The technology of the web creates interesting discrepancies when it comes to the issue of fixation. It appears that some transmissions will not be sufficiently fixed to merit intellectual property protection … Any attempt to retrofit existing law to apply to current technology is a dead end and will not fulfill the purpose of copyright. Additional law will only succeed in slowing future development.
Predictor: Norderhaug, Terje
Prediction, in context:In a paper presented at the third annual WWW Conference in 1995, Terje Norderhaug and Juliet M. Oberding of Media Design inProgress shared research titled, ÒDesigning a Web of Intellectual Property,Ó in which they assert that web technology undermines the protection of intellectual property. They write: ÒThe technology of the web creates interesting discrepancies when it comes to the issue of fixation. It appears that some transmissions will not be sufficiently fixed to merit intellectual property protection. An important recent report prepared by a federal committee held the position that U.S. intellectual property law must be expanded to cover all transmissions via electronic medium. The Working Group noted that technological innovations could be used to provide intellectual property protection, and such technology is contemplated by the report, but the Group chose to recommend additional legislation based on the belief that no technology is failsafe. This position is typical of legislators’ attempt to rationalize amendments to law in order to extend existing notions to new media. As argued above, any attempt to retrofit existing law to apply to current technology is a dead end and will not fulfill the purpose of copyright. Additional law will only succeed in slowing future development.Ó
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues
Subtopic: Copyright/Intellectual Property/Plagiarism
Name of publication: WWW Conference '95
Title, headline, chapter name: Designing a Web of Intellectual Property
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
www.igd.fhg.de/archive/1995_www95/proceedings/papers/95/webip.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne