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Intellectual Property in the Information AgeThe Role of NSF. The National Science Foundation has commissioned a report on the complexity of intellectual property (IP) with regard to digital technology. Even though advances in information technology get significant credit for the continued record expansion of the U.S. economy, concerns over copyrights, patents and trademarks keep computers and the Internet from reaching their full potential. What does it mean to "own" information that any consumer can duplicate at practically no cost? What if any user can with a keystroke make that duplicated information available worldwide? Reporting on "The Digital Dilemma." NSF provided about $500,000 to the National Academy of Sciences for a study by its Committee on Intellectual Property Rights and the Emerging Information Infrastructure. The committee's Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age, now published in book form, identifies pressing issues and recommends policies for dealing with them. The committee's chair, Randall Davis, is a professor of computer science at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology. He says that information infrastructure has the potential to be a "vast leveler," providing new accessibility for millions of users. But he also points out that this same technology can be a "stratifier," deepening the divide between information "haves and have-nots." Issues and Recommendations. The challenge facing the committee was to protect IP but not jeopardize the "digital dividend," the societal benefit derived from information technology. For instance, copyright laws have held that authors and publishers cannot control an individual copy of any work once that copy has been sold. Consumers can lend, rent or resell purchased items thanks to this law, without which libraries and used-book stores might not exist. The committee recommends that a similar law be written to preserve rights for creators of digital property, while ensuring public access. The committee recommends that the entire concept of "publication" be reevaluated and, if necessary, completely redefined. In the past, publication meant that a fixed copy of any work had been made irrevocably public. But that definition doesn't work on the Internet, where files can be modified repeatedly without a trace, with access permitted for perhaps only a segment of the public. The report calls for research into the concept of "copying" as it varies between communities. It also calls on policy makers not to focus only on the latest copying devices - which are continually changing - but to identify the underlying issues and broader implications. "Public compliance with intellectual property law requires a high degree of simplicity, clarity, straightforwardness and comprehensibility for all aspects of copyright law that deal with individual behavior," the committee writes. "New or revised IP laws should be drafted accordingly." Making Policy Amidst Rapid Technological Change. With so many IP questions still unanswered, the committee recommended that legislators go slowly regarding changes to IP law. Because information often resides on media with short lifetimes, the committee is asking Congress to pass legislation that would permit permanent copying of digital information for preservation and archival purposes. The committee identified the following current methods of protecting digital information:
Noting that such technologies are deployed and sometimes discarded "with lightning speed," they suggest that decision makers monitor the evolution to inform their future policy decisions. Apart from proposing minor changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, the committee argues for letting the marketplace work with minimal intrusion. For more information, see: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309064996/html
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