http://www.eff.org/IP/
Intellectual Property
You'd like to move the tracks you bought from Rhapsody to a personal stereo like Apple's iPod, but the copy protection prevents you. Creating or using the software necessary to make the switch could put you behind bars.
You want to distribute your hip hop band's music, but the P2P system that's revolutionized your ability to reach listeners is being sued out of existence, a company claiming to own a patent to all streaming media technology is demanding licensing fees, and record labels are breathing down your neck over the samples you've looped.
You want to criticize Vivendi Universal on your website or blog, but the plug's been pulled on your "vivendisucks" domain name because of its unflattering reference to the company's trademark.
You want to build an open-source video recorder, but threats of a "broadcast flag" technology mandate are driving the TV tuners you need off the market.
In each of these instances and many more, your freedom runs up against intellectual property (IP). IP serves important public purposes: encouraging creativity (copyrights) and innovation (patents and trade secrets) and protecting the public from being defrauded by misleading advertising (trademarks). At the same time, IP must be carefully limited to protect your rights to create, access, and distribute information, as well as to develop new ways to do so.
In the move from analog to digital, offline to online, this delicate balance is becoming dangerously tilted, as legislators, courts, and IP holders push for ratcheting up IP rights.
EFF fights to preserve balance and ensure that the Internet and digital technologies continue to empower you as a consumer, creator, innovator, scholar, and citizen.