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Intellectual property education is the teaching of explanations of and arguments concerning intellectual property laws, especially copyright and related violations. Proponents argue that such education should be implemented because of increasing copyright infringement by students (and the general population). Detractors argue that such education is tantamount to forced indoctrination of propaganda.

Institutes Offering Courses for Intellectual Property

There are many institutes all around the world offering courses to teach about the various laws which govern intellectual property. Internationally recognized tests from WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) - which is the primary governing body of the world's intellectual property can be quite useful. WIPO Academy can be reached via their website. The WIPO academy offers comprehensive courses to teach people of the various intellectual property laws from all over the world. There are several other local institutes in different countries which offer courses for intellectual property as well.

India

India has institutes such as IIPS (Institute of Intellectual Property Studies) which is located in Mumbai at the NMIMS (Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies) campus. They offer comprehensive courses such as a 4 month Certificate Course in Intellectual Property (CCIP) which teaches broadly of how to obtain, and enforce intellectual property rights. They also have a one year Diploma course in patent law and practice.

Misconceptions

Opponents of intellectual property education allege that proponents make some common mistakes:

• They assert that copying CDs is wrong. As with blank consumer music and video tape, in the US, blank music CDs have a mandatory royalty included in their price, as do music CD recorders. Those royalties are distributed to those in the music business through copyright collective associations. Copying music using these systems is a lawful, licensed use which benefits the copyright holders. 17 USC 109 (1) says that lawfully made copies may be sold. Computer CD recorders and blank computer CDs do not include these royalty payments (see blank media tax) and if not made lawfully may not be lawfully sold.

• Under US law, the Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs and fair use doctrine permit purchasers to make copies for personal and family use without paying royalties.

• Under US law, first-sale doctrine permits owners of a copy of a copyrighted work to transfer ownership without permission or paying royalties. Digital Rights Management and Product Activation by its nature prevents this.

• They ignore history. Copyright holders have tried to impair the development of technology which upset their business model for generations, attempting to stop player pianos, cable TV and VCRs.

• They ignore provisions in copyright law for non-profit archives and libraries to make and lend copies of works.

• Many times they will try to claim copyright on non-copyrightable items such as; letter decorations (fonts), facts (phone books), listing of ingredients (recipes), figures (labor statistics), the works of the US Government, and materials in public domain without any transformative effort or work besides digitizing or hosting them.

• They may pay insufficient attention to the fact that, like fair use, copying for educational purposes is a copying right owned by society, not one granted to them under US law.

• They note that copyrighted works will eventually become public domain without noting the great increase in copyright terms, such that essentially nothing produced during the lifetime of any student will enter the public domain during that life. For those retiring and retired today, that public domain right has been repeatedly approached and then taken away, as some copyright holders have lobbied Congress over 20 times to extend copyrights just before their copyrights were about to expire.

• They ignore that the license and not sold argument was settled back in 1908 and 1913 by the U.S. Supreme Court (BOBBS-MERRILL CO. v. STRAUS, 210 U.S. 339 (1908) in cases of copyright and BAUER & CIE v. O'DONNELL, 229 U.S. 1 (1913) for patent) different from how of lower courts have interpreted it in cases such as MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc.. Likewise many of lower courts adhere to older rulings when answering this question in cases such as Softman v. Adobe. When copyrighted materials are sold, the exceptions to copyright found in articles 107-122 apply and there is no legal ground for an individual to agree to an EULA or "Shrink-Wrap" license, except that collusion among software makers have made it commonplace to include them.

• Digital Rights management and Activation techniques allow the content holders to decide, dictate, and enforce their self-defined exclusive rights on the materials instead of Congress.

• They compare a civil infraction (most consumer copyright infringement) with the crimes of murder and theft of property (piracy).

Alternative views include the view that the reason copyright holders are seeing infringement problems is that their efforts to extend the time they have monopolies and impose restrictions on use have caused people to be scornful of them; then perceive them as simply acquisitive, seeking to change the law maximize their gain at the expense of most of the society from which they benefit and on which they depend for their income. Solutions of those with this view involve such things as returning to a copyright term no longer than the patent term, so that people can see works entering the public domain during their lives and will see actual benefit as a result.

See also

• Philosophy of copyright
• Franklin Pierce Law Center

References

1. Shaheen Lakhan, Meenakshi Khurana, The State of Intellectual Property Education Worldwide, 2007, (5)2
2. Richard Stallman, Reevaluating Copyright: The Public Must Prevail, Oregon Law Review 75(1) 1996.
3. Jessica Litman, Digital Copyright, Prometheus Books, 2001.
4. Bruce A. Lehman (chair), Information Infrastructure Task Force Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights, Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure - Part 3 (Education), 1995.
5. Cui, Mei. Intellectual Property Issues in Middle Schools of the United States and the People’s Republic of China, Mastes Thesis, Concordia University, River Forest, IL. 1999.
6. International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA). “USTR 2002 'Special 301' Decisions and IIPA Estimated U.S. Trade Losses Due to Copyright Piracy.” IIPA Online. [1]
7. Shaheen Lakhan, Stop Piracy with Edification: Intellectual Property Education in School - Education Today - NZ. Issue 6:2003
8. Oliver R. Goodenough, "The Future of Intellectual Property: Broadening the Sense of `Ought'", European Intellectual Property Review, 24(6) 2002.