The authors, David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu, argue in their book "Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs" that the current IP law, which was originally designed to protect individual creators and their works, has evolved into a tool for corporate giants to control and profit from cultural capital. They contend that this corporate control deprives the public of access to cultural products, which they view as public goods. They also criticize the extension of copyright duration, which now lasts for seventy years after the creator's death or up to 120 years for corporate authors, arguing that it primarily benefits corporations at the expense of individual creators and the public.
Key takeaways:
- Intellectual property (IP) is a significant source of wealth and is increasingly owned by a small number of large corporations, with rights not due to expire for a long time.
- IP rights come in several legal forms including copyrights, patents, design rights, publicity rights, and trademarks, and they have both an economic value and a social cost.
- IP law is viewed by some as a regulatory instrument for business rather than a set of rules protecting individual rights, with corporate control of cultural capital potentially robbing the commons.
- The duration of copyright has been extended several times and now lasts seventy years from the death of the creator for individuals, and up to 120 years for corporate authors, meaning most works created today will not enter the public domain until long after their creators are dead.