Sunday, November 2, 2008
Apple and Intellectual Property
A few weeks ago we listened to a radio clip that was about Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple. The speaker was concerned with the CEO's intentions to limit the Apps for the iPhone. He has the ominous power to check out any and every application that anyone may develop for the iPhone. If he doesn't like it, he can make sure that it never surfaces on the commercial market; if he does see potential in it, he can skim profits off the top. This is a regulation on the intellectual property of others that I do not agree with. I'm sure that the "creative commons" would not approve of this either, as some of their guidelines included the making of profit off of another's idea. This code is intellectual property because of its non-rivalrous nature; Steve Jobs or the creator of the code could reproduce it without impeding on its function or efficiency. I can see how Steve Jobs could feel entitled to some profit, as he created the property that runs these pieces of code. But he did not think of these applications, he did not go through the laborious process of developing, testing and debugging the code. Creating code is time-consuming and requires meticulous proof-reading and testing to fully serve its function, and for someone to reap the benefits and make a profit off of someone else's hard-work is preposterous. I believe that intellectual property should have more safety from people such as Steve Jobs, or else ideas can and will be plagiarized more and more as technology develops and we as a society rely more heavily upon it.
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2 comments:
The blog criticizes Steve Job’s attempt to regulate and profit from applications that are written for the iphone. First, it could be argued that you are responsible for what you create. Once something like the iphone is created it can be used for an unimaginable number of purposes depending on what applications are used. Regulation by the creator prevents the product from being used outside the original intent of the creator. The real issue however is that he is trying to profit from other people’s creation or by limiting other people’s profits from prohibiting their use. This action is explicitly counter progressive and selfish. The chance that an application will be created which would ruin the intended use of the iphone is so slim that it should be confronted only when a problem materializes. This scheme is simply a way to create a monopoly on a popular line of products.
I agree completely with the author of "Apple and Intellectual Property." For the CEO of Apple to control everything that can be done on the Iphone, while taking a profit is while very intelligent on his part, is limiting the creative commons. Those who spend the time and the money should be able to market their product in whatever way they so choose, whether it be through Apple or not. To limit those who are the very backbones of what the Iphone and the internet is about is greedy and self-centered. While it is a dog eat dog world out there, some boundaries should be set. One of these boundaries should be an unlimited internet and access to any code that a consumer desires should be important and required. Although this may not seem as a huge deal pertaining to a phone, controlling the what people do and do not have access to is wrong.
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