Copyright and Patent Laws Hurt the Economy

Norsefire writes "Two economists at Washington University in St. Louis are claiming that copyright and patent laws are 'killing innovation' and 'hurting [the] economy.' Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine state they would like to see copyright law abolished completely as there are other protections available to the creators of 'intellectual property' (a term they describe as 'propaganda,' and of recent origin). They are calling on Congress to grant patents only where an invention has social value, where the patent would not stifle innovation, and where the absence of a patent would damage cost-effectiveness."

Comments

Re:Why would we listen to economists?

[HornWumpus]

The article starts with an argument from authority (citing the men as economists). They raised the issue of their qualifications.

It is reasonable to 'start skeptical' in all cases. This is especially true when dealing with economists. They simply don't have a good track record, particularly the leftest economists who have a 100 year record of being 100% wrong.

Your an idiot if you think the reds aren't still running lots of social science departments at universities though. Granted that the only two places you can find reds these days in theme parks in Poland and 'western' universities soft science and *studies departments.

You don't have to buy into an argument to take it apart. It helps not to. Companies always protected IP by keeping it secret, they are simply wrong about it being a new concept. Government protection of IP is at least as old as the USA (granting copyright is much too long now) but even before then companies and people protected their IP by simply keeping it secret.

The '60s called. They'd like their idiotic idealism back.