Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Davis, Lee --- "Should the Logic of ‘Open Source’ be Applied to Digital Cultural Goods? An Exploratory Essay" [2006] ELECD 104; in Porsdam, Helle (ed), "Copyright and Other Fairy Tales" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Copyright and Other Fairy Tales

Editor(s): Porsdam, Helle

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845426019

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Should the Logic of ‘Open Source’ be Applied to Digital Cultural Goods? An Exploratory Essay

Author(s): Davis, Lee

Number of pages: 18

Extract:

7. Should the logic of `open source'
be applied to digital cultural goods?
An exploratory essay
Lee Davis

INTRODUCTION
While digitization has affected all forms of intellectual property rights (IPRs)
­ patents, trademarks, copyrights, and the like ­ its strongest impact has been
felt in the copyright industries. For example while patent protection has been
extended to cover many inventions in software and software-implemented
business methods, most patented products (such as drugs, chemicals, elec-
tronic circuits and machines) have retained their physical form. Similarly,
while the trademark system has been the focus of bitter conflicts over the
rights to use particular marks as Internet domain names without confusing and
misleading customers, most trademarked products (such as automobiles, soft
drinks, cereals and perfumes) have remained physical as well.1
In industries where copyrights are important, digitization has affected every
form of innovation, in terms of both the underlying technology used to
produce them, and the inventions themselves. Software programs are the most
obvious example. But almost all cultural works, including paintings, literature,
recorded music, TV broadcasts, films and video games, can now be expressed
in virtual form. These works can be transmitted over the Internet, easily acces-
sible to anyone, anywhere, around the world, readily altered by the click of the
mouse. Not only have the copyright industries grown extremely rapidly in
recent years, but pervasive digitization has also challenged the foundations of
copyright law.
One result has been an increased interest in the economic role of copyrights,
either specifically (Landes and ...