Ever since I took apart my first computer at age ten I have been enthralled by technologycool, you're a techie. My parents encouraged this interest by letting me troubleshoot the family electronics. And my friends have been more than welcome to this tech savvy behavior, when it means their essay, born from a mix of blood, sweat, and coffee, can be brought back from the digital graveyardthis sentence doesn't make sense to me. This interest would eventually lead me into situations that would spark a strong interest in intellectual property lawI hope you have an engineering background, b/c from what I hear that's what you need to be an IP lawyer, patents at least.
It was not until college that I was able to pursue this interest in a professional setting, and when the opportunity to work at the Office of Information Technology presented itself I was quick to take advantage of it. My employment at OIT would lead me to my first interactions with intellectual property lawI think this is using the passive voice. I discovered the open source movement, full of programmers held to a code of ethics which stressed the freedom of information. This new code was foreign to me, because I assumed that any quality work must have some monetary price attached to it. OIT also introduced me to one of the most contentious issues in information technology and intellectual property law: where the interests of owners and users meet. I would quickly learn that this struggle between owner and user was more than just a set of laws and standards, but a normative battle being fought on college campuses across AmericaBut where do the two parties intersect?.
This war has been laid out by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and at OIT, this legislation has translated into a nightmare of paperwork and terminated internet connections. My colleagues and I facefaced? or do you still work there? these challenges everyday when we put on our nametag, uniform, and say missing a comma, and capitalized C“can I help you” with a smile. I distinctly remember being offered money from an overprotective mother, trying to convince me that I was able to put an end to her daughter’s copyright violation. Unfortunately I was not, and after some time I was able to inform her of the laws that bound the university to take some form of action against her daughter. It was these experiences at the university that opened my eyes to the level of disconnect there is between intellectual property laws as written law, and the way the public perceives and reacts to these lawsIs this passive voice too?.
While I am explaining early settlement letters to penniless students shocked to be facing $5000 fines, I am continuing to interact with the open source movement, which operates completely differently this is strange using two lys in a rowfrom the Recording Industry Association of America. While working with OIT open source developers, I was given the opportunity to test a pre-release version of an operating system hand crafted for use by UMassI would spell it out and not use abbreviations students. This new software was preloaded with many free open source alternatives to expensive software that is frequently pirated by students. I was shocked by what I found: the software was surprisingly complete, and much of it I still use today. This group of pseudo-socialist programmers is on to something, and they are adding safe alternatives to piracy or bankruptcyhow does bankruptcy come into play here; I missed the connection.
It was not until my junior year that my IT minor would run me into yet another roadblock of intellectual property law, which a new-age sect of tech savvy programmers and lawyers is trying to subvertpassive voice again?. The Creative Commons would be used by my classdamn you use a lot of passive voice, which was required to use legally obtained graphics and music, but was unable to pay for them. Yet again, I was surprised by the adequacy of these free resources, and the amount of intent that went into allowing this type of licensing to be possibleso you're giving another example of the same insight? wasted space if you ask me. My further research would reveal a number of options for artists to license their artyou're killing me; offered to them for free by the Creative Commons, all made in an attempt to serve a wide range of contributors. These experiences with the world of intellectual property, have given me a glimpse of the ways in which license owners and users are attempting to coexist. This glimpse has inspired a great interest. Not a brilliant programmer, I still find myself compelled to contribute to this conversation of the evolution of intellectual property law and technology. Assisting a corporation in asserting their rights over their own property, or working with a group dedicated to finding original solutions to this conflict between owner and end-user are exciting optionsI thought you were going to talk about the intersection of the two, not how they are different. Law school, with a focus in intellectual property is the next step for me to take these interests further towards my goals.