I agree with the notion that intellectual property
serves a beneficial purpose, or at least that was its original intention, as
described in "Everything is a Remix". However, I also happen to agree
with the premise of this film that the market economy has overtaken and
subverted our social evolution purely for greed and personal gain, which are
counter-intuitive to the social good inherent in the creation of copyright laws
some two hundred years ago. The real question is: where is this leading us as a
society when we reward greed over the common good. In that sense, I'm all for
the message behind this film!
Let's look at hypothetical multiple-choice answers
to the question, "What is the number one reason people sue others?"
If you asked most of these individuals and corporations why they sued do you
think it would be A) "because of the common good", B) "because
they stole my idea", or C) "because I saw an opportunity to make a
lot of money and the laws were in my favor, so I took advantage of it".
Personally speaking, I think that this trait is an expression of
individualism pushed to the extreme, and instead of reining it in, the legal,
social, economic and political systems we currently have in the West reward this
trait. In my opinion, this is one reason why westerners - rightly or wrongly - are
often perceived by non-westerners to be so self-absorbed and self-serving.
Great post and ideas here Danae. I haven't seen the video yet but I plan to. "Individualism pushed to the extreme" is a great quote here. I agree that is partly why westerners are sometimes viewed as being self-absorbed or self-serving, but the other side of that coin is innovation in the last few decades the likes of which have not been replicated elsewhere. Windows, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google---the list goes on. The question, in my mind, is where is the balance to be found between our self-absorption and our innovation?
ReplyDeleteThat is indeed an excellent question Dennis!
DeleteDanae, I agree..the free market is out of control. Who do we blame? A government that is completely paid off and nearly completely controlled by big money. Governments need to see the massive companies as the enemy and fight to keep money out of government. -P
ReplyDeleteI think you are asking the important question in all of this. "Where is it leading us as a society?" It would be nice if the judicial and legislative branches of the US think about this question when deciding on these cases.
ReplyDeleteI agree Steve; however in the US it seems that both judges, as well as senators and many congressmen and women are too beholden to business and corporate money, which clouds the original purpose of democratic politics: to serve the nation. Instead it seems that many of these people and corporations are serving mainly themselves. I don't have any concrete answers but it seems that when the upper levels of government are corrupted by money interests, that it will be hard to enact true changes that would benefit the whole of society. Some even say that another revolution is needed in the US to bring about real changes for the common good.
ReplyDelete