[Commons-Law] Shekhar Kapur on IP and Piracy

[Lawrence Liang]

Came across some interesting references to IP and piracy from the film 
industry, and was delighted to see Shekhar kapur's response from his 
blog which is vastly different fomr Aamir Khan and Yash Copra and Co.

http://www.screenindia.com/news/Piracy-is-Bollywoods-greatest-concern/284830/

http://www.shekharkapur.com/blog/archives/2006/11/intellectual_pr.htm


      Intellectual Property and Piracy

I have been both attending and speaking on conferences on the future of 
Media and Technology. I use the two terms together as more and more 
Technlogy and Entertainment/Media are converging to become the same 
bussiness. One thing that consistantly comes up is the question of 
Intellectual property and Piracy. I think the lawyers/Corporations have 
got it completely wrong...

Intellectual Property (IP) is not and cannot be either constant or 
extreme. If it were, then in the modern world there would be no chance 
of sharing of ideas, of scientific discovery, even of propogation of 
faith. Imagine if the Bible, the Koran or The Mahabharatha were 
protected by IP ? Imagine if the teachings of Buddha were protected by 
an IP just because one of his disciples actually wrote them down as he 
spoke.

Imagine if Einstein's equations were patented or protected from use 
wthout financial considerations. Where would scientific discovery be ? 
One of the problems with scientific discovery these days, especially in 
the field of medicine, such as a cure for Aids, is that groups or 
individuals are terrified by the idea of sharing discoveries in case 
they cannot protect their financial interests.

I am not denying that people must be rewarded for their effort, and not 
inconsiderable expense. But when the whole scientific and medical 
communities are motivated by one just goal, the creation of products 
that are so well protected that they can extract huge profit for a huge 
amount of time, it all becomes a bit ghoulish.

But let me get back to my own field. Media and Entertainment. We are 
more and more moving int a digital and an instantaneous world. Where the 
commercial life of a product may be huge but for shorter and shorter 
periods of time. For example a Video on youtube when it works ut its 
revenue models. A popular video in the future may get a billion 
downloads in a couple of days and make a billion dollars.

In that scenario, how long would the video maker ask for protection of 
intellectual property ? One week maybe ? And then allow the video to be 
downloaded free, so that he/she gets a huge following for the next 
video. I know this is an extreme example, but then it is good to look at 
extreme examples to understand the nature of the problem.

Corporations scream about Piracy. The big music corporations went 
ballistic and got Napster shut down. Only to realize that Napster showed 
them the way to revive their flagging music sales through single song 
downloads. Napster was the origins of the Ipod and Itunes.

Microsoft complain about Piracy in India and China and calculate the 
loss of revenue in billions fo dollars. Knowing full well that none of 
the people who bought pirated copies of the software would have ever 
been able to afford buy the software at it's official retail price. But 
in using their (even pirated) software, they are becoming users of 
hardware and software, and are entering the consumer market. Surely that 
must be good for growth of Microsoft.

At a meeting at the World Economic Forum, one gentleman was complaining 
that he was being ripped of in India. he had paid huge sums of money for 
the rights to the brand of Tommy Hillifiger in India, and now people 
were just making T shirts and printing the Tommy Hillifiger logo and 
selling them on the street side at a fraction of his cost. He wanted 
them arrested and put into jail for Piracy.

Hey ! Ever consider what extra intrinsic value you are providing the 
consumer by printing a brand name on the T shirt ? Till u do that, there 
will always be piracy. For the pirate is probaby a small trader looking 
for an oppertunity to make some money to look after his family.

Shekhar