Right at the heart of every community is a debate, a discourse, of ideas that give weight to the community's sense of itself. Every healthy community needs this discourse to be open and democratic. The way ideas are generated, articulated, shared and stored needs to be held in common, as do the ideas themselves, new and old, at home, on the street, and in libraries and archives. If the discourse is constrained or dishonest, the ideas dry up and the community suffers.

Ideas can come from anywhere - from anyone, at any time and in almost any shape. As they bubble up, or pop 'out of the blue', people make endless decisions about which ideas to think about further, which to build on, which ones to talk about and which ones to forget.

In a modern 'creative economy', where most people spend their working hours and earn their money by dealing with ideas rather than machines, this discourse flows fast and deep. No single person can keep in touch with everything. At the same time, ideas are continually being grasped and locked off by people who want to turn their ideas - or, indeed other people's ideas - into their own private property.

Why would anyone want to privatise an idea? There are two kinds of reason. The first is human rights; the principle that someone who gives birth to an idea or an invention has some moral right to define, name, and possess it. Human rights and the ownership of ideas first came together in the aftermath of the renaissance and the spread of humanism in Europe and were brilliantly argued by John Locke and others in the 17th century. People began to define themselves by their ideas (as opposed to by received ideas or conventional wisdom), and felt that they should, if they wanted to, own their ideas. The principle thrives in the form of 'moral rights' and can be seen in the quite violent disgust aroused by plagiarism.

The second reason, which gained force in the 18th century, is that people should receive an economic benefit from their ideas. Writers (and other artists) and designers wanted to be paid properly for their ideas. They wanted to own their ideas so they themselves could exploit them and also stop others from exploiting them.

Because the human rights principle, although fundamentally correct, was hard to enforce in business practice, governments formulated a new kind of 'intellectual policy'. This, enshrined in a new kind of law, provided an entirely new set of property rights. Hence copyright. And hence, too, the systems for registering patents and trademarks.

These new rights were granted by governments, often after fierce debates in parliament, to provide an incentive to artists, designers and inventors and to provide a mechanism whereby they could be rewarded. The rights were tightly circumscribed. Rights-holders had to allow the public to use copyright works for socially-useful purposes such as education and research. And the rights were temporary. Rights-holders had to give up their rights after a period - initially around 20 years but now, for copyright, much longer.

Today, these private copyrights are the chief personal asset of people working in art, media, communications, software, design and so on. Copyright, patents and trademarks are a critical competitive resource in virtually all industries from entertainment to chemicals, and a key factor in all major public sectors from education to health-care. Intellectual property is the currency of the creative economy.

Their social impact on us is even greater. They are a fundamental factor in innovation, enterprise and wealth. They are a key factor in social and economic development worldwide, assisting - or hampering - the 100+ developing countries to take part in the global economy.

But, as a result of the move from a manufacturing and service economy to a knowledge and creative economy, intellectual property is now being asked to play a primary role that it is not capable of. Each kind of intellectual property, with its distinctive historical antecedents and unique characteristics, is under considerable strain.

There are dramatic shifts in the boundaries between public/private spheres. There are shifts in patterns of work and employment. There are new ideas about personal identity.

Creative goods and services are now crucial to the economy; and therefore there are immense pressures to privatise knowledge. So there are shifts in our attitudes to property. We think differently about what we mean by possession, ownership, rent, nomadism, theft, and espionage.

We are re-thinking the relationship between trade and development. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) seeks to impose a Western-based view of intellectual property in all countries. Does liberalising trade (as the WTO seeks) promote development? Or does development happen faster if national cultures and national economies are protected, at least in the short term?

We have new ideas about globalisation. Globalisation can mean either the spread of sameness or access to difference. The former meaning is now predominant. Is this right? Of course, there are immense pressures for this kind of globalisation (led by global corporations and WTO treaties). But recently there have arisen local pressures for local cultural diversity (and UNESCO is preparing a Global Convention on Cultural Diversity).

There is no shortage of debate on how each particular kind of intellectual property should be adjusted and revised in order to cope with these new technologies and new social and economic factors. Witness the courtroom tussles and media coverage of peer-to-peer file exchange and the global concern over anti-HIV drugs.

But these specific issues, albeit hugely important, tend to come and go. We are in danger of losing sight of the basic principles of why we need intellectual property rights in the first place, and what form they should take. We are in danger of either being dazzled by the right-holders' promotion of the economic possibilities - or we are in danger of thinking that all IP is somehow intolerable and that all ideas and information should be free.

Even rights-holders are losing faith in the system, with damaging effects on their own creativity and innovation. By and large, creative people and financial investors are agreed that they want more rights and for their rights to last for longer terms; but an increasing number of creators also want fewer rights for shorter periods and for more freedom to work within the public domain and the public commons.

The public is confused. They resent what they see as excessive rights (eg, over human genes and peer-to-peer file sharing). They resent that criminal enforcement that was designed to control firms' anti-competitive behaviour in the market-place is now being used to control consumers' behaviour in their own homes.

The Prime Minster of Japan, the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank and many others have voiced their concerns. In April 2003, Alan Greenspan asked, 'Are we striking the right balance in our protection of intellectual property rights?' The answer, he said, was no. [1]

Yet the discussion of basic principles is fragmented and sporadic. The level of informed public debate is disturbingly low. The ethical principles which should inform the grant of private property rights are hardly mentioned.

For these reasons, a number of organisations are drawing up a Charter on Intellectual Property Rights. The purpose is not to duplicate the debates on digital copying or piracy, but to provide a general set of principles from the public's point of view. [2]

It will provide a set of principles for a fair, transparent and user-friendly IP system.

The word 'Charter' has been chosen to maximise public attention. As the world's first such Charter on intellectual property it will have international impact.

Only in this way can we ensure that the public interest in intellectual property will be heard equally alongside the rights-holders interests, and achieve a proper balance.

Notes:

[1] Read Alan Greenspan's speech at http://www.federalreserve.gov/BoardDocs/speeches/2003/20030404/default.htm.

[2] Howkins is the director of the International Charter on Intellectual Property. Queries about the Charter may be directed to him at howkins@compuserve.com.