Claudio Prado, digital policy coordinator for the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, put it succinctly when he expressed the view that intellectual property law is a 20th-century idea and "most of the blossoming of world civilisation has happened perfectly well without it - The 20th century is a cul-de-sac," he says. "And the engine of progress doesn't have a reverse gear, so it's hard for the first world to get out of the cul-de-sac."