Life in the Network

When it’s so easy to find and re-use images, does that change the way we should think about intellectual property rights?
Legally, I would have to say no. This is because people still have a right to own their labor. This belief that we all have a right to own our own labor is a very own idea, and is the bases of our democracy (read Hobbes). To question this theory is to go against the very idea of self. This is because people taking other’s work and making it their own, even in the most minutest way, takes away from the creativity or the original mind which conceived the idea. For example, imagine a world where no one got credit for their work. I would imaging that the level of creativity would plummet.

Has the abundance of mp3 blogs made you worry less about paying for music, and should we keep buying music according to the old model?
I most certainly think we should. This is because it is illegal to steal music. Is it easier to take music off the internet, yes. However, it does not make it right. This is further outlined thus, “I [Barlow] refer to the problem of digitized property. The enigma is this: If our property can be infinitely reproduced and instantaneously distributed all over the planet without cost, without our knowledge, without its even leaving our possession, how can we protect it (wired.com April 2007)?� This quote outlines a reasonable worry about protecting an idea. However, Barlow’s quote lends credence to my argument, that an idea is still owned, and whether it is easy or not to steal it, the idea is still owned. Therefore, we aught to keep buying music, because we owe it the music’s conceiver to give them credit for their work.

What does “intellectual property� mean when we’re doing collaborative work online, particularly the sort of work you did last week on Wikipedia?
In the case of Wikipedia, intellectual property is given freely. Due to the fact that one owns their own work, then I would say that one can also freely give it away in a collaborative work.

What if lots of people are working on the same project or using parts of other projects to make their own original work, or mashups ?
For me it all depends. This is because ideas once again belong to the conceiver. If one person involves themselves in a group, as this scenario insists, then the still own the ideas they share. That means that when someone uses another’s idea and incorporates it into their finished product, that person still owes credit to the person they originally took an idea from. Much in the same way an automobile company makes money on their cars, but owe money to others who own patents on the automobile’s components. Ford makes money on the car, but still pays a royalty to a break maker they use for their cars.
This all has a precedent in the disinagration of the commons in renaissance England. There was once, common land that was used by commoners and nobility alike for agricultural purposes. However, as the growth of ownership gained provenance in the more current era, the commons were bought up. The internet will ultimately become this way, because people will always seek to own their work, just as Englishmen sought to own the land they worked over 300 years ago. (in reaction to the article , “Cyberspaces Leagle Visionary