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I was being ironic: the market cannot solve all problems. I'm in favor of trademarks--a big government sponsored social program for business. I'm also in favor of copyright reform. For a reference on intellectual monopoly, I suggest Against Intellectual Monopoly a free online text by economists Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine. I also recommend their web site Against Monopoly. Intellectual monopoly is the exclusive "...right to control how purchasers make use of an idea or creation." This refers to all copies of an idea or creation. Boldrin and Levine assert that "not only should the property rights of innovators be protected but also the rights of those who have legitimately obtained a copy of the idea, directly or indirectly, from the original innovator." It is an empirical and not an ideological question whether and to what extent creators should "...have the right to control how purchasers make use of an idea or creation." The evidence I've seen is that copyrights and patents overwhelmingly favor moneyed interests at the expense of innovators and at significant social cost.

There are even *libertarians* who agree with you (I do, too). Imagine that! And that is despite what Ayn Rand had to say about IP.

Go here and here for more info. I'm particularly interested in this survey commissioned by the Fed which shows that software patents showed a clear and strong tendency to substitute for R&D over the last 20 years.

Go here and here for more info. I'm particularly interested in this survey commissioned by the Fed which shows that software patents showed a clear and strong tendency to substitute for R&D over the last 20 years.

The FCC was created to enforce communications law, with the most important goal of restricting the RF spectrum because if it was a free-for-all environment, too many people would be transmitting on the same part of the spectrum at the same time and nothing would work.

This is BS! Before the FCC was even created courts were already ruling that the first person broadcasting on a certain frequency had the right to that frequency. It's called homesteading the airwaves.

Falcon

Try the Against Monopoly website. I think technical discussions concerning circumvention are immediately useful, but the long term goal should be to have public discourse on the merits of the copyright system. It's clear from stories like these that the public benefits of a copyright system are significantly outweighed by their costs. The Against Monopoly website has, for me anyway, painted the clearest picture of what is so wrong with IP laws.

You wanted to know how artists are supposed to support themselves without copyrights? Consider that the "First Mover" advantage can be a serious money maker, even without copyright protection. Take the 9/11 Commission report. Before publication, several publishing houses angled for exclusive rights to be the *first* printer and distributor of the book. The text of the report is not copyrighted, yet someone could see the profits waiting for them as the first printer of the report.

To put it entirely differently, copyrights and patents create a tendency for artists, inventors and the corporations that support them, to sit on their laurels instead of finding ways to stay ahead of the pack with innovation. For a book that provides a lucid description of what life could be like without IP, check out "Against Intellectual Monopoly." It's an up to date analysis of how artists and inventors can still make money without intellectual property rights. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a way to entertain debate on this issue.

Oh, did I mention that the book is free to download?

> From TFS : all new computers ship with the 'Green Damn' Internet censoring program. Is that a typo or the reaction of Chinese men, when they discover, that they can't surf porn anymore?

I'd say that it's both, but the typo isn't quite accidental. Maybe I shouldn't have used it there, but what can I say? I guess I'm a bit prone to abusing language as a form of protest. The Chinese do it too. I suggest looking up the issue with the "grass mud horse" or "river crab" (harmonious) society. Both of those terms have been used to evade censorship, too, incidentally.

For whatever it's worth, the correct name of the censorship software is "Green Dam" though I have no idea if we'll have to start calling it something else due to censorship. Incidentally, the Chinese net censorship initiative is called "Operation Golden Shield," so they like use colour adjectives for some reason. I'm not really sure why.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

P.S. In the unlikely event that people are wondering if I'm the same guy as before, given that I sometimes use the Facebook link as well as the EFF donate link, I am. I didn't start it, but I do endorse the Facebook group, which I believe was started by the fine folks at Against Monopoly. I'm not, personally, a Libertarian, mind you, though I find a lot of common ground with that group. My personal views don't mesh well with any particular political group, save perhaps the Pirate Party, which has a rather limited party platform.

Here's another interesting place for history and current events: http://www.againstmonopoly.org/. I also highly recommend the books on their website, in particular, "Against Intellectual Monopoly".

Thanks for the links.

Then consider the possibilities offered by this website: http://www.againstmonopoly.org/. Enjoy.

