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  • Essay / An intellectual property right is a right - 1277

    IntroductionBeing part of the 21st century can be considered privileged; you can create and share almost anything you can imagine. Most would say that's a good thing, unless you're in the business world. Creating new products online or off the Internet can be costly for the creator. With the Internet and new technologies available, people can now create new products and ideas that have never been created before. After you create that new product, that song, that line of code, or whatever you can imagine, how do you protect it? This is where intellectual property rights come into play in today's world. “An intellectual property right is a right that a person or company has to have exclusive rights to use their own plans, ideas or other intangible assets without concern for competition, at least for a certain period of time. These rights also include copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets” (HG.org, Legal Resources). In many cases, copyright infringement occurs online. People have copied, stolen ideas, illegally downloaded media, and pirated information, causing copyright violations. Some cases dealing with this problem are occurring with the new technology of 3D printing. Along with this, other issues related to copyright infringement are the ongoing issues of illegal media downloading. These are growing problems and difficulties that affect not only the United States, but also the entire world. Current Situation Illegal Downloading Since the beginning of the Internet, people have been sharing files with each other around the world. Many of these files are music, videos and other forms of media. But these files are illegal copies of ... middle of paper ... for consumer use, this technology is a new toy for creators, but it is also becoming an enabler for some. What 3D printers enable is the decentralization of 3D printing of copyrighted objects. The growing awareness that printed items are counterfeits will lead to more copyright violations. This has been compared to the Internet in the early 2000s, which allowed millions of people to illegally download music without considering it a mistake. With the growing popularity of 3D printers, it was “…predicted that 3D printing infringement would devalue intellectual property rights and that even the best efforts to stop this increase in infringement would fail (Depoorter, 2014 p.4). As more people become desensitized. lack of enforcement of copyright laws; Just like downloading music or other media, the more likely people will be to print the intellectual property of others. (See footnote 5)