Intellectual property is employed in multiple areas to govern individual rights to and ownership of products and ideas of the mind. These laws play a big role in encouraging people to be more innovative and creative to come up with new ideas. Protection of these ideas is essential as one will be credited for their contribution to the innovation. In essence, intellectual property rights have a general benefit to the society. The originator of the idea or work/ creation is granted a bundle of rights to own and use the ideas or the intellectual creation as they may desire (Charnley, 2011). In practice, Intellectual property circumvents four legal areas, which each area governing innovations of different description and promoting different policies. These areas may include copyright, trade secrets, trademarks and patent.
Media law, on the other hand, is concerned with the rules and regulations that are related to the entertainment industry. In practice, this law overlaps with the law of intellectual property in several ways. Although this is the case, media law always involves questions of contract law, employment law, bankruptcy law, labor law, right of publicity, trademarks, and copyright among others. Media law is mostly concerned on transactions such as drafting contracts, mediation and negotiation. At times, this may involve litigation and arbitration.
In many cases, media law involves protecting the creativity and innovations of people. Without such protection, illegal practices such as piracy would be promoted to high standards. This calls for the media law to protect the intellectual property of people. As a component of intellectual property, copyright ensures there is adequate protection of the benefits arising from creative efforts of people (Charnley, 2011). Authorship or original work should be protected against such negative practices. Creativity and innovativeness are always put to work in the music and film industries. Music and film form part of the media industry. Without protecting the creativity of these original innovators, there will be a risk of not promoting them or subjecting them to unfair practices, killing the industry. According to the intellectual property law, the owner of the copyright should exclusively own and enjoy the rights to reproduce their work, decide how to distribute, perform or display it. The innovators should also have the opportunity to recreate other derivative works from the original work exclusively. With his in mind, the producers and innovators will have the exclusive rights o how their property and ideas are to be used with absolute control. Apart from deciding on distribution, the idea owners also get the right of determining when and how to transfer such rights to other parties such as the media and other entertainment channels. The purposes of copyright cannot be understated. By giving the innovators financial incentives to come up with new works, copyrights stimulate creativity in the society (Charnley, 2011). With the media industry being a major beneficiary from such creativity and innovativeness, there is need to protect the producers to ensure they are rewarded because of the role they play in the industry.
Media law should also address issues dealing with trademarks. Unlike copyright, trademark law encompasses usage rights in phrases, symbols and words that identify the source of goods r services. When one is guaranteed a trademark to their ideas or innovativeness, they have the capacity to stop other people from using such trademarks in connection with goods and services that are similar. Trademark law has a big role in the media industry, hence the need for the media law to protect intellectual property. The media or entertainment channels have a tendency of employing famous trademarks as catch phrases to attract viewership and attention of the audience. In most cases, the original innovators of such phrases are not compensated or rewarded for the role they played in coming u with such trademarks. Media law can intervene to ensure that the owners benefit from fro their creativeness and innovativeness. According to the law, a trademark ensures that the consumers are protected from unnecessary confusion about the source of a goo or service (Charnley, 2011). The secondary purpose of this type of law is to ensure that companies and individuals who have spent their time, money and effort to come up with a valuable idea are protected from unfair practices which might render the value of such ideas useless. With trademark, this is solved. Most of the complaints about the violation of the intellectual property rights are reported in the entertainment industry and the media in general. Because f this, the media law should be expounded to ensure intellectual property rights are protected.
The other components of the intellectual property that are directly affected by media are patents and trade secrets. Patent law ensures that ownership rights are granted to individuals who come up with unique procedures, processes, discoveries and inventions. The law gives such individuals protection from the media and other sources of controversy. Effectively, the patent owner is given exclusive rights to exploit their inventions for some period. Without this protection, the owners would be in a disadvantageous position as most of their original work will be exploited y the media and other people, meaning they will t stand a chance to benefit from their creativity and innovativeness (Charnley, 2011). Because of the need to protect outsiders from violating such laws, intellectual property laws lay a major role. The media law, therefore, plays a major role in protecting intellectual property.
Controversy of National Security Administration
One of the key roles that the America government plays is to ensure security of the nation from both internal and external threats. The National Security Administration is tasked with the role of ensuring that the government is alert to address any security threat. In order to achieve this, the American government employs various systems to collect intelligence and crucial information about potential threat. At times, such methods that he government employs have turned out to be an infringement of the rights of the citizens. The major question that arises is as to the extent to which the government can infringe individual rights at the expense of the universal security. The conflict that arises regards the infringement of the right to privacy for the purposes of national security. This was the situation that the National Security Administration found itself in after one o their long-term employees (Snowden) blew the whistle about the illegal practices that were carried out to ensure security was provided (Fenster, 2011). Whereas some people considered him a hero for exposing the ill-practices the government engaged in, some consider him a villain and a traitor to the government for leaking such crucial information. All in all, the Snowden documents present a perfect opportunity to discuss the controversy in the National Security Administration.
In several occasions, the secrets of the government have been exposed, leading to public outcry because of their negative nature. Such exposes have elicited condemnation from the public because of lack of transparency from the government. Snowden is well-remembered for the role he played in disclosing government documents that were classified, bringing about a major debate in the United States of America. The National Security Administration ran surveillance programs with assistance from other external institutions I the telecommunication industry. Accordingly, these surveillance programs monitored every movement of the prominent personalities in the world, including presidents and rich businessmen (Fenster, 2011). As reported by the Guardian, Snowden worked with the National Security Administration, hence understood of the activities that were taking place in the agency.
