[ Note: This was my sample blog post exercise I sent to EFF as part of my job application. I'm posting it here because I like how it turned out.]

Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, would never have imagined just how profound his invention truly was.  He probably wouldn’t have guessed that it would lead to wars, and entire cultural and industrial revolutions that would last for centuries.  For up until that point, the Catholic Church dominated as the largest publisher in Europe.  It was able to maintain complete control over interpretations of holy text for hundreds of years as it ruled its empire.  With the printing press and movable type however, the Bible appeared all over Europe in plain languages for individuals to read and interpret themselves.  The “One Church” no longer had a monopoly over the word of God.  This diffusion of knowledge led to the Protestant Reformation and democratization of each language’s Christian faith.  If the Church had foreseen this challenge to its religious authority, would it have suppressed the technology of the printing press?  Would they have passed laws to outlaw the spreading publication of Bibles in local languages, asserting that it alone had right to control the word of God?  The result of this technology was a shift in economics of religion, and as tribute payments to Rome shifted to other religious denominations, the ideological and political supremacy of the Church slowly but steadily eroded.

Internet technology is revolutionizing our time, and like the advent of the printing press, it has the potential to challenge entrenched institutions.  Unlike the past however, such institutions quickly recognize the potential threat that new technologies pose to their economic and political orders.  To preserve their dominance over information, they continue to assert exclusive ownership and distribution of ideas through the force of laws passed at their behest.  When the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) or the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) fear challenges to profits from their cloistered ideas and art, they influence politics to protect their economic interests.

State actors, tech industries and civil groups are debating legal standards to regulate the Internet worldwide.  As they negotiate their way through controversial cyber issues, fundamental disagreements arise about the Internet’s function.  On June 30, 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) along with the Civil Society Information Society Advisory Committee (CSISAC) decided to reject the draft Communique on Internet policy-making principles proposed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).  The OECD is a multi-governmental groups lobbying for policies by its member countries.  The OECD’s draft outlines laws and regulations its member nations should follow related to the Internet.  EFF points to flaws in the document.  A glaring one is OECD’s goal to strictly enforce pre-existing intellectual property (IP) dogma.  The OECD draft includes text on “Internet intermediaries,” which the EFF and CSISAC observe could easily become extra-legal policing by these private intermediaries.  Intermediaries, such as Internet Service Providers (ISPs), could be deputized by countries to enforce content restriction and locate IP infringement. Such mechanisms as a “Three-Strikes Law” could be imposed and ISPs would independently judge lawfulness of all online content and allow non-judicial punishments to be imposed.

The OECD’s adherence to existing IP law exposes its assumption that no evolution will occur in the law to recognize new technologies.  Mainstream discussions focus on protecting the existing order, but neglect to consider its impact on creativity and innovation.  They assume that older IP laws promote innovation with promised rewards to an individual creator, who will own and control distribution of their creations.  This promise was incorporated into the 1787 U.S. Constitution in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, known as the Copyright and Patent Clause:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Do existing IP laws give “Authors and Inventors” rights over their creations?  Up until the Internet, people relied exclusively on institutions to distribute their work and ideas.  Browse Youtube to see how institutional barriers to artists have largely disappeared.  All you need is a camera and Internet access.  Sites like Youtube have allowed an explosion in creativity in music, dance, comedy and spoken word, all of which would not have been allowed by the older IP order.

With the Internet, large publishers and distributors are becoming irrelevant.  However, IP laws are intended to favor these aging enterprises.  With globalization and the Internet, people can communicate inspirations in an unprecedented way.  These older laws reward older procedures with lawyers and coercion, forcing people to be cautious about sharing innovative content and fearful of improving upon older creations.  Large recording labels, movie studios, and pharmaceutical companies are responsible for a system of IP law that benefits them.  The other beneficiaries of the current IP laws are the thousands of lawyers hired to punitively litigate IP claims.  The current IP system does not foster innovation, but instead hinders it by singularly protecting powerful special interests.

The social, political, economic and human rights consequences of current IP law have never been objectively evaluated.  Evidence is mounting that instead of promoting innovation, it in fact impedes people from being able or willing to contribute unique ideas and creations to society.  OECD’s staunch support of out-moded IP law reinforces a legal framework extremely detrimental to each individual’s right to create, innovate and invent.  If the Catholic Church had recognized the threat of the printing press and took measures to suppress its use, would the Renaissance have occurred?  Would individual access to knowledge and information have ever become a right?  The chain of events following the invention of the printing press were unforeseen.  The Internet is still a new technology and it is extremely important that policies do not restrict its full potential.  By dogmatically enforcing existing IP law, governments would uphold the rights of large aging information monopolies, and diminish creative rights of the individual.  Laws conceived over 200 years ago to promote individual creation and innovation should not continue to be jerry-rigged to serve an economic system that hurts individual rights.