The Rise and Impact of Global Intellectual Property Law

In 1996, the World Intellectual Property Organization created two treaties that formed the basis for modern global intellectual property law: the WIPO Copyright Treaty, and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty. These treaties, adopted by the United States in 1998 with the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), were designed to address the dissemination of copyrighted works over the Internet, while also addressing the legality of technology or devices used for digital rights management (DRM). Since then, with the rise of programs like Napster, Kazaa, and BitTorrent providing intellectual property lawyers worldwide with much controversy to work with, there has been much debate over the sort of impact that the rise of global IP law has had on the telecom industry, and on the economy in general. Yet, when looking at the facts, it is obvious that global IP law has had a positive impact, particularly in the technology sector.

For the telecom industry, the rise of global IP law has been a great advancement because it provides governments with an impetus to protect Internet service providers in cases involving copyright infringement. For instance, the DMCA established legal protections in the United States for companies providing Internet access to customers who repeatedly use those networks for illegal activity, such as counterfeiting or downloading pirated content (U.S. Copyright Office, 1998). It makes more sense to prosecute the individual customers who are violating the law than it does to punish the company providing access to the Internet, particularly if there’s no way the company could have known their networks were being used for illicit purposes. Laws like the DMCA and the WIPO treaties help keep Internet providers out of court so they can do what they do best: get their customers online.

In the age of the Internet, the economy is greatly aided by the proliferation of global IP laws. Property rights laws have always been important in physical dealings, with patents, copyrights, trademarks, and the like available to inventors and artists to protect their work from being stolen. By providing an impetus for individuals and businesses to not just keep up with the competition’s ideas, but surpass them, strong property rights help promote beneficial industrial progress at a minimal cost to the public (Dutfield & Suthersanen, 2008). This can especially be seen in the technology sector, where both software and hardware companies are able to enjoy a great deal of competition and innovation in the development of new applications and devices because of global IP law reform. Since restrictions have been put in place on lifting code or design specs wholesale from another company, many tech companies step up to craft new, more sophisticated goods in the name of providing a better product than their competitor (Branstetter, Fisman, Foley, & Saggi, 2013). Considering that some types of intellectual property may provide a great deal of public good, the development of intellectual property protections in the name of spurring innovation is definitely useful to the economy.

Widespread use of the Internet has greatly changed the way that intellectual property is viewed and disseminated. Unfortunately, an uphill battle is still being fought against online piracy, which accounted for close to $75 billion in product loss in 2008, a number expected to rise to nearly $215 billion by 2015 (ITU News, 2011). However, despite the difficulty of curbing illegal activity, global IP laws have been a definite boon to both the telecom industry, and the general economy. Global IP laws protect content producers from having their ideas stolen or copied, foster innovation among companies and individuals, and help Internet service providers give access to their customers while ensuring the provider won’t be penalized if their networks are used for illicit activity. Thankfully, global IP laws have a strong future ahead of them.

References

Branstetter, L., Fisman, R., Foley, C. F., & Saggi, K. (2011). Does intellectual property rights reform spur industrial development? Journal of International Economics, 83(1), 27-36.

Dutfield, G., & Suthersanen, U. (2008). Global intellectual property law. Cheltenham, UK: E. Elgar.

ITU News. (2011). Intellectual property rights in today's digital economy. ITU News. Retrieved from http://www.itu.int/net/itunews/issues/2011/07/38.aspx

U.S. Copyright Office. (1998). The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998: U.S. Copyright Office summary. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.