On Copyrights and Creativity

Creativity has been defined as the ability to develop something innovative and of value. Once thought by psychologists and philosophers as an individual-centric process, that is creativity comes from within some naturally gifted creative individuals, theorists have now come to agree that the environment actually has a large part to play in the genesis of creative ideas. In other words, the individual creative genius is no longer the sole determinant of creativity in general; conducive surroundings such as the organisation and the industry are in fact necessary to help people realize the full potential of their creativity. Interactions among creative individuals actually helps people improve their own work through inspirations gained from others' ideas. They could also incorporate a part or variation of others' work in order to create an ultimately better sum of the parts. Evidence of this could be observed through the dynamism of Hollywood film and tv productions, a result of continuous interactions and idea exchanges within an ecology of creative productions.

Consideration of this concept is potentially crucial for intellectual property legal developments. On the one hand, one has to protect the society with legal rules against the infringements of copyrights. On the other hand, a free flow of ideas has been shown to be necessary to generate an ecology of creativity in order to attain even higher quality standards within the industry as a whole. So where can we draw the line between creativity and copyright violation?

In The Social Network (2010), Mark Zuckerberg was shown not to have violated any copyrights technically, as he had not used one line of the Winklevoss codes in his own facebook project. Yet, it was apparent that the original idea for the site did come from the Winklevoss brothers. The legal case was eventually ended with a $65 million settlement in favour of the Winklevii for the user of their inspirational idea, albeit an incomplete one. This incident raises worrisome concerns about what it means for IP rights and creativity, potentially portending a trend where people could be compensated merely for their 'ideas'.

Continuing down this path might prove highly unconducive for developing a highly creative environment which theoretically requires a freeflow/exchange of ideas. It is possible that overall development could be stifled as a result of a legal Sword of Damocles hanging over any individual who might use others' ideas.

Which brings to mind: what does it mean for the future of the software industry? Judging by the legal standards set by the Facebook incident, Macintosh would have had a very valid case against the first Windows OS, had the latter been released post-Facebook. In the software market where many variations of similar programs exist, it just does not seem viable to punish others' use of one's ideas.

On a final note, the Facebook incident might not set a sufficiently strong predictor of such detrimental trends in the IPR movement. Admittedly, the compensation was also in large part motivated by genuine concern not to prolong legal battles that could have extra harmful reputational effects on the Internet service company due to its fledging status at that point of time. However, this incident will still serve a strong caution against going down the slipper slope of holding people legally responsible for intellectual rights based on ideas as it might just prove detrimental to the industrial or societal dynamism as a whole.