If the Obama administration really wants to go after monopoly, the best place to start is to weaken copyright and patent laws and make the RIAA guys they hired earn their money. For some very interesting reading, they should start here.

I'm in chapter 5 of this book, and I'm already convinced that patents should be abolished, completely. I'm also forming the opinion that the success of the malware industry is exactly because they seek no protection or rents from patents, copyrights or other monopoly protection.

I'm not so sure about abolishing copyrights yet, but I haven't finished the book. Maybe a much shorter term is in order, perhaps 3-10 years.

If the Obama administration really wants to go after monopoly, the best place to start is to weaken copyright and patent laws and make the RIAA guys they hired earn their money. For some very interesting reading, they should start here.

I'm in chapter 5 of this book, and I'm already convinced that patents should be abolished, completely. I'm also forming the opinion that the success of the malware industry is exactly because they seek no protection or rents from patents, copyrights or other monopoly protection.

I'm not so sure about abolishing copyrights yet, but I haven't finished the book. Maybe a much shorter term is in order, perhaps 3-10 years.

www.againstmonopoly.org

Exactly. It's Libertarian Creationism.

People, mod this up! This needs to be visible to everyone, so more people can read that book. I loved it. It is quite insightful. (You can even download the whole book as a PDF and read it off a portable device.) They also have a blog, Against Monopoly. After that, read Techdirt, which is regularly insightful on how business models can actually be more successful when you don't enforce artificial scaricity.

...is on Against Monopoly. That is where said patent attorney regularly blogs, together with several others, including the economists who authored Against Intellectual Monopoly . Worth reading.

Mod parent up. That book is amazing. Download it. Give copies to all your friends and enemies. Also, David K Levine's rebuttal is here.

The previous poster writes, "Take just 10 minutes to get educated."

A judicious selection of readings from "Against Intellectual Monopoly" is ideal for educating oneself about intellectual property, in the ten minutes generously alloted for this purpose by the previous poster.

For example, Boldrin and Levine demolish the conventional claim of intellectual property apologists that intellectual property is just like real property. Boldrin and Levine point out that property rights have to do with the right of the owner to exclusive use, whereas intellectual property is a government grant to create a legal monopoly over all copies of an idea.

The use of patents by monied intellectual monopolists to impede innovation for their own profit is ancient. Microsoft belongs to a long line of rent seeking intellectual monopolists, which includes such historical figures as James Watt, who spent more time protecting his monopoly on the steam engine and prosecuting inventors with superior designs than he spent on development; and Marconi, whose contribution to the development of radio was the introduction of the ground wire.

The original poster is unwittingly correct: if /.-ers were to follow his advice, they would be only "marginally more intelligent." But why should they settle for that, when they could read Against Intellectial Monopoly, and be brilliant?

The your understanding of free markes is flawed. Price has nothing to do with value. The function of the free market is to have profit margin between costs, and what the market is prepared to pay: prise. By competition prise is driven towards costs until the market actors are forced to derive their profit from oppertunity rents by pressing their costs below their competition. Thus wealth is created by lowering the costs to deliver value to the market.

The practice of deriving profit from state enforced monopolies (patents and copyright f.ex.) is nothing but rent seeking.

It is true that some economists believe that the static inefficiency of state enforced monopolies is justifiable by arguments similar to yours. But it's not a holy truth, take a look at the critisism and see who you think has the better understanding.

http://www.againstmonopoly.org/
http://questioncopyright.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Network s
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/again st.htm

When somebody can give me a sound, scalable, generic and implementable economic design for goods that cost money to build the first time but are free to copy from then on, I might start to protest against DRM, because I'd actually have an answer to the question of "If not DRM then what?". Until then I'll continue to argue the case for it, use it despite the inconvenience and who knows, maybe even implement it in future.

If the market can't handle this problem. Do you really need the kinds of goods that DRM "enables"? Do you really value this production higher than the production that is suppressed by these systems?

Is it possible that a the costs of producing this cultural and technological goods can be lower if the cost of reusing that which is allready produced is, as the maginal costs suggest, zero?

Is it possible that the costs are low enought to enable the commons-based peer production that Benkler suggests?

But if you really must have a system. What do you think of the street performer protocol?