This blog is based on a personal realization that world is one tribe. But it also acknowledges the paradox of life. This means that nobody including the writer gets full marks for being right. Writer is satisfied with being 50% right. 50% universe is right. Thanks in advance for you patience to visit and read my silly articles. This is not a scientific blog rather purely my perception of life, so readers subjective discretion is requested.
Intellectual
Property as we have understood from the last post is a simple idea that
has been made complex by laws. But this laws are important in preventing
people/organizations from stealing the creative output of a
person/organization. As we have seen from the previous post that the
laws also protect the rights of people/organizations that support a
person's/organizations creative activity by providing them a platform to express their intellectual ability.
How do digital companies use our intellectual output to make money?
When it
comes to the all encompassing digital universe that even plans to hijack
even our perceived reality, most people who are fighting for the rights
of ordinary citizens privacy has to take into consideration the discussion on Intellectual property laws and Copyright laws. Since digital companies employ convenient definitions of customers(as users of platform), they define their software as platform.
Lets say you buy a smartphone XYZ brand with ABC companies OS software. You already paid for the System(Smart phone) but the OS provider says we are giving you free platform to use. This is because your smartphone manufacturer is too lazy to make an OS for the system you bought. They wanted to pass the cost of OS or the cost of not paying(free lunch is more dangerous as evident from real world events) to the customer. By buying and using a smartphone with free ABC OS software you are in effect agreeing to allow the copyright of digital content generated in the phones. Thus all digital data that is generated in the smart phone can be copied without our permission as we had agreed to share the data as part of using their "platform". Thus ABC company makes millions using intellectual property generated by users.
This is like a recording company making millions from a singers album and not giving him a penny because the stupid singer agreed to sing for free just for the opportunity to sing for the recording company(i.e for giving him a "platform"). The big companies don't want ordinary people to understand this, as then people will start asking for share in the monetization of their intellectual property. Or the people can ask the smartphone manufacturers for OS that gives full intellectual property and copyright protection for digital data generated in the smartphone that was purchased from them for a price. But this requires worldwide awareness by people of Intellectual property and copyright laws.
If as a single voice the people of this world can demand the ownership of digital data/content generated in their digital devices and also take away the right of other companies to define each component of the digital device system differently as platform/hardware, so that we need not end up begging for privacy from these mega corporations. Because IP theft is considered by international law as theft itself. Creative digital content and personal data has to be defined clearly and isolated to identify violation of Intellectual Property laws by big transnational corporations.
Thus privacy essentially can be achieved only by means of right to data ownership of digital content generated in the digital device that you purchased from market. In fact both creative digital data and personal digital data are both intellectual property since it comes from your intellectual faculty. If someone is making money from it then you can stop using the platform or force the platform manufacturer to share the income they generate from using the digital data that was generated by using their OS.
OS manufacturers give you limited ownership of the OS copy.
The companies however are really clear over the use of their own software. The smartphone owner does not own copyright or Intellectual property of the OS Software but is free to use the OS "in exchange for" the user(not customer) agreeing to the long list of conditions that include the sharing of the digital data generated in the smartphone(please read the word in exchange for) for which we cannot claim copyright violation as we did not copyright protect it. This is called limited ownership or limited permission to use the OS. If we try to Copyright protect it then the OS manufacturer can deny the use of OS to the smartphone owner. For this the approach should be to put pressure on smart phone manufacturers themselves rather than on OS manufacturers.
In the end it is all about clever manipulation of words to suit each party. Corporations has already beat the common people in this game. Next stage is patenting on life as described in the introduction of Part-1. Courts just looks for convincing arguments. Whoever can win the debate wins the game.
Yes, I know it is a lot to ask for responsibility or ownership from simple folk like us, also easiest thing to do is to throw your phone in the gutter.😂. after all what we wanted was a bit of free software in our phones. At least I did my part in creating awareness.
If you still awake you can enjoy more nerdy stuff at Part 3 of this blog -
The challenge of explaining Intellectual Property Rights
Any discussion on Intellectual Property rights looks complicated to most people and if you try to explain it to ordinary people some may even get good sleep while we are frothing with technical details. I am not a geek myself but having been working with geeks for long time, makes me susceptible to occasional geekiness. If a geek explains it then it will only be an effective pill for insomnia 😜. So kindly bear with me I will try to explain it in the most simplest terms while not missing the purpose of this blog.
So lets first understand why a common person not involved in high tech job/research/creative field needs to understand it at all especially these days. Just have a look at the video below by Dr. Vandana Shiva who tries to explain how transnational corporations who made their fortunes selling patented technology(chemical/IT/weapons) now want to push governments in all countries to provide protection for patenting on life.
Biopiracy Vandana Shiva
Intellectual Property is a legal definition and not a natural right like "Right to self defense". It is a legal protection given by the governments(on payment of a fees) to individuals or companies to claim exclusive monetization rights over an idea or an intellectual output which they have created themselves or buyed exclusive commercialization rights from a creator. In case of Bio piracy they take freely from nature and modify it slightly and then sell it as their own creation.
