A Charter for the Future of Intellectual Property. Copyfight:
Over the past year, James Boyle has been fighting to expose the truth about how intellectual property law and policy is crafted: in the dark, with the only light provided by the glimmer of faith.Now Boyle has struck another blow against faith-based initiatives. He's gathered a group of artists, scientists, lawyers, politicians, economists, academics, and business experts to form the Adelphi Charter. This posse, which includes Gilberto Gil and Nobel Laureate Sir John Sulston, has developed a set of principles for vetting proposals for new copyrights and patents, and urges governments around the world to apply a new public interest test. The group also advocates what it calls a "new, fair, user-friendly and efficient way of handing out intellectual property rights in the 21st century." It hearkens back to the days of Thomas Jefferson, when, Boyle observes, "even the proponents of intellectual property saw it as a necessary evil, something to be limited to the narrowest scope and time necessary."
As with most self-described IP minimalists, I place tremendous value in protecting the creator and owner rights in copyrights, trademarks, and patents. When the various IP monopoly exceptions are being abused by businesses resistant to forces of economic and technological change, however, it's time to redress the imbalance and return some power to the smaller players in our economy: entrepreneurs and individual customers.
