As you know, copyright issue became very acute with the advent of the Internet. Since the Internet is a territory with no restrictions, and any information that was posted at least once, immediately replicates on thousands of resources. Usually, Internet users do not care about your copyrights if you post some original content. When it is unknown authors photographs, drawings, comics, and so on – nobody cares. When it comes to music labels, movie studios, and most importantly – research centers and institutions that close their files – it takes a different turn: lawsuits, arrests, confiscation, destruction and further more. This problem is topical, and it has two points of view, which can be shown in an argumentative essay.
History
Always the first thing you need to do is to describe the issue. The main international instruments for the copyright protection are Paris and the Berne Convention. Nowadays, the Convention is signed by almost all countries, so today copyright is protected at the international level. Analyze these documents. What was the reason for their creation, what principles do they proclaim? What objects are protected and what are not?
Two Sides of the Conflict
Just like any other problem, the intellectual property has both defenders and opponents. Describe the situation in today's society. For example, there is one side of the coin – a ban on copying and sharing intellectual property. Yes, this is absolutely correct, if you create something, then it is yours, whether it is a song or a new dog breed. You have all the right as a creator to monetize it because each work must be paid. On the opposite, we have stagnation in development. After all, patents and hidden info in the sphere of technics and medicine hinder the world development as much as possible. Imagine that someone has invented a cure for AIDS and patented it. If the patent is expensive, the drug companies will not be able to buy it, and hence, create/sell it. As a result, we have thousands of sick people.
Argumentation
When you took a side, you have to convincingly explain your point of view. If you are for the copyright, it can be argued by the fact that professional musician or a writer also ought to make a living. Selling phonograms on the radio, or selling rights to the book for translation in other countries – all that brings them income. If the work is replicated for free, and they do not get anything from copies, then, of course, musicians need to find other ways to earn money for living. Thus, they do not have time to create music professionally.
Examples
An argument sounds convincing if you give examples from life. Think of Apple patent wars when they patented already used phone shape and sued the other companies for using their technology. It looks very funny. Yes, most likely it is a large-scale PR-campaign, but according to the law, all this is pretty serious. Another example is from Medicine: Penicillin inventor could patent it, but he did not. Now Penicillin is mass produced, and it saves millions of lives.
Conclusion
In the end, sum up your opinion on all the arguments above. There are movements against the closure of educational and scientific info from a broad audience, especially if it is new knowledge. Banned articles make finding the information impossible. Therefore, there are hackers who spread scientific articles. Their actions are not just a question of law but also of moral. Think about how to solve this situation.