The risk experienced when overprotecting an intellectual property is the same risk incurred when under protecting the same intellectual property. Culture is a continuously growing field which advances with evolution in creativity among the artists. However, this creativity should be protected, and the people behind the great creations acknowledged for their work. Therefore, under protecting this creativity is dangerous to the artists since they might lose their works to other opportunists. For instance if a musician with great talent produces a song and posts it on his website, another person who advertises a products like Coke, for instance, picks it up and uses the song to advertise their product, this song will, therefore, most likely be referred to as a “coke song.” The coca cola company will have made millions of profits but the artist, on the other hand, will neither have received fame from the song nor monetary compensation.
Protecting the intellectual property, therefore, encourages the evolution of culture and its development as well. People are forced to buy the copies of CDs rather than just copy them for free. Therefore by doing this, the artists and the original brains of the products do not go unnoticed, they are well compensated for their creativity and their products respected. Protecting the intellectual property, therefore, is mainly beneficial to the artists more than the general public. Companies that make their software such as Apple are protected with this rights. This action in many cases stimulates a competitive environment through which the consumers are presented many viable products to choose from. If the original person’s creation is entirely not protected, then it means that there is no incentive to creating it in the first place. It is a useless endeavor to put all the struggles in all in the product which in the long run gets no appreciation.
References
Litman, J. (2001). Digital copyright: Protecting intellectual property on the Internet. Amherst, N.Y: Prometheus Books.
