The simple way to explain intellectual property is to understand that all great expressions and products have an origin. A work of music, art, writing, film, or computer software belongs to its creators. Your creative expressions and inventions have a lot of value and must be protected however; your ideas are not considered intellectual property. Anyone who tries to copy or "borrow" your work without permission is profiting from your hard work – your intellectual property – without any credit to you.

Intellectual property is divided into two groupings: Industrial property (patents, trademarks, industrial designs, and geographic indications of source) and Copyright (literary and artistic works) / Rights related to copyright (performing artists, producers, and... (more)

The simple way to explain intellectual property is to understand that all great expressions and products have an origin. A work of music, art, writing, film, or computer software belongs to its creators. Your creative expressions and inventions have a lot of value and must be protected however; your ideas are not considered intellectual property. Anyone who tries to copy or "borrow" your work without permission is profiting from your hard work – your intellectual property – without any credit to you.

Intellectual property is divided into two groupings: Industrial property (patents, trademarks, industrial designs, and geographic indications of source) and Copyright (literary and artistic works) / Rights related to copyright (performing artists, producers, and broadcasters).

Intellectual property rights also have a large impact on international trade. Those belonging to big brand pharmaceutical companies have stalled countries from providing generic antiretroviral drugs to treat people with HIV/AIDS, due to long negotiations between the pharmaceutical companies and the generic manufacturers.

Due to the emergence of information and communication technologies, namely the Internet, defining the boundaries of intellectual property has become more challenging. Technology has advanced to a state where previous copyright codes and laws no longer fit. Some people find that copyright, as in “all rights reserved” is restrictive for our digital age of file sharing and blog publishing. A Creative Commons license allows for more flexibility for the creator, author or artist to attribute parameters on sharing their work.

Many people differ on the definition of piracy when it comes to files for download on the Internet. While some see it as an obvious infringement of copyright law, others believe ownership is more complex. The process of making files available to other users over the Internet for downloading purposes is called peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing.

Students and writers must take care when substantiating their own writing with information and references from other texts. While the Web provides easy access to articles, essays and other texts, every time a phrase, thought or paragraph is borrowed, it is imperative to credit the original author by properly citing sources. Failure to do so or intentional plagiarism may result in severe penalties such as suspension or expulsion from school to major legal fines and penalties.

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For a glossary, see the Intellectual Property wiki