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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."
www.againstmonopoly.org
This vile proposal threatens to sacrifice shareholder value on the altar of the progress of the useful arts! The founding fathers would never stand for it.
Copyrights should only be a limited amount of time, not the current infinity+ that it is now.
More than the authors life is excessive.
A picture I took today shouldn't expire in 75 (if I live to 100) + 70 years, or in 2154.
If I had a son, he might not be alive at that point.
That is just way too long.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Would it be irony if their book was copyrighted? ;)
Also, I'm glad to see the description of the term "Intellectual Property" called for precisely what it is : propaganda. It's time for this term to be thrown out, and not to let so-called self-professed "intellectual property owners" inject this horrible term into the collective mind-set any further - it muddies the water of the discussion.
They put their mouths where their money is, or something like that (too late in the day to be properly witty). Read it online for free.
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
This vile proposal threatens to sacrifice shareholder value on the altar of the progress of the useful arts!
Shareholders benefit because their money isn't going into lawyers pockets, and being lost to the invisible, incalculable cost of hindered progress.
(yes I know you were being sarcastic. Sadly, that is actually the majority sentiment on this issue.)
"They are calling on Congress to grant patents only where an invention has social value"
And of course, such a thing as "social value" can be easily determined before the product has the ability to hit the market...
I'm not sure getting rid of either entirely would be the best option but I don't see much use of limits being longer than five years. Protection is supposed to give the original creator a short monopoly to give them, and others, incentive to create more. As it is now, someone can make something and sit on it for the rest of their lives; where's the incentive?
-SaNo
While I agree that it has its uses, the current infinity-bazillion-year copyright goes way too far.
Protecting your work from duplication for a time, allowing you to make money and, hopefully, finance future works? Good!
Creating one successful work and living off it for your whole life while preventing anyone else from improving on it? Terrible, and sadly what we're dealing with today.
Furthermore I submit that royalties be amended to include BRAAAAAINS.
Your post starts with the assumption that simply because they are economists they are not worth listening to before suggesting critical thinking as a positive thing that most of the slashdot readership do not engage in. This is either an example of an American not understanding irony or a brilliant piece of irony.
You then use the term 'reds', an old propagandist word, as if 'reds' are inherently bad before highlighting "China's lack of respect for IP" as if IP has real meaning beyond your own mindset, as if it is a part of reality that exists outside of you political environment. In doing this you demonstrate that you are not flexible enough to think within the bounds defined in the fine article which has clearly stated that intellectual property is a modern propagandist word.
Even if you disagree with that premise, it is important to take that concept on, suspend disbelief if you will, in order to understand the whole point of what they are saying. You are unable to do this, apparantly incapable of critical thought, so you can only miss the point.
Oh, and the 1950's called. They'd like their bigotry back.
I don't therefore I'm not.
I went to ye olde library today to get copies of 2 Articles from the Journal of Applied Polymer Sciences, a Wiley Interscience Publication. Xeroxing the articles under fair use from the library was free for me.
The Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Moment came when I checked online to find out how much it would cost to subscribe to the journal. I thought someone misplaced a decimal point: $23,245 a year is the institutional subscription rate! That's about what I paid yearly in college tuition back when I was in college. Even worse, it's almost the value of the lab equipment I'm using in the work I've been doing on my own time.
The issue here isn't "intellectual property". The issue is the property paradigm itself. Whether or not the proprietary period has been lengthened ridiculously to benefit Disney, we all agree that intellectual property eventually returns to the public domain that nourished its creation. Newton wasn't the only one who has stood on the shoulders of giants.
Why then do we assume completely and utterly that "real" property never expires? Why assume that once Manhattan was stol...er...purchased, that it remains purchased - not for 14 years - not for 100 years - not for the lifetime of Peter Minuit plus 75 years - not even for as long as the original Dutch nation retained possession - but rather, for ever and ever and ever?
The concept behind inheritance taxes is that the wealthy got that way by receiving special benefits from the body politic. Thus there is an end to wealth of all types. At issue isn't how "intellectual property" differs from other types of property - perhaps to the extent of not even representing property - but how we have all bought into the absurd proposition that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are somehow entitled - could possibly be entitled - to squat on billions in filthy lucre.
All property is intellectual property. What is real estate but a deed? What is a car but its title?
Better yet, you can read it online.
It's freely available on their web site.
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm
How we know is more important than what we know.
A lot of old 8 bit software we grew up with won't even run on most modern platform, but they're still "protected."
One is due to the other.
How we know is more important than what we know.
... or writing if someone else can come along and make money off your invention.
Because you also make money off it.
Just imagine if Wal-Mart could print and sell and book they wanted without permission from the author or the publisher. What if they could take your program or product, have it made in China for a tenth of your cost and sell it for their own profit.
Good for them. If there's enough volume for them to do this profitably, then I've probably already made enough money and can move on to something else.
If I come up with a unique and new idea, it's mine (or at least it belongs to the company I created it for.)
Why? And what happens when someone else has the same idea later, should they be denied the right to their own thoughts?
Patents and copyright exist to ensure that the creator is protected. Sure there are problems with the way things are now, where patents are being given a little too freely, but to abolish copyrights and patents altogether is just absurd.
