Department of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Splaiul Independenţei nr. 204, Bucharest, Romania.
Sci Eng Ethics. 2019 Feb;25(1):247-264. doi: 10.1007/s11948-017-9996-x. Epub 2017 Oct 27.
Intellectual property is one of the highly divisive issues in contemporary philosophical and political debates. The main objective of this paper is to explore some sources of tension between the formal rules of intellectual property (particularly copyright and patents) and the emerging informal norms of file sharing and open access in online environments. We look into the file sharing phenomena not only to illustrate the deepening gap between the two sets of norms, but to cast some doubt on the current regime of intellectual property as an adequate frame for the new type of interactions in online environments. Revisiting the classic Arrow-Demsetz debate about intellectual property and the epistemological issues involved in assessing institutions, we suggest that seeking out new institutional arrangements aligned with the norms-in-use seems to be a more promising strategy in the new technological setting than attempting to reinforce the current legal framework. Moreover, such a strategy is less prone to committing the so-called 'Nirvana fallacies'. As a secondary task, we try to cast some doubt on the two most common moral justifications of intellectual property as being able to ground the full extent of the current intellectual property regime.
知识产权是当代哲学和政治辩论中极具争议的问题之一。本文的主要目的是探讨知识产权（特别是版权和专利）的正式规则与在线环境中文件共享和开放获取的新兴非正式规范之间的一些紧张关系的根源。我们研究文件共享现象不仅是为了说明这两套规范之间的差距正在加深，而且还对知识产权的现行制度作为在线环境中新型互动的适当框架提出了一些质疑。重新审视关于知识产权的 Arrow-Demsetz 经典辩论以及评估制度所涉及的认识论问题，我们认为，在新的技术环境中，寻找与实际规范一致的新制度安排似乎比试图加强现行法律框架更具前景。此外，这种策略不太可能犯所谓的“涅槃谬误”。作为次要任务，我们试图对知识产权的两种最常见的道德理由提出质疑，即它们是否能够为现行知识产权制度的全部范围提供依据。
