digital communication and consumption/copyright/property

DIGITAL COMMUNICATION AND CONSUMPTION/COPYRIGHT/PROPERTY
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DIGITAL COMMUNICATION AND CONSUMPTION/COPYRIGHT/PROPERTY
Copyright is a restricted legal protective right, which is a preserve of the creator of an unprecedented creation. It confers authors with motivation in their quest for creating and spreading original expression, by rendering rights to their property. On the social side, it invites subsequent authors as well as audiences to put into use the original owners’ work transformatively without infringing on his exclusive rights. The balance between private ownership and public access is proving dicey, since digital communication if fuelling spreading of the latter. The instability posed by digital technology is stark and has featured in public discourse as to the role of copyrights in this digital age. Variation between NIEP and democratic paradigm approaches to copyright and its relevance to read-only, and read-write culture.
Netanel (1996) talks about the NIEP (new institutional economic property) theory approach to copyright and the democratic paradigm. Explain the difference between these in your own words. 
There are emerging scholarships that are shaping opinion on the debate raging over the scope copyright is supposed to cover. NIEP (new institutional economic property) theory approach towards copyright considers copyright a tangible property despite it being an intellectual property. The theory suggests actions that would lead to diminishing of the public domain.

It even advocates for suppression of transaction costs since it considers it as the reason that is propelling economic structuring and legal institution. The theorists perceive property right as playing a central role in the promotion of frequency allocation. The neo-classicist approach to copyright also borrows from new institutional economic property theory. Economic property theory has a low regard for the tendency advocated for by the neo-classicist where in particular, they criticize the neoclassical tendency to rely on formal models that treat economic agents as rational maximizers willing to employ efficient means in pursuit of consistent goals. The approach frowns upon the expansion of intellectual property and borrows from the statute of Anne proposed in 1709. A case in point was in the case of Donaldson versus Becket that identified the statute as the only source of copyright signaling an end to legal claims of copyright. Notably the approach agrees with the statutes’ assertion that authors and their publishers have the potential of shying from making their work public where they lack the ability of preventing others from copying their work. It views copyright as having a monopoly over pricing and doubts that expansion would motivate authors to produce. The approach further views copyright as only a limited grant. It is important to note that new institutional economic property theory is inclined towards property rights that are broad and well defined to achieve economic efficiency. NIEP theorists tend to find property rules desirable even in instances where the transaction costs are high since they jolt market actors into forming institutions mandated with bring the costs down. Furthermore, they deem the property rights as products of private negotiations that culminate in arrangements that further important social goals.
On the other hand, democratic paradigm has a positive view of copyright and highlights the potential benefits from creativity that the society can gain. The approach pushes for the authors to observe laws that confer protection against plagiarism and at the same time recognize the private rights. The adherence to the law confers on them confidence needed for continued production of creative expressions geared towards enrichment of the society. To attain creativity, democratic paradigm theorists employ fair use where the society is encouraged to transformative use of original works. Crucial support of this paradigm comes from creative commons license and statutory copyright that facilitate the distribution of the works. The licenses involved in guaranteeing fair distribution and they focus on attribution, no derivative, share alike and non-commercial. The democratic view supports detachment of ideas from individuals who possess them leading to an improvement of the quality of public discourse. Democratic paradigm easily identifies with copyrights title as ‘‘an engine of free expression’’ since communication is a necessity for the strengthening of democratic institutions (Netanel, W., N. 1996, 295). It props copyrights role in upholding of the constitution and differs with economic analysis and the neoclassicist insight.
Copyright affirms the author’s right at ownership of intellectual property. This is necessary since free riders have a potential of undermining the market’s creative expression. It enables the copyright owners to achieve the full profit potential that can be attained from their work.

Lessig (2008) talks about read-only (RO) and read/write (RW) culture. How can copyright facilitate both of these?
Lessig is a supporter of Read/Write (RW) culture that allows consumers to ‘‘create art as readily as they consume it.’’ He points out inability to cite has limited the creativity of users and terms the copyright laws. He uses the mode of use of media to come up with the Read/Write and Read-Only culture.
Read and Write Culture involves the usage of media to learn the meaning of a message and the subsequent transformative use of the original message in the creation of a new product. The culture has the resultant effect of users becoming more active, creative and sharing their content. The consumer and the producer thus end up having a symbiotic relationship. The entry of digital technology has seen writing transform via two lives, Usenet, and blogs. The feature of a comment section in blogs has the resultant effect of enabling dialogue between the writer and the reader of the content. Tagging has enabled for easier location of articles over the internet. In America, the use of Japanese animation clips remixed to produce a new video meant to pass a particular message is on the rise and is referred anime + music.
Heavy linking and citations laced the new blog leading to read-write creativity. Writers of the blogs got to experience read-write but the audiences experienced read-only. The advent of posting comments, tags and ranking has the advantage of creation of order in blogging. The audience began experiencing the importance of the blogs. Tools like Technorati enable the measurement of this significance through tabulating the number of links that others have made to the article. Thus, preferences of the bloggers and the influence of the message is available. The internet is a location where all writing is in the form of reading and writing since the communication is usually open to debate and thus feeding democracy through open access. Copyright should decipher between a commercial and public presentation of creative works against private non-commercial expressions. Regulation through copyright should be limited to letting this form of read-write culture flourish since they are representative of a generations desire to speak. The norms of quoting freely that have been prevalent in the read-write text could come in handy when it comes to the read-write media (Lessig, L. 2008, 56).
On invention, Berner-Lee intended the web to be a read-write medium and encouraged development of tools that would inculcate the culture of reading and writing. The developers had a contrary view of the web as a platform for organizations together with businesses to publish content for consumption by the world audience. So far, the latter has the upper hand. Currently it is true that people are not only readers, but with the advent of computers, digital media and mostly the internet has turned them into content generators. They also purpose to interact with the available knowledge and ideas with the aim of coming up with something meaningful about themselves.
References
Lessig, L, 2008. REMIX: MAKING ART AD COMMERCE THRIVE IN THE HYBRID ECONOMY. London: Bloomsbury Academic plc.
Netanel, N, 1996. COPYRIGHT AND DEMOCRATIC CIVIL SOCIETY. Connecticut: The Yale Law Journal Company.