Other Essay Sample

Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property
Freedom of expression involves seeking, receiving and sharing of information and ideas through different mediums. Intellectual property is a work of the mind such as art, books and films. Intellectual properties are protected under patent law in the case of inventions, copyrights in the case of artwork and trade secret for critical business ideas. The law protects our privacy and gives us the right to control information about ourselves. The contradiction, however, comes about on the right to information privacy, which is the right to control communications of personally identifiable information about someone or simply, the rights to have a government stop anyone from speaking about another.
The information privacy laws are defensible because they protect an intellectual property right in one’s private information. The argument does not fit well in the into the intellectual property exceptions of the first amendment which does not entitle anyone to restrict communication of facts. For instance if someone comes to find out about your trade secret, for instance, a viable business idea and makes the idea known to someone else. The person can argue that he has the freedom of expression and that he expressed the facts that make the business idea viable and would, therefore not be considered to have breached the complainant’s right to privacy. However, in such arguments the courts uphold the intellectual property rule. The property rights in the information are accepted for information privacy speech restrictions and are considerably strengthened as to other restrictions.
Private information can also be accessed with a lot of ease through the internet. Intellectual property such as writing can be accessed through the internet, and other people who can express them as their own can copy his or her ideas, this is referred to as plagiarism. Therefore, the freedom of expression and intellectual property rights conflict in their implementation as people have variant views and opinions based on their personal understanding of the two rights.