The aim of IP protection was to encourage creativity for the common good, so that knowledge could be openly available, allowing creators and the community to profit from ideas put into practice.
Does it work that way?
As things stand, IP rights are valuable only if you have the time, money and energy to enforce them. If you�re a media giant, you can afford to have a battalion of lawyers. But for the average designer or inventor, is it worth the time and energy?
IP protection can be a statement about our intellectual worth: �My ideas have value�. And value equals respect. A trademark or patent can give us (and our investors) the courage to proceed.
But all too often the time, effort, and money given over to IP protection is to comply with demands of accountants, lawyers and grant-givers, wanting creativity to be measured, made tangible, wrapped up in a balance sheet. We have evidence of perverse incentives: public organisations seeking patents as a measure of productivity prior to funding rounds, with no intention of following through. Yet what value is there in a brilliant design if it is never used?
Does our current model encourage and harness creativity for public benefit? Or just leave us with a virtual mountain of underutilised ideas, a waste of time and talent spent trapped in a defensive mindset.
Think Star Trek: The mission of the Starship Enterprise was to boldly go where no one had gone before, but when full power went to the shields everything but basic life support was shut down.
What if the shields weren�t there? What if Intellectual Property Protection didn�t exist? If ideas could not be owned, how would all our current business and finance models work?
It could be good for people who can respond quickly to change. If anyone could reproduce a design, then benefits would flow to the person who could produce the best quality or value for money design, and who can best meet the needs of the market.
We are already seeing the emergence of new business models built around free IP. Software like Moodle produced under Creative Commons is free to use, but companies are making money helping others apply it effectively.
It has been said that successful start-ups in the IT field have much in common in their early days with charities, more so than conventional businesses. They often provide free services, sustained in the early days by their vision to change the world. The energy to continue in the face of obstacles is more likely to come from the intrinsic joy of creating than from the carrot of money.
We�ve detected a shift in attitude away from IP protection. Whether it�s due to the dissolving of international boundaries, or the experiences of the internet generation used to online collaboration and sharing; the way we communicate, design, copy, and live has changed.
This does leave the question : how do we make money to support creating now? How do we convince the banks to lend and fund? Conservative investors want proof that you will succeed, but the essence of creativity is a step into the unknown.
The accountants sitting in judgment are more comfortable with spreadsheets which assume the past projects the future. While the sun is very likely to rise again tomorrow, next to nothing will be the same in 25 years time.
Our business and IP models need to change accordingly.
