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It is
heartening to receive queries from artists and
academicians about the rights they have over their
works. Their main concern is how to establish ownership
over their work through copyright, not so much as to
earn huge royalties, but to be recognized for their
contribution to knowledge and the arts.
Interestingly, owning ideas, or to be precise,
expression of ideas, is widely accepted now. The concept
of intellectual property (IP) or owning intangible goods
is embodied in our Constitution and in our laws. But
this was not always the case.
The idea
that one can own an idea or its expression by means of
the written word, a brushstroke or musical note is a
reflection of the advancement of human civilization.
Ownership of creative works is a concept that evolved
over a long period of time together with theories of
knowledge, human nature and political philosophy.
Knowledge was, from Ancient Greece until the 18th
century, believed to be a gift from the gods. For
thousands of years, poets, philosophers, playwrights and
others who wrote literature believed they were merely
transmitters of knowledge from the divine muses. Hence,
it was unthinkable to own a poem, a play or a piece of
music, much less to ask or pay a price for them.
Medieval
theologians established this concept of knowledge into
canon law doctrine, Scientia donum Dei est unde vendi
non potest (Knowledge is a gift from God, thus you
cannot sell it), making it a sin to bargain over
knowledge, thus, the sin of simony. As late as the early
18th century, Goethe wrote that German poets viewed “the
production of poetical works. . . as something sacred.
It was considered almost simony to accept or bargain for
payment for them.”
There
was, of course, compensation for labor to the scribe,
prizes for poets and authors, but written works, being a
gift from the gods, were free. Knowledge was not the
product of human toil, but a creation of God, and the
poet or philosopher as merely a transmitter of knowledge
held sway until the Age of Enlightenment.
But
things changed in the 18th century, when humans viewed
themselves and the world differently, rationally. The
theory that “knowledge came from the human mind working
upon the senses—rather than through divine
revelation—made it possible to imagine humans as
creators, and hence owners of new ideas rather than as
mere transmitters of eternal verities.” (Carla Hesse)
Concepts
of the individual, property and government also changed
radically with the emergence of natural-rights theory.
In his Second Treatise of Government, John Locke
wrote, “Every man has a property in his own person.
This, no body has any right to but himself. The labor of
his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are
properly his.”
There
was another more practical development: the invention of
Gutenberg’s print type, which caused a dramatic increase
in demand for books and literary levels, thus making
publishing a lucrative business. Writers like Daniel
Defoe in England and Dennis Diderot in France, “for the
first time, were trying to make a living from writing
and demanded more a share in the profits from their
works.” Writers began to assert that works were their
own property. That’s when intellectual property, a
“child of the Enlightenment,” burst forth as property in
its “purest form.”
Recalling the evolution of the concept of IP is useful
if only to remind ourselves that we are inheritors and a
part of the advancement of human civilization. To take
our place in the modern world, we have to discard some
medieval concepts and show the proper respect to
creations of the human mind.
The author is the director general of the Intellectual
Property Office of the Philippines. E-mail: dg_asc@ipophil.gov.ph. |