This means that if people want(only if they insist) they can stop their governments from allowing corporations to patent life. Since common people was blissfully ignorant and not insisting, our benevolent people leaders was in no mood to stop corporations from dictating Intellectual property/patent laws even though corporations are not a party in the democratic framework.
The
real truth is that the legal fraternity/politicians of the world do not
understand the human species extinction level impact created by such greed. They
are mostly from lawyer(or judicial) families or political families in case of
democracies and royal families in case of kingdoms. They were brought up from childhood with one goal - Family Legacy. This mentality is also reflected by billionaires.
The mantra of family legacy forever has been -
"As long as there is money and supermarkets my future generations will be able to survive till eternity".
- Dr. Vandana Shiva
But once you fully understand what Dr. Vandana Shiva is trying to explain any common person/politician/royalty/dictator/billionaire will understand. Only if they care to learn from past human mistakes. This requires a change in heart from every human being in this planet.
"There is enough for everyone on earth for their needs but not enough for everyone's greed"
- M. K. Gandhi
Thanks to the "Ignorance is Bliss" policy of common voters like us till now the legal definition of creative output or Intellectual output was dictated by big corporations which our benevolent people leaders wrote down in nice legal terms while the common voter was blissfully sleeping. We have the power to change, because at least 50% of what happens in our life is our own bad choices and opinions(which are being manipulated every second). These corporations are just modern day inheritors and ugly end products of human greed.
I will not be delving in to the details of bio piracy and patenting of life. Dr. Vandana Shiva is the expert in this field. So i recommend watching her videos after learning about Intellectual Property from this blog, as it will help you better understand what she is trying to tell the humanity. Maybe in some other post I may explain bio piracy, but the purpose of this blog is to make people aware of legal definition of Intellectual property and how to stop transnational corporations from owning every life form on planet earth including humans (maybe by the time people wake up we will be able to stop them from owning our clones who maybe be healthier and more obedient). The gravity of the situation is lost by complacency and false sense of security provided by family legacy.
Lets start with what is Intellectual Output or creative output?
First lets understand from a simple beginner level understanding. When you draw a picture by your own imagination onto a piece of paper or create an artistic content in a print/audio/visual platform or do scientific/economic/technical research which results in print/digital/analog data or content of any form, this real world output from your abstract or logical analysis side of your brain is called Intellectual Output or simply put as an output of your minds intellect functioning. It has to result in a real world artifact(this means it not does occur naturally).
Defining Intellectual Output
If you copy another persons painting/data/analysis/design ditto then that's simply called plagiarism or in simple school or college kids term as copying or in legal terms copyright violation. That is certainly not beginner level explanation👎. In simpler terms any cerebral activity that leads to real world artifacts is called Intellectual Output.😌. Wow, i hope you got it. Please don't leave yet there is more boring stuff below.
This is where the linguistic/academic definition of Intellectual Output/cerebral output turns into legally defined Intellectual Property. A cerebral output is projected onto some physical, real world object and somehow this becomes a new object as per legal definition.
Defining Intellectual Property-1
Defining Intellectual Property-2
Who actually owns the intellectual property?
But who owns this intellectual property? Also who can legally make copies of it?This is a tricky question of negotiation and also the fact that who else supported you to achieve this output rather that blindly the individuals intellectual capability alone. The laws are complex and when things go to courts it all depends on either party's ability to prove their point.
Scenario-1
Take the example of a painter who draws the paintings on a canvas. This canvas is the platform on which the painter applies his minds intellectual ability. This was purchased from a vendor in market at some price which was agreeable to both. This results in the painter socially/morally/legally(legally since there exist no legally binding agreement with another person/company/legal entity) being the owner of the Intellectual property.
Intellectual Property Ownership claim-1
Legally, it is better to put it as a situation where there exists no person who currently has a legally binding claim over monetization of your Intellectual property. This means if anyone takes away your original painting then they will be arrested for stealing. But if they make copies of this original even without your permission they cannot be arrested. The painter can reserve the exclusive right to copy the original by Copyright protecting the original painting.
Scenario - 2
In
case the painter and the canvas vendor engages in some kind of
negotiation in which they put in some form of legally binding agreement
in which the vendor gets a share of the sale price in percentage of this
painting in exchange for the vendor agreeing to provide free/discounted
rate canvas for the painter. So provider of a platform for applying
your intellectual talents can now negotiate a fees with you for
supporting this intellectual activity.
Intellectual Property Ownership claim-2
Defining Platform Provider
It is the same with Audio/Visual Content in Audio/Video platforms like Radio/TV/Internet. The platform provider like radio station or recording studio in this creative/artistic field comes to a monetary agreement related to profit sharing with artist on sale of intellectual property/sale of copy(this is important point) of this intellectual property and also the right to create infinite copies of the persons Intellectual's Output if they have mutually agreed upon it. In this case you have created a legal co-owner of this Intellectual Property(IP).
