copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

and all subsequent laws made in its support. The notion of anti-copyright combines a group of ideas and ideologies that advocate changing the current copyright law. It often focuses on the negative philosophical, economic, or social consequences of copyright, and that it has never been a benefit to society, but instead serves to enrich a few at the expense of creativity. Some groups may question the logic of copyright on economic and cultural grounds. The members of this movement are in favor of either a significant overhaul or repeal of current copyright law.

Michele Boldrin Michele Boldrin (; 20 August 1956) is an Italian-born academic, former politician, YouTuber, and economist working in the areas of economic growth, business cycles, technological progress, and intellectual property. He is the Joseph Gibson Hoy ...

and

David K. Levine David Knudsen Levine (born c. 1955) is an American economist. He is the Leverhulme International Professor of Economics at Royal Holloway, University of London; Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Study Joint Chair at the European University Insti ...

, economists at Washington University in St. Louis, have suggested that copyrights and

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

s are a net loss for the economy because of the way they reduce

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indi ...

in the

free market In economics, a free market is an economic market (economics), system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of ...

. They refer to copyrights and patents as intellectual monopolies, akin to industrial monopolies, and they advocate phasing out and eventually abolishing them. The classic argument in defense of copyright is the view that giving the developers a temporary monopoly over their works encourages further development and creativity, giving the developer a source of income, and thus encourages them to continue their creative work; usually copyright is secured under the Berne Convention, established by

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romanticism, Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician. His most famous works are the novels ''The Hunchbac ...

and first adopted in 1886. Every country in the world has copyright laws and private information ownership has not been repealed anywhere officially. Numerous international agreements on copyright have been concluded since then, but copyright law still varies from country to country. Copyright is also massively rejected by those partaking in

online piracy Online piracy or software piracy is the practice of downloading and distributing copyrighted works digitally without permission, such as music, movies or software. History Nathan Fisk traces the origins of modern online piracy back to similar ...

and other participants of

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network, forming a peer-to-peer network of Node ...

networks, who put copyrighted materials into public access. In addition, in the context of the Internet, Web 2.0, and other newer technologies, it has been argued that copyright laws need to be adapted to modern information technology.It is a ongoing debate in many parts of the world.

References

Free software culture and documents Political movements Criticism of intellectual property

abolition Abolition refers to the act of putting an end to something by law, and may refer to: *Abolitionism, abolition of slavery *Capital punishment#Abolition of capital punishment, Abolition of the death penalty, also called capital punishment *Abolitio ...

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See also

References