FTC and JD Holding Hearings on IP

hondo77 writes "The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department are holding hearings on intellectual property laws over the next few weeks (the first one was Feb 6). They're looking at the balance between IP rights and the free market."

Comments

Re:Ashcroft is Darth Vader without the helmet

[smallpaul]

What makes you say that? I don't see him mentioned in the article. I don't see anything that indicates that the Justice department is on the wrong side of the issue. They are at least holding hearings which indicates that they understand there is cause for concern!

Re:Lemme see . . .

[CaseStudy]

No Amendment would be needed. Article I gives Congress the power to provide copyrights and patents, and gives a reason why it's doing that. There is no requirement that they provide such.

Yeah, that's my take too, but I think the Supreme Court could decide that Article I, Section 8 powers are Congressional duties, since the states can't do these things themselves. Are there any other powers that Congress can reasonably forgo? (Possibly the militia power, depending on how that's defined.)

Scarcity, definition thereof

[MajroMax]

>"Intellectual "property" isn't scarce, so the same rules CANNOT apply exactly."

It is not scarce? So you're telling me that everyone thinks and creates on the same level of intelligence.

You're using the wrong definition of scarce. Each "new" IP created by someone is just that, a new property. This is much like a new model of car, a new type of CPU, or green orange-juice.

"Scarce," in economics terminology, means limited. If some X number of people have this, then the X+1'th person is going to get stiffed. This applies quite well to physical properties, because there are only so many, and that number is usually quite small compared to the number of people on the planet.

Oxygen, however, is not scarce. Nitrogen is not scarce. (Both if these come with caevats that it's breathable, but not pure.) Intellectual property is not scarce. I can breathe as much as I want and not affect the breating of anyone else on the planet. Likewise, I can copy the Linux Kernel (insert favorite rev. here) as many times as I want, and everybody else on the planet will still be able to get theirs.

Your argument (which seems to be that the market created/allowed by IP laws encourages the development of new IP) is possibly a valid one, but it is not based on the principle of scarcity. Don't get me wrong here -- I'm not an "abolish copyright/patents" type of guy: I think that you should be allowed to release your software on whatever terms you want, although any protections in excess of copyright law should be signed before purchase. I also happen to think that copyright is too long-term and the patent office is quickly becoming incompetent, but both of these are largely irrelevant to the fundamental discussion of Intellectual Property.

Re:If there was any doubt about this...

[Flower]

Well, I was sadly about to support your opinion by mentioning Buckly v. Valeo but then saw a mention of a new decision Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC. Seems that the Court ruled that money is property not speech. Have to look into this one.

Reference found at http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/pdf/Debating_Wrong _Question.PDF Defiantely biased but has more up-to-date info.

Re:If there was any doubt about this...

[TFloore]

Actually, in the U.S. at least, corporations are people. The U.S. Supreme Court said so in 1886, Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad case, based on the 14th Amendment.

Which does raise some interesting questions, personally... corporations are legal persons, but not allowed to vote? That's just wrong.

I'd love to see some corporation (that was established more than 21 years ago, just to avoid that little detail) sue to be given voting rights.

The outcome of that case would be seriously interesting. Now, whether it would make things seriously bad, or fix 100 years of bad legal precedent, is a frightening thought.