Blogging and Intellectual Property

The “Express Yourself” Reloaded Workshop organized by Friedrich Nauman has exposed me for the very first to the world of blogging.  Expressing oneself through blogging is a powerful medium to reach as many people as possible through the use of the internet. It was amazing to find out that blogging also forms part of the realm of intellectual property. 

The term “intellectual property” or “IP” generally refers to any creation or product of the human intellect, which may be demonstrated in the form of original ideas, expressions, and processes.  It can be an invention, an original design, a practical application of good idea, a mark of ownership, or literary and artistic works, among others. There are several forms of statutory protection for IP.  The most relevant to bloggers is copyright.

As an advocate of intellectual property rights, I would like to inform all bloggers that all the articles or writings that they post in their blogs are protected by copyright. Copyright is the protection extended to original literary, scholarly, scientific, and artistic works. Literary and artistic works are original intellectual creations in the literary and artistic domain protected from the moment of their creation. Examples of these works are books, pamphlets, articles and other writings, letter, periodicals and newspapers which we normally post in our blogs. The term of protection of copyright is ordinarily lifetime of author and 50 years after his death.

Works are protected by the sole fact of their creation, irrespective of their mode or form of expression, as well as their content, quality and purpose. However, the law does not extend protection to any idea, procedure, system and method or operation, concept, principle discovery or mere data as such, even if they are expressed, explained, illustrated or embodied in a work; news of the day and other miscellaneous facts having the character of mere items of press information; or any official text of a legislative, administrative or legal nature, as well as any official translation thereof. Copyright will give the bloggers an exclusive right to carry out, authorize or prevent others from reproducing, translate, distribute your work.

Bloggers should be aware of their copyright and should enforce it in such a way that it will work to their advantage. The creation of the human mind, such as copyright plays a pivotal role in social, economic, and cultural development of the country. The blogs that we post in the web will influence other people’s lives and will create an impact on how to improve the quality of life of the people.

Our country’s greatest asset is the creative genius of its people – our intangible wealth that should be harnessed for national development.