Protect intellectual property to gain from creativity

Recently I met a friend who informed me he has over 1,000 favourite songs saved on his laptop that he has downloaded from the Internet.

Despite this large database of pirated music, he continues to download on an average of at least 10 songs a day.

He has not invested a single shilling in acquiring this music but now has one of the largest collections of good oldies soul music in the country.

He represents many early adopters who are taking full advantage of the vastness of cyberspace to acquire content free of charge.

As our country continues to invest heavily in ICT infrastructure and the use of broadband applications continues to expand, we cannot ignore the intellectual property (IP) subject.

As we all know, the music copyright society has taken very many years to establish and enforce copyright laws that protect their creations.

All you have to do is take a stroll down River Road with a couple of blank CDs to burn.

Chances are that music store owners will most likely treat you with a lot of suspicion and decline to burn any music for you at any price.

It took the local music industry a long time to reach where they are today.

Consider how long it will take to protect and enforce the IP rights of our local software developers in cyberspace.

With the talk of cloud computing, chances are that local technology geeks stand to lose if they do not protect their innovations.

In the new technology economy in which major resources are intellectual assets, we need to think about how to protect our creations.

This has to be done within a context of elusive questions about the precise nature and extent of those rights.

However, the reality of the matter is that there are two distinct schools of thought on the IP issue.

One takes the pathway of the philosopher John Locke.

He said people have a natural right to the fruits of their labour.

According to him, labour is an unpleasant activity people engage into not for its own sake but for benefits.

But Karl Marx said property rights exist to protect the interests of the ruling class against their less endowed brethren.

According to people who embrace this school of thought, they do not believe in the capitalistic theory of intellectual rights and believe that once goods are sold, a complete transfer of the property is done to the new owner who has every right to use and distribute the goods how he or she wishes.

This is the argument that is used by proponents of the free software foundation who believe that software should be created and distributed to as many people as possible to benefit a greater collective.

Well, whether we take the John Locke or Karl Marx pathway, our local entrepreneurs involved in software engineering and production should start hunting around for the best IP lawyers in town if they do not have any.

Hanging around lawyers whose primary competence is in litigation or conveyance will not add value to their long term interests.

We are net importers of software applications but the trend is gradually moving towards the direction of the country becoming a net exporter, especially in the mobile telephony field where we are miles ahead of many first world countries.

This is the time for local software developers and content providers to include Digital Rights Management, in their strategic business plans.

Their ability to anticipate attacks on their intellectual property from followers of Karl Marx’s philosophies will ensure their long term survival in the borderless cyberspace world.