The invention of Copyright©
Copyrights were invented in order to address imbalance and
keep people inventing new things and coming up with new ideas and products, by
providing a short period of exclusivity, in which no one else could copy your
work – giving inventors the ability to cover the costs and make money.
Let’s say a guy invents a better light bulb. His price needs to
cover not just the manufacturing cost, but also the cost of inventing the product in the first place.
Now let’s say a competitor starts manufacturing a copy of the
invention. The competitor doesn’t need to cover those development costs so his
version can be cheaper.
The bottom line: original creations can’t compete with the price
of copies.
The goal of copyright was to
create a robust public domain – where a body of affordable ideas and products
were available to all.
People hate losing what they have
– when we make losses on our ideas being copied we get annoyed and become defensive of
our copied product.
Many great brands copy and make extensive
use of the public domain – Steve Jobs was always boastful about Apple’s history
of copying other products, yet hated those who copied his ideas – namely
Android, saying that ‘I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen
product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.’
Disney copied many stories – tales
like Snow White and Pinnochio all came from the public domain.
People who copy products or media
get can get sued – either by the inventors or ‘trolls’. These are corporations
that don’t actually produce anything. They acquire a library of intellectual
property rights, then litigate to earn profits.
We live in a world were we believe
that ideas are property – and that property belongs to us: our laws enforce
this belief in ever-expanding protections. We live in a world and time full of
problems, we need ideas that can spread fast and we need them now. This need is
overwhelmed by the feeling of territory over original ideas – leading to the
question: what do we now?
