Scenario 1 : Every fact becomes "Privately" Own
2007- The rise of WebBlogs and annoying Movies and CD producers
WebBlogs are becoming more and more popular, however, some people are using the stuff from other people's webBlog without notify them. They just think they publish their experiences or feeling on the website and they would like to share it with others. This indeed annoy some people. They just don't like others simply stole their ideas/experiences without state where they got them. There are even some lawsuits on webBlogs in US and China, two countries which have the largest users of webBlogs. Since there isn't any law established about the usage/reusage of the information about webBlog, this also brought some attention as far as the legislation concerned.
Another problem is that there are too many illegal videos and mp3 on the Internet, and all of these have caused significant loss to the movie producers such as Paramount, Pixar, Tristar, as well as CD producers such as Rolling Stone, Sony, EMI, MGM,etc. eMule also catch the attention of these big market producers. Since there are too many people download all kinds of illegal videos, mp3 and books by this fascination software. Up until the end of 2007, the download of eMule has reached nearly 300million times. The spirit of "sharing everything except our family" really scares and annoy those big companies due to their significant losses these years.
2008- China and US Government cooperate
Big movie and CD produce companies suit eMule about their "illegal" sharing of the movies and mp3 etc since Dec 8th, 2003, when it started up. They claim that alothough eMule is peer-to-peer file transferring, and most of people who are using it is not for comercial purpose, the truth is that so many people are using eMule that it significantly reduce the profit of those companies by providing "free" download to their potential customers.
Microsoft sign agreement with the China government about the protection of software. Both because of the pressure come from Microsoft and other foreign countries and enterprises in China also calls on the protection of software, brandname,etc. Since these dramatically affect the performance of the enterprise and to a large extent, the economic situation when a country's economy develop to an certain period of time. This is also the same situation in other Asian countries such as Malaysia, India,etc.
2009- Rise of Intellectual Property
A new law about the using of webBlog and other experiences information sharing on the website is established. In this law, it is stated that for the people who would like to share their experiences and information with others should use "Creative Commons" as their announcement of their copyright on it.
The lawsuit about eMule is still in hot discussion in this year. However, there is rumors saying that most likely, eMule will lose the lawsuit.
Most of the WebBlog are protected by the Intellectual Property. And apply for Intellectual Property become very simple and easy just like you go to the supermarket, and choose whatever you want. Thus, when you want to publish something you have read on the Internet to other places, you must state where you got them. Creative Commons became very popular. A lot of people using CC as kind of fashionable symbol for their website or some resources. Some of the people are also trying to earn money from the information they have, you need to pay a certain amount of money to publish their information elsewhere.
2010- All human knowledge are universally accessible & Niche Market
eMule lost the lawsuit against those big companies. Not only eMule, but also other peer-to-peer file transfer community such as Bit Torrent is also forbidden.
A lot of software sharing website in Universities of China is closed down. Before closing, this website can only access by the IP address inside the campus. There are thousands of free software on the website. You can even download Window XP and Office XP on the website.
At the same time, China government also try to persuade the software companies to reduct the price of software to sell more. Since the main problem in China as well as the other Asian countries for the copyright is the price issue. This is another way to look at the problem of piracy, and to solve it in another way. Most of the software companies offer relatively lower price to the individual customers. This indeed boost the market in some sense. Actually, due to the large amount of buying and the economy of scale, the software companies get higher ROI.
Imagine that all human knowledge is universally accessible on the World Wide Web and every fact becomes private property. As consequences everything that you will be able to get/use/download from the Web such as information, video, music, source code, software and etc. will be leased or sold.
People are commercializing everything and selling it and the most extreme case is even facts are patented!! The market becomes niche market as people who have the information can make a lot of money and monopolize the market. As information is getting more expensive, so does piracy increases. People can’t afford or does not want to pay for the information and thus pirated the stuffs. Piracy is stealing from those that have the information. Laws were established in order to change piracy into a crime and the world becomes chaotic as issues as minor as plagiarism will be bring to the court as every fact become patented. It is difficult to eliminate piracy.
The main players of piracy issues are the United States, ASEAN countries in general and China specifically. Piracy results in high loss of billions of dollars for the US Government and pressure the world to tighten or enforce Intellectual Property laws in each country. The problems of Intellectual Property of Web have become a big argument worldwide and new legislation will be needed. When the law can no longer handle the issues related to Intellectual Property, the main players that lost the most money is US government due to pirated software. When the US government can no longer tolerate the increasing piracy, misuse and abuses of Intellectual Property and the worst of all is that the world may be at war.
2011- Everything on the Web becomes Intellectual Property
The open standard (open source software/open content) will be diminished as everything will becomes Intellectual Property or patented and thus no people are willing to share their source code. As a result, there will be no cooperation and coordination in the advances and improvement of software or technology.
Intellectual Property are motivated by the economic realities of the information revolution where information is a value-added activity, which means everyone can profit by making every fact patented. It is definitely a money making business.
On the other good sides when all the facts are patented, there will be less redundancy of information or conflicting information as there can be no 2 patents on the same information.
References:
1. Intellectual plan established by China government
http://cn.news.yahoo.com/060430/346/2hf38.html