terms of follow-on creativity, is huge. As we know, creativity and innovation are founded on copying and recombining elements of what already exists and improving upon them. Without that access, it is very doubtful whether classical music could have developed the way that it did. A couple of thousand years of art training based on free copying and mastering of tradition would also never have happened had we had today’s laws. By needlessly restricting access, the default terms of copyright law impose economic costs on new creativity and innovation.

For further information on reuse of cultural materials and creativity go to
http://www.free-culture.cc/
http://www.free-culture.cc/remixes/
http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/orphanworks.html

For further information on Orphan Works go to
http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/orphanworks.html

5.6 Accelerating Technological Innovation and the Length of Term
The term of copyrights and patents are also out of step with technology. Innovation is now rapid. The term of a patent is 20 years. Can you remember what a mobile phone looked like 10 years ago? Chances are, the two or three hundred patents that went into it are still in force. Innovation is quick. But the law is slow. Take that old PC in your attic. In software terms it’s ancient history. Computing power doubles every 18 months. Yet, software written in the 1960s will still be in copyright in for another 70 or 80 years or so. The computer you are viewing this text on will certainly be obsolete in 10 years, but the software will be in copyright when the grandchildren of today’s thirty year olds are in their 80s.

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6. Access
The broadening scope and the lengthening terms of copyrights and patents are creating huge problems in terms of access. This works in a number of ways. Sometimes it concerns practical issues, such as the way creativity works - its dependence on mastering, copying and recombining elements of what went before. However, there are also ethical issues - the way these property laws now shape other parts of our lives.

Access to scientific and cultural products is a human right. The social benefits that flow from education and the free flow of knowledge are undoubted. Yet, as we have seen, an adequate balance between encouraging investment and protecting the rights of users often fails to materialise.

There are specific problems, form the high cost of copyrighted educational materials, to the flow of knowledge within Universities and academic communities, to access to affordable medicines.

Take the following examples:

6.1 The Open Access Movement and Education
The production of new knowledge requires access to what went before. For example, a scientist needs to be as aware as possible of all work in their field before embarking on new research. This used to be available only in the form of papers published in academic journals placed on library shelves. The cost of distribution and access were, relatively, high. Digitisation and distribution over the web not only brings down costs, but also makes searching for materials faster and easier. However, the publishers of such journals have used copyright to impede this development in order to protect their very profitable businesses. That might be good for one or two businesses, but not for the economy as a whole, and not certainly not for society as a whole.

For further information go to
http://www.cptech.org/a2k/
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/guide.htm
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2967.html
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3797.html
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4128.html
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4005.html
http://www.doaj.org/
http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/openaccess
http://science.creativecommons.org/
http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html

6.2 Access to Public Archives and the Public Domain
Similarly, information and knowledge stored in public archives were once relatively inaccessible. With the growth of digitisation and the web, far greater access can be given to written documents and audiovisual materials. We could be living in an unparalleled age of access, which would greatly enhance society’s ability to create new knowledge. Material created in the name of the public, with tax payer’s money could, and should, be very broadly available. But, clearing copyrights in order to distribute this material has proved to be a huge problem. Worse, commercial companies have actively sought to impede this potential bonanza in public knowledge and creativity, fearing that ‘free’ or ‘open’ access will make consumers less likely to pay high prices for their copyrighted products. We shouldn’t be surprised, in the 18th and 19th centuries, many publishers opposed the building of public lending libraries for exactly the same reasons.

There are some good examples of the increase accessibility of public materials. In the UK, the BBC’s Creative Archive is one example of this movement, and many other public institutions are developing similar ‘open content licensing’ systems. This movement towards a more open ‘public domain’ is being developed in many ways. International projects such as Creative Commons are building on line archives of new materials that provide users with far greater rights of access than those provided by the default settings of copyright law.

For further information on open archives go to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2004/05_may/26/
creative_archive.shtml
http://creativearchive.bbc.co.uk/
http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/thesoundexchange/sound_samples/
sample_libraries/

For further general information on the public domain go to
http://www.centerpd.org
http://www.creativecommons.org
http://www.wikipedia.org/

To search for material issued under creative commons licenses, go the Creative Commons Search Engine at
http://search.creativecommons.org/

6.3 Digital Rights Management and Rights of Access
Access to cultural materials is a basic right. Copyright laws have specific clauses relating to the access and use of copyrighted materials. Despite this, many corporations are now developing technologies that will undermine those access rights.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems undermine ‘fair use’ or ‘fair dealing’ provisions - the clauses that protect the rights of users to access and use copyrighted materials. These technologies have been accompanied by new laws making it illegal to ‘circumvent’ the technologies. In many cases, what was once regarded as legitimate access will be made impossible. Everyday acts, such as copying a music track onto a new format may, in the future, entail breaking the law.

