Societal Changes in Various Spheres - Essay Example

Blakely and Johnson Revised Societal changes in various spheres including technology and business practices have created a continuous debate that often surrounds the societal viewpoints on intellectual property (IP). At the center of these societal controversies are a debate regarding the shift from analog to digital technologies. The progressive shift to digital technologies is often associated with the ease of processing digital information in a multiplicity of ways, unlimited information copying at no associated costs, and rapid evolution of the communication platform with progressive use of the internet, enabling people to access digital content freely. It can be justifiably asserted therefore that a combination of digital technologies and internet usage enables millions of people in the world rapid access of various information than any historical library, allowing people to be an innovative and creators in their own perspective. The collaborative and shared platform brought about by digitization elicits different reactions. On one hand, proponents of the idea strongly suggest that it has transformed how people share and create information, creating a platform for product innovation and how people “own” and “copy” information. On the other hand however, Governments and technological companies view low restrictions placed on IP as a potential threat to cloud computing and mobile technologies. Blakley’s model of open copyrights provides enlightening information on IP rights from a business perspective. Her elaborate ideas of the phases of technology in determining the information to be copyright protected and subsequent elements in ownership from a fashion industry offers additional insights into technological innovations and the kind of ownership required in a digitized economy. (Blakely) At the same time, Johnson Steven’s “Where Good Ideas come from” examines the origin of innovative ideas from a historical perspective. In his analysis of the origin of great innovative ideas, Stephen starts his journey from London’s Coffee House “Liquid Networks” through Darwinian slow ideas of the revolution towards today’s highly technological creations brought about by the internet and the world wide web. (Johnson) The concept of ownership infers having control over any form of a thing, or an idea. Sharing on the other hand implies that other persons have access to the idea or object, and can even incorporate new ideas into the existing idea to come up with a modified version. Usually, the association between ownership and balancing is often achieved when a person has the ability to appreciate an object or an idea without having to ask who controls the idea or object. It therefore implies that both parties derive benefits from the shared item and non existence of role confusion while enjoying that idea or creation. The balance and concept of ownership are often easily understood when referring to tangible assets like objects and things as opposed to intangible issues like ideas. There exist various issues surrounding the sharing of information and innovation and pragmatic issues of copyrights. In essence, proponents of the open creation or low IP suggests that the success of an innovation depends whether an innovation is shared by the creator, and the achievement of equilibrium is largely dependent on voluntary sharing by the owner of the idea. While supporting this theory, Johana Blakely offers insightful information into the sharing of ownership ideas. She relates the success stories from the fashion industry where the sector has recorded tremendous gains from sharing of fashion ideas. She further argues that the sharing platform as witnessed in the fashion industry enables all fashion designers to share and enable them to incorporate other people’s ideas into their creations. The fashion industry does not have any copyright law for these ideas. The success in this approach presents high gross sales in sectors that have low IP protection as opposed to those bearing higher IP protection. Her reasoning here is that higher copyright protection offers little opportunity for growth in any industry. To add to this, she argues that economic incentives attached to property hinders cultural creations. Blakley puts it clear that the fashion industry players treat all its creations as a common that can be used by any person and transformed by others. To this, relates the growth of the fashion industry to Maxims as proposed by Isaac Newton, and concludes that within numerous creations and information available in the technological arena, the success stories from open fashion creation and lack of copyright can be applied to the digital arena. (Blakely) In her presentations during TED talk, Blakely asked the kind of ownership model, in a digital world, that makes sense of innovation. To this, she attaches this ownership model of open creation with no copyright protection for ideas and technologies to thrive from re-use and re-examination. This innovation is dependent on one’s ability to find a new way of doing something with the current technology or better still finding a new environment where the digital creation can be applied with little modification efforts. To this effect, other authors have suggested the dependence of ideas on other ideas and that no idea is isolated, and that innovation is built on innovation. It is for this that when technology creators are allowed an opportunity to evaluate and re-modify the creation of others, through a platform of public domain, fair utilization, and other approaches, then there would be corresponding development of innovation. But even learning from the fashion industry should not lead to IP rights misconception regarding total lack of copyright protection. Blakely warns that more often than not the society mis-conceptualizes knockoffs and piracy. Knock off from her perspective defines actual imitation of