Protecting Intellectual Property Rights General IP Issues6/28/2000; 3:20:24 PM This is sort of the flip side of the intellectual property debates taking place in the western world, which is whether or not IP protections are too strong. This story from the Moscow Times illustrates a part of the world so far on the other side (basically no protections whatsoever) that people are actually being harmed, possibly even dying, from the lack of intellectual property protection."Adulterated food, poison spirits, fake toothpaste and knock-off drugs are a lethal combination. Readily available in neighborhood stores and kiosks, very few people could handle so many unsafe products at once and come out alive.... The stakes are higher still for consumers. Shoppers rely on certain quality and health standards associated with famous trademarks and brand names. Trademark piracy and counterfeits defraud consumers and can cause substantial health risks, even death.I dislike IP being used offensively as much as the next guy, but we still need IP in some form in the future so we can use it defensively. When I see a Crest logo on that toothpaste, I want to know it's from Crest. It's not just a "brand" thing for the owners of Crest, it's also a promise from the manufacturor that it is indeed Crest toothpaste and not some cheap knock-off. Similarly, when I expose content over the internet to the outside world, I expect that people can get it, in the original format (or some other format I approve of), without arbitrary modifications along the way from whoever sees fit to toy with my bits (the government? AOL? Does it matter?).Intellectual property protection exists on a continuum. While we may far into the "too protective" side, the solution is not to run to the "no protection" extreme, as some have advocated. We need IP for our society to function, and this is a real-world example of why.PS: It's a challenge to think of this story as real-world, isn't it? It must just be made up, right? This flaw in our human minds, the lack of ability to truly imagine anything except what we are currently experiencing as a real possibility really hampers our planning for the future. I think the issues raised in this weblog (and many other issues as well) would receive more attention if people really, deeply realized how different the world will be and how directly those differences will be determined by the decisions we make today.Our country can become a dictatorship, China can become a free country, or more realistically, you might not be able to register disapproval of the government on the 'net without the 'net censoring that disapproval before anybody else can see it. All it takes is enough people making the right (or wrong) decisions. There's nothing impossible about it.(It's worth remembering this and chewing on it every once in a while. What decisions are you making?)