Boundaries Of Ownership Essays - Intellectual Property Law, Monopoly

Boundaries Of Ownership BOUNDARIES OF OWNERSHIP Nobody owns this essay. It is important that I make this very clear and that I do so at the earliest possible moment. I must do this because the essay that you are reading is about intellectual property, and that means that this essay must be self-referential. When one writes or speaks or communicates in any way about intellectual property, one is dealing with some of the most basic rules of the very medium in which one is operating. There is no neutral ground here, no possibility of genuine detachment or objectivity. Either I am going to claim the protection of the current laws that apply in the United States and under the World Intellectual Property Organization, or I am not. So here it is: I am not. There is a name just under the title of this essay, but that name has no connection with any concept of ownership. What you read here is not controlled by any copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents, trade secrets, or any other kind of intellectual property. The words on this page are not an authoritative version of this essay; no such version exists, and--as far as I am concerned--no such version ever will exist. The only limits on what you can do with this essay and the words in it are the limits imposed by the laws of physics and the extent of your imagination. As the available technologies advance, the limits will move outward, and you will be able to do more and more things with these words. No matter what you do with this material, I will not send lawyers chasing after you demanding royalties or anything else. If you do get into some sort of trouble for using something from this paper, that trouble won't be started by me. Why am I doing this? Why am I abandoning copyright protection for my own creation, for something that I might eventually be able to make some money from? I am not an independently wealthy dilettante doing all of my writing purely as some sort of hobby; my wife and I are both struggling along on the meager money we get paid for teaching. My bachelor's degree is in writing (technical writing, to be precise), and I am working on a master's degree in the same field--so why don't I act the way that you would expect a writer to act? Why should I toss away control over my own work with such apparent recklessness? The simplest answer is this: I don't think that I actually have any control in the first place. Any person with a cheap personal computer, a cheap Internet connection, and extremely cheap software has the ability to take anything that can be seen or heard, modify it in any way they choose, make unlimited numbers of copies, and send those copies anywhere in the world. If one reads the previous sentence carefully, one can find details to quibble over; but the proof of its basic truth stands in front of millions of people every time that they turn their computers on, whether these people notice it or not. I see the obviousness of it every day that I use a computer, which is practically every day. It is my inability to ignore this reality which has finally driven me to abandon the idea of intellectual property for my own creations and to write this paper. One of my favorite descriptions of the situation comes from an article by journalist Charles Mann in the September 1998 issue of Atlantic Monthly: The transformation of intellectual property into electronic form creates new problems. If the cost of manufacturing and distributing a product falls, economic forces will drive down its price, too. The Net embodies this principle to an extreme degree. Manufacturing and distribution costs collapse almost to nothing online: zeroes and ones can be shot around the world with a few clicks of a mouse. Hence producers of digital texts, music, and films will have trouble charging anything at all for copies of their works--competitors can always offer substitutes for less, pushing the price toward the vanishing point. . . . Even as digital technology drives the

TKM Essay

TKM Essay TKM Essay Gabriela Angeles 814 5/27/14 MS136 To Kill a Mockingbird In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus who is a lawyer chooses to defend a black man named Tom Robinson that was accused of raping a white woman which is Bob Ewells daughter. In my own opinion its a good thing that Atticus defends Tom because no one ever stands up for the black people just because of the color of their skin. The whites do not think that the blacks should have the same equal rights as they do. Atticus thinks its wrong for them to do that so he tries to help them in anyway he possibly can even if it means giving his family’s name a bad reputation but its worth it to take a stand for what he believes in. Atticus wants his kids to be like him when they grow up, to be respectful to people no matter what the color of their skin is. One reason that Atticus should defend Tom Robinson is because Atticus believes everyone should be equal. â€Å"The way that man called him ‘boy’ all the time and sneered at him† This shows in ­equality because Mr.Gilmer was calling Mr.Robinson â€Å"boy† and well basically he was trying to say Mr.Robinson was irresponsible.Dill said it made him sick the way Mr.Gilmer was speaking and he said it wasn’t right to treat them that way. As a lawyer, Atticus promises to defend anyone that needs his help.There will be no change in prejudice until everyone receives the same treatment in the court system.All people deserve a fair trial and a fair judgement by their peers.† simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.† His point is that he takes the case seriously because it requires him to make a moral decision.He has to stand up not just for Tom Robinson, but against the town. He has to make the choice to do what he thinks is right. The other reason why i believe Atticus should defend Tom Robinson is because he wants to set a good example for jem and scout.As a father Atticus is affecionate with his children, jem and scout, ready with a hug when they need comfort and availabe to spend time reading to them. Although he allows his children freedom to play and explore, he is also a firm disciplinarian, always teaching his children to think of how their actions affect others and devising punishments to teach his children valuable lessons.For example Atticus says â€Å"you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view ­until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.† what this quote means is that you have to look at and understand things from the way that other people do.This quote tells us that atticus is a good example for his children because he is trying to intstil good moral values into his childrenÍ ¾ he is endorsing the value of equality.This lesson of equality is important because Maycomb is a town that is full of social prejudices, specifically social prejudice towards the black community.Not only does Atticus tell his children to treat people equally but he actually acts on his own words,making him a perfect role model.To show that Atticus is knowledgeable and a good example he says â€Å"this time we aren’t fighting the yankees, we’re fighting our friends.But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they’re still our friends and this is our home.†This quote shows us that Atticus does not want his problem to become a problem for scout and jem. Some people say that Atticus should not have defended Tom Robinson because it created conflict for his family.It created problems for scout at school.†He had announced in the schoolyard the day before that Scout Finch’s daddy defended niggers.† Cecil Jacobs was teasing scout because her dad was defending Mr.Robinson.Atticus told scout