Cloud Computing Is Forcing a Reconsideration of Intellectual Property; New York Times, 10/11/14

Quentin Hardy, New York Times; Cloud Computing Is Forcing a Reconsideration of Intellectual Property:

"Almost overnight, our technology revolution is shaking up entire industries and remaking society. Don’t get caught up in the small stuff, though: Tech really is changing how we think about our ideas.

We’ve used ideas to sculpt the globe since the Industrial Revolution, thanks largely to the way we handle intellectual property. When machines, and machines to make identical machines, mass-produced reliably identical goods, it was because people understood the same set of instructions.

Mass-produced books, music and movies were possible, too. Like machine-making instructions, these items were made reliable and protected with laws of copyright, patent and trademark.

Now, according to people involved in the business of protecting ideas, all of that is set to change.

Software, lashing together thousands of computer servers into fast and flexible cloud-computing systems, is the reason. Clouds, wirelessly connected to more software in just about everything, make it possible to shift, remix and borrow from once separate industrial categories."