another person’s creation while a pirated design bears all the features of an original creation including the design’s trademarks, and all features that uniquely identifies the creation. A knockoff to her does not imply “illegality” while piracy implies otherwise. (Blakely) While Blakely believes in the significance of ownership, she also strongly asserts its lack of meaning if the ownership is restricted and not shared. An open ownership would enable access of the creation to designers and subsequently access by all. In relation to this, she argues that “digital technology has completely subverted the logic of physical fixed expression versus concept” (Blakely), alluding that then there exists a wide comparison between digital creation and material creation. She refers that pre-historic creations for art works possess their own lives. Similarly, The digital technology, has created a universal and versatile platform where everything is copyable. The way these media are handled to her “makes these creations not truly physical,” though a copyright provision would suggest that essentially these acts amount to piracy. She concludes her assertions by suggesting that sharing is the best way forward to experience creativity in digital innovations. Blakely suggests that, like the fashion industry, the digital platform can borrow lessons learnt from intellectual property rights, which include: presence of trademark protections, lack of copyright protections and patent protections as some of the ownership models that would encourage creativity and innovation in the digital arena. In perhaps a follow up to Blakely’s theories about innovation and creativity, and finding the right environments for such, Johnson Stephen examines the origin of ideas and creativity in the everyday societal set up. Johnson supports that creativity is best enhanced in the context of knowledge sharing and skills as ideas are only developed from other ideas. Many commentaries have suggested that Johnson’s perception of idea development should be useful in supporting and inspiring people towards the creation of knowledge and platforms that foster innovation, reflection, flexibility and knowledge accessibility. In his own words, Johnson argues that “a new idea is a network of neurons firing with sync with each other inside one’s brains.” Quite often than not he asks that within the understanding of the nature of ideas, one may be tempted to ask, “How do you get your brain in environments where these new networks are going to be more likely to form?” (Johnson) In addressing the above question, Johnson suggests that there exists patterns that are associated with ‘productive’ environments. And that “the more people embrace these patterns, the better we will be tapping our extraordinary capacity for innovative thinking.” In trying to support this thesis, Johnson suggests that there exist two essential dynamics that propel innovation: platforms and “liquid networks.” He demystifies the popular fables that a scientist working alone in his laboratory and imagery flashes in one’s head is necessarily the right paths to innovation. To this effect, Johnson suggests that true “Eureka” times comes over a widespread period of time. These moments occur during daily conversations, our daily failures and trials, problem solving situations and come in bits in quite unorganized forms. Further, the environment where these innovations occur is characterized by chaos, informal gatherings, workplaces and outside the science laboratories. These situations create favorable environments that favor brain activity to develop new ideas and innovations. It can be argued that supportive work environments that constantly support creativity, exploration, networking and shared knowledge compound the fundamentals for innovative development within the organizational arena. Creativity does not depend entirely on an intellectual process and most often arise from human conscious thoughts that constantly take place in the human minds. To a larger extent, creativity occurs when people least expect or unaware of its occurrence and that innovation occurs at various levels within an individual’s brain network. That any one’s conscious thoughts operate similar to a “liquid network” springing up new ideas that are interconnected together. On the other hand, platforms expound the innovation process. Johnson summarizes that: “one has lots of different ideas that are together, different backgrounds, interests, bouncing with each other- in an environment is, in fact, an environment that leads to innovation.” (Johnson) Looking back at the problem of study, this paper started by looking at the digital copyrights and what it portends for innovation and creativity. Numerous attempts have so far been discussed in bringing out the concepts of ownership of innovation and how to enhance innovation through an open copyrights platform as suggested by Blakely. At the same time, the discussions of Blakely on innovation and ownership have been compounded by Johnson Stephen’s concept of idea creation with his progressive assertion of a “liquid network” as the basic tool for idea creation which then opens new frontiers of innovation. Up to this far the question of ownership model in a digital world for innovation has been addressed by proposing an open copyright platform for creations. At the same time, Blakely’s ideas have been shown to be supported by Johnson’s ideas that creating supportive and shared knowledge platform enhances getting people’s brains into situations where networks are likely to form for creativity and innovativeness. Works cited Blakely, Johanna. Lessons from fashion’s free culture [video]. Retrieved October 18, 2012 from http://www.ted.com/speakers/johanna_blakley.html. 2010 Johnson, Steven. Where good ideas come from [Video]. Retrieved October 18, 2012 from http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_Johnson_where_good_ideas_come_from.html. 2010 Read More