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WNPR - Connecticut Public Radio
Connecticut Public Radio
January 11, 2009 - 1:55pm -- webmaster

Who Should Own Ideas?

Intellectual property laws--protecting ideas or cramping innovation?
Published: January 11, 2009 - 1:55pm

In an information age with calls for innovation coming from leaders in every sector, from the halls of Washington, D.C., to the factories of Detroit, how are the rules governing ideas keeping up?  James Boyle joins us on Where We Live today to talk about his new book, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind, now out from Yale University Press.  We'll ask: does the expansion of intellectual property protection threaten innovation in music, art, medicine....progress as we know it?  Now that millions of ideas and images are shared every minute on the web, policy has, thus far, worked mostly to limit that sharing through copyright, patent, and trademark laws.  We'll talk to lawyers who specialize in intellectual property about ideas--and who should own them.