For further information go to
http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/
http://www.fipr.org/intellectual.html

6.4 Access to Medicine
Access isn’t just about what you can do with a music track. There are far bigger ethical and political dimensions. Access to medicine is a vital issue. At issue is the availability of drugs at an affordable price to 80% of the world's population.

The refusal of major drug companies to lower the costs of patent medicines to patients in developing countries has caused outrage. Manufacturing ‘generic drugs’ – cheap copies of patented drugs – during a health epidemic is permitted under international intellectual property treaties. Yet patent owners are often resistant, and in some cases, have denied the existence of the crisis.

Access to existing treatments for HIV/AIDS sufferers in poor countries is not the only problem. Patents have been successful in incentivising research into diseases that effect the world’s wealthiest countries. However, they have not been effective in encouraging research into diseases such as TB and malaria that effect poorer states.
Real innovation is required in the way we think about encouraging innovation. New alternative systems of compensation are required. There is now a developing interest in innovation prizes and publicly funded research to target these problems.

For further information on Access to Medicine go to
http://www.cptech.org/
http://www.who.int/intellectualproperty/en/
http://www.aidsnews.org/2005/06/innovation-fund.html
http://olpa.od.nih.gov/legislation/109/pendinglegislation/medicalinnovation.asp

For further information of Alternative Compensation Systems go to
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/002247.shtml
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/griff/mia/2005/00002005/00000114/
art00011
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/tfisher/PTKChapter6.pdf

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7. International Development
The issue of access also has broader significance, particularly in terms of economic development for those in the poorest countries.

7.1 Economic Protectionism, Knowledge Transfer and International Development
Many developing states have argued that intellectual property laws are used as artificial trade barriers which inhibit economic development. Such laws mainly protect the industries prevalent in the economies of developed, or ‘Westernised’, states. The internationalisation of IP laws since the late 1980s has permitted such states to outsource production to developing states - where costs are lower - while retaining the property rights that control such industries. In a truly globalised economy they argue, intellectual property laws would not impede the transfer of knowledge and such states would be able to compete more effectively.

For further information go to
http://www.iprcommission.org/
http://www.g77.org/indexswf.htm
http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidtech/publications.html

7.2 Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs)
Developing countries have argued that international treaties on intellectual property, such as Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property agreement (TRIPs), make it very hard for them to develop economically. Stronger IP laws are good for countries with well-developed industries based on intellectual property. However, the industrial base of those countries developed when IP laws were much weaker than they are today. For poorer economies to develop they need opportunities similar to those that developed states have enjoyed.

For further information go to
http://www.wipo.int/documents/en/document/govbody/wo_gb_ga/pdf/
wo_ga_31_11.pdf
http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/genevadeclaration.html
http://www.iie.com/publications/wp/wp.cfm?ResearchID=121

7.3 TRIPs-Plus
The situation is made more acute by a new series of ‘TRIPs-plus’ agreements. These ‘bi-lateral agreements’ between the United States and various trading partners give rights to trade basic commodities with the US, but insist on the partner accepting higher and stronger IP protection than that in ‘multinational agreements’ such as TRIPs.

For further information go to
http://www.ipjustice.org/FTAA/
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=8&res=1024_ff&print=0

7.4 Cultural Diversity
The international expansion of intellectual property is also problematic in terms of cultural diversity. Copyrights and patents are based on old, well-established concepts of creativity and culture that have grown up in the West. The globalisation of such laws makes it much easier for industries that have grown up in relation to such ‘Western’ laws to export their work to other markets. The cultures of developing states are often flooded by such cultural exports. However, it is very difficult to adjust copyright laws to account for local concepts of creativity and cultural practices - even when it is simply to protect indigenous knowledge and culture from exploitation. (See also 4.5 above.)

For further information go to
http://portal.unesco.org/culture/admin/file_download.php/convention_e.pdf?
URL_ID=23816&filename=11011178651convention_e.pdf&filetype=application
%2Fpdf&filesize=75755&name=convention_e.pdf&location=user-S/
http://hdr.undp.org/docs/events/global_forum/2005/papers/
Abdulqawi_Yusuf_talking.pdf
http://www.case.edu/affil/sce/BellagioDec.html
http://www.incd.net/docs/CCDJan2003Final.pdf
http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=1848
http://www.wipo.int/tk/en/

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8. Ethical and Social Aspects of Intellectual Property
8.1 Should Complex Ethical and Social Questions be Subject to Trade Regulation?
Given that intellectual property now cuts across so many aspects of life, it is clearly no longer possible to confine discussion to economic questions of efficiency. Yet, the main international treaty, TRIPs (administered by the World Trade Organisation), is a product of international trade negotiations. In national jurisdictions, the central influence on policy makers is driven by concerns over trade and industry. The key question is whether trade agreements are the best mechanism to administer laws with such complex ethical implications for everyday life.

For further general information and updates on many of the above issues go to
http://www.cptech.org
http://www.ipjustice.org
http://www.ip-watch.org
http://www.centerpd.org
http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/lectures

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