Intellectual property infers the right to extort payment when our cultural expression should be free and freely shared. In the digital world everyone is an author, publisher and critic so why should a chosen few be allowed to lay claim to the expression of our common cultural heritage and enjoy the recognition of authorship and the right to royalties? Why should the corporate media conglomerates be allowed to use copyright, patents and intellectual property laws to make criminals of tens of thousands of users of virtual communities if they share music, videos and written works? These users freely share their own work and if all work were to be donated in this way the public sphere would be a far more cultural, creative place.
Question: The author would agree that I should be able to walk into a bookshop and take any of the works found there without paying.
Options:
A. true, B. false, C. uncertain
Answer: C