We’re participating in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of the law—addressing what’s at stake and what we need to do to make sure that Copyright Law promotes creativity and innovation.
The last time I got upset about breaking something was when I ripped a hole in the elbow of my favorite black wool sweater. Just a week earlier, I had mended a ripped seam in the sleeve (possibly a first for me). But this was a big, gaping, growing-as-we-speak hole. I’ll be honest, I was emotional—and it was an unfamiliar feeling for me.
See, I don’t own a lot of things. Clothes, shoes, a small collection of sadly neglected kitchen gadgets, and… that’s about it. It’s pretty embarrassing to admit as someone who works at an organization crusading for our right to do whatever we please with the stuff that we own. Like many other young people straddling the line between Millennial and Gen Z, I prefer (read: can afford) the more noncommittal things in life: apartment renting, music streaming, $20 H&M leggings. I embody, essentially, the kind of behavior iFixit advocates against.
As we’ve reported in years past, there are a few forces duking it out in the ring of declining ownership: increasing digitalization and the growing presence of software in physical products, the resulting number of licensing agreements, and the malice of manufacturers to use copyright law to mold these agreements into digital locks.
For digital natives like me, ownership is more important than ever. So I asked the employees of the experts on ownership—most of them Millennials as well—what ownership means to them. Their answers surprised me.
What does ownership mean to you? Tell us in the comments.
Learn more about how you can participate in Copyright Week.
hi, am Emma and i want to buy the ifixit pro tool kid but am in Ghana.
so how can i get?
Ownership means being able to do what I want with what I have. It’s not something that I need (you can rent things for example), but if I have it, then I should be able to use and manipulate that object at my own free will. I have somewhat of a different understanding, since a lot of what I own is copyrights, as a photographer, and I should be able to manipulate and change photos how I please, even if ultimately it doesn’t represent the original thing that was photographed. I should be able to crop and composite and shift and transform and manipulate the image as I please, and others shouldn’t complain about it not being representative of the original object.
Thanks for sharing your perspective as a photographer, Sejin :) It’s been really interesting to hear all the ways ownership affects different professions.
Hi Emma, unfortunately we don’t ship to Ghana. Here is a list of the countries we ship to: https://www.ifixit.com/Info/Sales_Policies#Section_International
Hi Elise,
If you can have Baah Marifawie Emmanuel get in touch with us, I’d like to see if we can help.
As a Baby Boomer, “ownership” itself “owns” by your definition, when used in the proper context, a myriad of meanings, not the least of which is ownership of intellectual property, a subject not even mentioned in your article. No one would dream of selling coffee and calling it “Coca-Cola” as a prime example.
My life’s work was dependent on my clients respecting my ownership of my inventions. It would be virtually impossible to replicate my life’s story if I were to have begun my life as a millennial. Everything that is newly invented or new process is immediately posted on the Internet, while search engines and viewers of today have no concept of intellectual property other that they know that Apple licenses the songs that they download and share with all their friends.
Copyright ownership of photographs absolutely belongs to the photographer. However he/she cannot display or sell a photograph of an identifiable person without a model’s release. The model owns his/her likeness unless they are public figures.
Ownership of your life is a completely different concept from ownership of an original work of art, a trademark, utility or likeness that are protected by Copyright and Patent law.
Casually coöpting the word “ownership” to be used publicly is to severely dilute the value that the word actually portrays when used in the proper context.
At 63 ownership has a different meaning.
It means I can pull out my 1982 turntable and finding parts to put it back in service (not that easy) because vinyls are back.
This is how I look at things I am thinking of acquiring today.
In my view ownership is reciprocal. Owning goods comes with the burden of storage, maintenance, upgrading, repurposing, passing it on and/or final disposal of those goods. The same way goods are meant to serve so are we meant to serve those goods after creating them. Whether we take a communal approach to this reciprocal relationship (e.g. public goods) or a private one, the social norm should not be the mindless disposal and destruction of the objects we create for the sake of consuming more.