[MUSIC] With all of this as foundation, how do you ensure the legal protection of your content? >> I'm glad to have a chance to talk about intellectual property or IP. Because it's a legal concept which refers to the protection of assets that might result in tangible products, can be inventions, artistic creations. The term intellectual property to codify the rights of the creator, did not become common place around the world until the late 20th century. But the concept of protection has a long history. And because the US exports much of its cultural phenomenon around the world from music and film to written works. The US law is what I will be briefly touch on here. But the assignment for the MOOC is to think about IP, intellectual property, as it works in your country or region. The global nature digital transmission means laws that rely on boundaries, have enforcement issues. There is a world intellectual property organization, WIPO. Which is in Switzerland, and it's an agency of the United Nations, with 186 member states. And works to encourage creative activity, promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world. Surprisingly, the US Constitution was the first national document to enshrine the right of intellectual property. In Article 1 it says, the Congress shall have power to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. Now, when we talk about intellectual property, we're including property, patents, trade secrets, copyrights, and trademarks. The history of intellectual property is fun. It starts with the Ancient Greek Sybarites. They loved to experiment with recipes, and they invented new dishes. So they created a monopoly on a particular delicious dish. And this becomes the first known instance of intellectual property. The ancient Romans began trademarking guild protections. And Renaissance Italy, there was a limited monopoly granted for transporting marble across a river. So let's think now about what some of the terms within intellectual property actually mean. So if we take a look at the word trade secrets, these are protected by state regulations and they're a form of self protection. You've heard of Coca-Cola, and its trade secret formula, and employees sign non-disclosure agreements that protect the company from this confidential information being leaked out. But one thing that's important about trade secrets is that the company has no protection against reverse engineering. And if someone tastes Coca-Cola and reverse engineers the formula in their own lab, then Coca-Cola isn't protected against that. But let's look at patents. Patents actually do grant protection for an invention. But disclosure is a must. The word patent actually means open, and patents will extend for 20 year terms. And you can get patents for a process, for designs even for a plant invention. One interesting fact about patents is they can't be injurious. So for example, you can't get a patent to counterfeit U.S. dollars. Now, lets take a look at copyright. Copyright comes from a 1976 statute in the U.S. and its for the lifetime of the author plus 70 years. But corporations can be authors too, and that has a different timeframe, usually 95 years from first publication. One of the interesting things about copyright is that it's automatic. You can copyright your own material with a C inside of a circle. There's also elements of fair use under some national law. So under the US law, you can use copyrighted material as long as it abides by four elements. One of which is how much you take of the original material. And another is whether you've transformed the use in some way. The reason for fair use is that newspapers may want to quote someone or may want to use a couple lines of poetry, or other opportunities to actually use someone else's work. Another word within the intellectual property canon is trademarks. This is a unique identifier and comes originally from a 1452 London swordsmith who wanted to make sure that his blades were particularly identified as coming from his shop. You can trademark words, slogans, designs, pictures, they can be for particular or generic items, it's rare that one can get protection for words that have common everyday use. So Apple, or Windows, have different meanings. So it's much easier to get protection for invented words, which is why you see many companies think of new words when they're naming new products. But also, as you think about your content, if you want it to have a particular word, you might want to be thinking about how could you legally protect it. Now, another term within intellectual property is trade dress, or a non-traditional mark. And a good example is the blue box from Tiffany. It's instantly known that this represents the famous store. So as you think about intellectual property, you must always be aware of the need to protect your content. And in all marketing and all content creation, you need to consult your legal counsel. So be sure that you do not infringe on someone else's property. >> This is such an important topic, content is moving rapidly around the world, we've given you a framework that uses language from the U.S. intellectual property, not because it applies, it's even changing here. But because it helps make you literate about the ideas behind intellectual property wherever you are. The take away needs to be whether you get it online or from government, or from professionals, find out what applies in your situation to that precious content that you've worked so hard to help develop. [SOUND]
