Regular readers know all too well that I'm a former academic. Partly because of my background, I am a fan of the kind of free-flowing information I had the pleasure to experience in academia. I get a kick out of the MP3 underground music culture; I'm fascinated by the open-source movement; and I frequent Web sites that freely distribute content with the hope that a large audience will equate to high value.

I also believe that people should make money from their intellectual property. There is nothing more valuable to us than great writing, wonderful musical compositions, and other creative works, and society should recognize this. Anyone can follow instructions and work hard at a job. Heck, if the job is simply a matter of following instructions, many computers can do it. But talented, creative people should be highly rewarded for work that goes beyond following instructions to define new genres in literature, music, software, etc.

The trouble is, these two values are fundamentally in conflict. As a creative person, you can't make money if you just give everything away. Yet, if you don't let anyone see your work for fear of exploitation, your work can never have any value. Successful creative people find a way to release their work and retain the rights to the intellectual property so as to maximize its value. There are as many models of this balancing act as there are publishing houses, record labels, and software companies. And the variety of models has exploded with the dawn of the Internet.

The vast majority of technology law--our focus for this month--relates to this intellectual-property balancing act. Regardless of the medium, the story seems the same: The Internet has rendered old intellectual-property models obsolete. Among other things in this issue, we explore what the Internet has done to two key areas of intellectual property: Copyright and patent law. In the case of copyright, the purveyors of the old way are trying to tighten restrictions on the fair use of works to counteract their loss of control on the Internet. In the case of patent law, dot-com companies are using an old system to gain unfair advantage in a brave new world.

Not only will their proposed laws and filed lawsuits harm users of the information and squelch creativity, but they will harm the vendors as well. If I only learned one thing in grad school, it's that whatever rules you write to govern a set of practices, there will always be loopholes to subvert them. That is why we have lawyers and judges to interpret the laws and mitigate conflicting interpretations on a case-by-case basis. So whatever restrictions the record companies, the big publishers, or the e-commerce pioneers try to place on Internet content and commerce, there will always be ways to subvert them. And vendors who show more openness will not be subject to this subversion and will gain the advantage.

In the MP3 universe--highlighted in a feature by Cynthia Kurkowski--the big music vendors who only publish in their proprietary new formats will lose huge MP3 audiences. While they're protecting their property, they're doing so to the detriment of their own business. If they got with the program and actually started publishing in MP3 (rather than suing everyone who distributes MP3), they would be helping their businesses to the tune of billions of dollars.

In the case of Amazon.com and Priceline patents on such trivial things as one-click ordering--highlighted in Joe Rudich's feature--enforcing these ridiculous patents will only enrage consumers and result in boycotts and other backlashes that can only harm their businesses.

Nowhere is the intellectual-property issue more clear to me than in the software arena. Everybody knows about open source, of course. The movement has gained steam precisely because it allows users to take control over their systems. Users like the fact that, if there's a problem, they're not at the mercy of vendors who can charge whatever they darn well please to fix it. Of course, shrink-wrapped vendors need to keep their customers happy by playing somewhat fair. But the power has traditionally been with the vendor, simply because it typically costs far more to replace a whole system than it does to fix a part of it. Open source tilts that power back to the user, who can fix stuff without the aid of the vendor.

It seems that in response to open source, software vendors have banded together to get a piece of legislation very near adoption in several states (and already adopted in Virginia). The Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) tilts the balance of power back to shrink-wrapped vendors. The law's original intent seemed proper enough: Standardize software licensing among vendors across the states. But it quickly took on ugly aspects that further tilt the scales of justice in the direction of the vendors. One aspect in particular has users crying foul. The law lets vendors put teeth into their licenses by allowing time bombs and other code that could remotely shut down a system if the vendor suspects misuse of the software license. Never mind that users are innocent until proven guilty. Whether the vendor is correct in its assessment, mission-critical systems can be brought to their knees by unscrupulous vendors. And the UCITA would make these vendors' actions legal.

To me, this is just another attempt by old-world publishers to wrest control over their intellectual property if to their own detriment. When the UCITA passes, I expect that IT managers will flock to open source and avoid shrink-wrapped software. They won't be held hostage by software vendors any more than MP3 junkies will willingly adopt restrictions on the way they can use and share music.

James Mathewson is the editorial director of ComputerUser.com Inc. james@computeruser.com