Difference between Intellectual Property and Copyright protection
Since a painting can only be sold once it is a one time sale agreement. Also the painter and vendor can engage in long term legally binding association for example the vendor and painter comes to an agreement in which the vendor provides the painter every month with a specific number(say 10 canvas) for 5 years for free or heavily discounted price in exchange for a share of whatever painting the painter sells in the market during this 5 year period. But the vendor or platform provider has no legal right to make copies of this original content if it is Copyright protected. This is important as selling the painting without painters consent is basically stealing.
But anybody can copy the painting as long as the painter does not copyright the painting. This is the reason why plagiarism exists in the arts field in paintings drawn by artists who lived before the world started drafting and Implementing IP and Copyright protection Laws. But Copyrighting and IP protection in legal terms are costly and is not a free service from the governments across the world.
Any scientific invention or creative output protected by patent or copyright is the sole property of property owner as long as he has no legal agreement with platform owner and has copyright protected his intellectual property.
I tried to be zero geekish but please do comment if i was too geekish for you😂. I will better create a part 2 else I am not sure if you are still reading/sleeping. Also I do not claim that my understanding of Intellectual property is better than others. If I have made a mistake please do feel free to correct me in the comments column.
The problem with this topic is the border line between a simple description and geekish description of this topic is as thin as a hair.
Friends please do share your valuable comments 🙏.
You can check out more articles in the archives below -
Warning : If you are still awake and motivated please continue to Part -2, also please be aware that the definition and ownership of Intellectual property by High Tech/Research companies can be really scary and not for weak hearts.
Experience vs knowledge has been a matter of debate since human beings started discussing. I specifically pointed to human discussion since, it would have been impossible to achieve human discussion without human language. Language is an effective(which means to say that it is better not to judge it as good or bad) tool created by human beings to understand the Nature of universe, but our own heart tells us that this is a really inadequate(does not mean useless) tool for understanding reality of life. Tools can be handy but it cannot replace the intelligence in your heart.
But surely we do have some crude sense of adventure or sportiness which makes us blindly believe in the tools rather than ourselves. Critical thinking reveals to us that language or thoughts that we have emotionally invested ourselves heavily in are actually meaningless sounds to which we have associated real world objects/emotions/people. This is objective thinking which we keep recycling time and again in our brain. Objectivity is a function of left brain(logical/pattern based/conscious brain). While subjective thinking(abstract/subconscious/creative) which is a function of our right brain traps us in a world of our own imagination(but a reality for the person experiencing it). This is why we have human courts rather that machine courts. Because a machine can identify if a person steals but cannot understand the reason why he stole something.
Human laws are objective but only a human judge can consider the subjective aspects of the situation that required the breaking of the law by another human being. For example a human judge will reduce the sentence or leave a person free who stole food out of desperate hunger. But a computer AI judge cannot assimilate all the aspects of subjective reasons.
Personally I feel a delicate balance of objectivity(Knowledge) and subjectivity(Experience) is what will guide us in the correct path. Experience is however a far better tool for judging situations in individual's life but social obligations force people to rely on the recorded previous experience of other human beings which we call as knowledge. A human judge can sometimes intuitively judge a human being as innocent even if all evidence points against the person being judged.
A human judge basically balances his own knowledge of applicable laws and his own years of experience in his field of work and also his humanity to create a balanced judgement. This is really tricky and there can never be a perfect judgement based on experience or knowledge rather a balanced tradeoff. Life is more a negotiation(tradeoff) rather that an absolute state(absolute/ideal states exist only in the our objective mind).
Friends please do share your valuable comments 🙏.
You can check out more articles in the archives below -
Trust is a wealth that is diminishing at an astronomical rate from human society. Human society, culture, economy everything is dependent on this valuable commodity. This is not just one individuals or groups fault. We as a single species have this collective responsibility. We are always on the lookout for better things to trust. Because trust completes us in some unbelievably magical way which we know only with our heart.
We have to remember that one cannot clap with single hand alone. Our hand and the hand of universe works together to create what happens in our life. All creatures can exercise their natural rights given by nature to us for our food, sexual fulfillment, sleep and shelter but this right should not infringe upon the right of another creature to do the same. Trust is what happens as a consequence of following natural principles of living.
Trust is a privilege or rather a consequence and not a right nor can be enforced or demanded for. Trust is not a one way street, it is rather a living vibrant relationship, so we trusting someone blindly is not the foundation of trust. This is the reason why we think others breached our trust, since it was no trust at all. Rather it was blind belief. Since trust is something original and natural it comes from the heart and not human mind. It can be fooled temporarily but cannot be fooled to eternity. The objective duality of good/bad, pious/evil, right/wrong, truth/false can blind us from reality(singularity) that we are basically mirror images of the universe.
So we are as much responsible for everything around us as everybody else in this creation. So pointing fingers cannot achieve anything. Rather trust building is a complex human phenomenon controlled by the depth of human heart.
This is also the reason why we trust our gut instinct since it represents the wisdom of the ancient microorganisms in our gut who are the most ancient children of mother earth. They are as old as her and represents the collective wisdom of mother earth. They have evolutionary history as old as earth. This represents billions of years of evolutionary wisdom. But why do we ignore it also sometimes. But this will be subject for another blog called Paradox of life.
Friends please do share your valuable comments 🙏.
You can check out more articles in the archives below -