Snowden’s move to disclose the documents to the public ensured the secrets of the Administration were revealed to the public. Te first program that Snowden disclosed was the PRISM. According to Snowden, this program enabled the administration to have unlimited access to America’s Google and Yahoo accounts. By having this access, the Administration would have the opportunity to access the accounts of the citizens without their permission. This is an infringement to the rights of the citizens that is protected by the constitution. The Tempora was the other program that was disclosed. According to the disclosure made on this program, the Administration could record every single phone communication in America. Apart from this, it gave the Administration access to the phone and internet records of French citizens and other high profile people in the business and political sector all over the world (Fenster, 2011). Apart from the two programs mentioned above, Snowden disclosed several other programs that the Administration used to collect information. These disclosures were a source of public outcry in America and the other parts of the world. Many leaders condemned this as they claimed America was infringing on the freedom and right to privacy. Nevertheless, two groups emerged: those who considered Snowden to be a hero and those who considered him to be a villain.
Division of opinion on Snowden
Snowden’s move to disclose such sensitive documents elicited unprecedented debate in America and the globe in general. Because of such disclosures, the American press got a chance to hold the Executive branch accountable for the actions it had taken. During this period, the judiciary and the legislative branch did not subject the executive branch to task. Because of this, many citizens argued that the judicial system in America is one-sided, in most cases used a rubber stamp by the government (Fenster, 2011). Experts such as Daniel Ellsberg argued that Snowden’ s move was heroic, terming him to have contributed much to the constitution as regards to the First and Fourth Amendments, more than anybody in the American history. James Clapper (Director in National Intelligence), on the other hand, condemned Snowden’s action, predicting the move as undermining the intelligence capabilities of the United States of America.
Why Snowden was a hero
As a whistleblower to the illegal activities that the government was engaging in, Snowden disclosed some secrets that infringed the rights of citizens. Such disclosures prompted companies and other countries to erect borders so as to protect their cyberspace from external interference. The NSA ad engaged in wrong practices by violating the privacy of the citizens. Although the government has a role of collecting information so as to protect them from any form of threat, there is no justification of violating individual rights. Because of this, many people argued that NSA was engaging in dangerous activities which should never be practiced. By exposing these activities, many people considered Snowden as a hero (Fenster, 2011). This should be the position because although he undermined the position of NSA, he ensured that individual rights such as privacy are protected.
Corporations and why they should be allowed to contribute to political campaigns
There is a big debate in America as to whether corporations should be allowed unlimited contributions to political campaigns. The fact that this issue was forwarded to the Supreme Court for an opinion shows the extent to which it has been debated in the United States of America. The case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission directly addresses this debate (Johnston et al. 2010). This paper argues that there is no offense or injustice in allowing corporations to spend any amount they wish on political campaigns.
Over the years, the position has been that corporations, nonprofit organizations, unions and trade associations have not been allowed to directly fund political campaigns. In making an argument about this, it is important to first make a distinction between corporations and individuals and the ilk they have on matters of independent expenditures. Traditionally, the argument against allowing corporations to contribute to political campaigns was based on the argument that such a move would give rise to corruption. In essence, there is danger that the political party in power may favor certain corporations at the expense of others because of the support accorded during the elections. There is need to understand that access to the officials who are elected does not overly mean that such leaders are corrupt. It would be wrong for the electorate to give up on democracy because organizations support political parties during campaigns (Johnston et al. 2010).
Allowing corporations to make contributions to political campaigns is in itself a form of expression. Similar to individuals, corporations have the values that they adhere and base their actions on. The First Amendment of the constitution of America protects such a right of expression. Corporations are operated by human beings who have the ability to make decisions on how the corporations should be operated. Limiting them as to the amount they should contribute to political campaigns is a violation of the rights they have to make decisions at the benefit of the corporation (Johnston et al. 2010). In doing so, however, necessary mechanisms should be put in place to ensure that corruption practices are not encouraged. It is also necessary that all members of such corporations share a similar idea to fund political corporations.
Corporations and companies are independent, meaning that they can make decisions without any external pressure from governmental institutions. Corporations have the independence of deciding how to spend their money, provided that such expenditure does not involve corrupt practices. In this century, corporations are not run by conservatives. The need to allow corporations to make unlimited contributions o political parties cannot, therefore, be underrated. In doing so, it should be ensured that the political party that wins does not engage in activities of rewarding the corporations that contributed to their campaigns. If this can be controlled, there is no need to limit the amount corporations spend in political campaigns.
Whether Corporation have the same free speech rights as individuals
This issue has been debated upon in a number of circumstances. Although many arguments have been given, corporations have the same free speech rights as individuals. Through the concept of corporate personhood, corporations are allowed the same degree of rights and responsibilities as individuals. A corporation is identified as a legal person, with the ability to make decisions, enter into contracts, sue one another or be sued in a court of law. This means they have similar qualities as individual human beings. Although this is the case, the concept does no connote that corporations are blood and flesh. Granting them speech rights are, therefore, a necessity because they can be held liable for any wrongdoing. In law, the jurisdictional person should have similar rights to the natural rights, although not all of them. The exceptions that are given do not cover speech rights, meaning that corporations have such rights (Johnston et al. 2010).
In America, the issue whether corporations have similar speech rights to individuals was determined in the case of Trustees of Dartmouth v. Woodward. In this case, the Supreme Court opined that jurisdictional persons and natural persons have similar rights under the constitution. The ability to contract and thereof o enforce contracts is one example of how corporations have similar rights of speech to individual. These rights are protected under the Constitution's First Amendment. As such, corporations have free speech rights which are protected by the constitution.
References
Charnley, P. (2011). Copyright in newspaper headlines and online media monitoring services. Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, 294-296.
Fenster, Mark. (2011). Disclosure's Effects: Wiki-Leaks and Transparency, 87-98.
Johnston, R., & Pattie, C. (2010). Funding Local Political Parties in America: Donations and Constituency Campaigns. The American Journal of Politics and International Relations, 365-395.
