Intellectual property is a major global commodity more valuable than material economic inputs. For a long time, the protections for this resource were managed by individual countries, but this patchwork system is straining under the complexity of global consumption and creation, plus burgeoning volume. In the next decade or two, we should expect to see a substantial shift toward a truly global law for managing IP. We will lean on artificial intelligence to parse the vast flow of intangibles (some of which will be generated by AI). We might look forward to decentralized technologies, being piloted now, that allow attribution and distribution trackers to be deeply embedded in our creations, digital watermarks that bear creators' signatures and interest. But the technical aspects of managing and tracking are not the only challenge. It's actually the balance between attribution and distribution that requires the fine tuning. Authorship must be protected long-enough to make the troubles of creation worthwhile, but not so long that interest and capacity for the next iteration is missed. It's a big transition from our attitude toward protecting ideas as property, but if we accept the evidence that our intangible creations are the drivers of our economic well-being, and we recognize that an idea shared becomes half of the next idea, my hope is that we will soon come to agree that ideas generate the most benefit and wealth when they are shepherded to their place in the Commons as quickly as possible.
This video on “The Future of Intellectual Property” was commissioned by China Mobile as part of an online course. It is one of 36 lecture videos. A version with Chinese subtitles is available at Citic Migu: citic.cmread.com/zxHtml/listen...
A transcript of the lecture in English is available here: drive.google.com/file/d/14158...