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Media Literacy

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Intellectual Property

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a la Shmoop

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Intellectual Property.

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So this is intellectual property,

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property inside your brain, more or less,

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or other people's brains. Not physical property,

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not real estate, not money,

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not stocks and bonds and so on.

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Deb, so give us a good definition for what you think of

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when you hear the term "intellectual property."

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So intellectual property is a legal concept

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and it means owning exclusive rights to an idea.

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As you said, it's not owning an object or a house.

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It's owning the rights to an idea.

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That means that if you came up with

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lyrics to a song

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or the idea for a movie

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or you wrote a paper,

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those are intellectual rights.

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They're ideas inside your brain and you own the rights to them.

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No one else can steal them.

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Why does intellectual property matter?

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It matters because once you have the idea,

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basically everyone else has to give you money

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if they wanna use it.

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That's really what it comes down to.

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Let's take the example of Star Wars.

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George Lucas or someone in that world

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- owns the intellectual-- - It's Disney now.

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[ low-pitched vocalizing ]

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owns the rights to Star Wars.

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That means that if anyone

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wants to make a sequel

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or make an action figure

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or make little napkins with Han Solo on them,

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they have to ask and get permission

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from Disney and company.

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And then they have to almost certainly give them money.

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Unless the person just says, "Hey, yeah.

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You can have Star Wars for free."

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[ whoop ]

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What is intellectual property?

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Why does intellectual property matter?

Full Transcript