Data and Information as Property

and services. Abstract goods and services such as pictures, speech, and music--which have in the past been relatively awkward to deal with as analog data--have, through digital technology, become easy to produce and reproduce. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY In the affluent fraction of the world at least, digital data has become more bureaucratically and commercially significant than any other product. In particular, its commercial significance has led to the rapid expansion and extension of so-called intellectual property (IP) law. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the international Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement have extended such laws around the globe. IP rights figure importantly, but remain almost unnoticed publicly, in so-called free-trade agreements such as the recently negotiated but not yet ratified agreement between Australia and the US. The 1967 WIPO convention (www. wipo.int/clea/docs/en/wo/wo029en.htm) defines intellectual prope...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2004
• Where: COMPUTER
• Authors: W. Neville Holmes
• Keywords: COMPUTER 2004, Intellectual Property, So-called Intellectual Property, World Intellectual Property Organization