Cody Rueda CS 3043 Intellectual Property
In Anon the government shares ownership with all the intellectual property created by the Mind’s Eye. The Mind’s eye seems to be implanted in every citizen, in order to cover the whole population. The people in the movie have all visual and audio recorded through the Mind’s Eye and stored in a database known as the Ether. The government has access to everyone’s recordings and life experiences. The people with access to the network can view and edit anyone’s experiences. The general population however are only able to view their own records and share segments of their records to others. People’s individual records could be argued as intellectual property because they are the ones creating video and audio content.
Michael Quinn writes about how intellectual property was protected in the past and how it is currently being protected with the addition of electronic intellectual property.[1] He mentions how different types of intellectual property are protected such as trade secrets, trademarks patents and copyrights. He explains the intellectual property isn’t the piece of paper that the play was written on, but the play itself. In the world Anon takes place in it would be easy for people with access to the system to steal intellectual property such as songs, art and pictures because they can access everyone’s memories.
In Anon the information uploaded to the Ether is behind restrictions that is supposed to protect it from unauthorized access. Only the government is supposed to have access to this information, and it is accessed to solve crime by getting points of view from witnesses. If the government did not overstep its power, then it’s access to others intellectual property shouldn’t matter and other visuals and audios seen and heard by detectives would be safe. This becomes problematic when both corrupt government officials and other hackers can access the network. In the movie we see the Sal the detective choosing to act as the judge and looking the other way when something was stolen. This could mean the intellectual property of others could be at risk. There are also hackers that can access and edit other people’s memories. They have the ability to steal information that should be protected by things such as trade secrets or even steal intellectual property before it gets protected. In the case of Cyrus or Anon their unauthorized access could lead to the acquiring of music that has yet to be published, art that is being worked on, or other important information. Due to unauthorized access and possible corruption of people with authorized access to the Ether people's intellectual property is under threat.
References:
Quinn, M. J. (2012). Ethics for the information age. Pearson Prentice Hall.