This protection comes at the public expense. And since it appears that this expense is greater than the benefits resulting from the protection, not abolishing copyright and patents is what is absurd.
Wrong, AC.
What about 4 years ago, when there was a fuckload of venture capital floating around looking to be spent?
The companies that already owned tons of patents were looking to do what? GET MORE PATENTS.
Capitalism is Murder.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Below is a fitting quote from a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Isaac McPherson ( http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html )
Thomas Jefferson was originally against copyrights and patents but his beliefs evolved. In correspondence on 1790 June 27 to Benjamin Vaughan he wrote:
"An act of Congress authorising the issuing patents for new discoveries has given a spring to invention beyond my conception. Being an instrument in granting the patents, I am acquainted with their discoveries. Many of them indeed are trifling, but there are some of great consequence which have been proved by practice, and others which if they stand the same proof will produce great effect."
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I'd push more for 15 to 30 years. Not every idea can be rolled out at Web 3.0 speeds. Anything that requires physical manufacturing, quality control, and any kind of regulatory oversight can't hope to go from concept to consumer within less than 2 years.
This is close to the original copyright and patent terms. Using an actuarial table of life spans Thomas Jefferson calculated that they should last 14 years with 1 14 year extension possible.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
these two people are from Washington state, clear across the country
Nice job of not reading. They are from Washington university in St. Louis, not even halfway across the country from Beantown.
I bet that little truth hurts a bit more, eh?
Infuriate left and right
> "what should and should not be patentable"
The trouble is it is very hard 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."
How can some average patent examiner do that consistently and reliably enough? The temptation after a while would be to just rubberstamp everything.
To me what they should do is to award Prizes for Innovation, much like Nobel Prizes. Most people's hindsight is better than their foresight.
To qualify for the prize, inventors have to register their inventions and pay a registration fee that goes to the prize pool.
You could have one category of prize being awarded by "Experts in the Field", and another category awarded by members of the public (somewhat similar to the Hugo and Nebula prizes, except maybe we could allow a wider participation for members of the public?). Multiple prizes per category would be awarded. Prizes could be awarded every year.
Inventors could win a prize for something they did years or even decades ago.
So even if you are 30 years ahead of everyone and/or your stuff only gets declassified decades later, you can still win a prize.
In contrast patents don't reward the inventors who are really far ahead of their time. They instead reward people who somehow manage to sneak "Method of making omelettes by using contents of eggs while excluding shells and detritus" past overworked patent examiners deluged by similar garbage.
Also, punitive actions could be taken against people who falsely claim they were the first to invent something - at least based on the patent registration database.
What the "Patent Office people" would then do is: try to reduce dupes (you can't prevent dupes 100% but at least reduce them), organize and manage the data so that it is not too hard for people to find candidates for nomination - for instance you don't want to have people keep nominating an invention that has already won! That said an invention that has already won, could qualify for a "top winners amongst winners category".
The patent office workers could also help authoritatively link registered inventions with actual products out in the market.
Capitalism is Murder.
We've talked about this before, but there is a difference between capitalism, and corporatism. The two are often confused.
What we have in America right now leans far more towards the Corporatism end of the spectrum, than true (pure) capitalism.
There is no 'Capitalism'. There is classical Liberalism, and there are other 'systems' that depart from it in degree, some more than others.
Liberalism is more advantageous for everybody and benefits nobody in particular, while all systems we currently experiment today are attempts to favor certain groups while necessarily screwing everybody else in the process. Which is kind of why they're so popular today. :-)
Send your spendthrift head of state this
I'll begin simply by suggesting that companies strong in IP are looking pretty good now.
GM is the penny stock.
Not Microsoft. Not Pfizer.
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."
Now this scares me.
Because it means that "social value" would be defined by the legislator, the bureaucrat, and the courts.
--- and how this new measure of socially redeeming value - could be limited to the denial of a patent or copyright escapes me entirely.
The politician, after all, likes to be pro-active.
I am not sure what it takes to "stifle innovation." I don't even have a clear notion of what innovation really means.
A patent only implies only distinction - a measure of originality in concept and execution.
The examiner does not have a crystal ball.
He does not ask and can not know whether you have accomplished anything significant and lasting.
The geek who would give the politician - the bureaucrat - that crystal ball and demand that he play oracle does enormous harm, I think.
"Cost-Effectiveness" is a lovely phrase.
Damnation in two words.
Big Pharm gets the Malaria patent because Big Pharm can quickly and safely ramp up to full production.
The little guy will botch it.
Cost-Effectiveness is about economies of scale. Technical competence. Managerial competence. Financial resources.
Cost-Effectiveness is also about papering over the politically unpalatable choices you know you have to make.
I'll admit to having become very cynical about this sort of thing.
But it still surprises me sometimes how High Church the geek really is.
China, which is kind of like our Wild West(tm) right now, does whatever it wants. And it's going to completely leave us behind much as we did with Europe. Remember, Europe at the time had very restrictive guilds, laws, and regulations. The U.S. didn't. So we invented and invented. We built and didn't really care that much if it was someone else's idea.
Just like China now is doing.
And you wonder why they are going to put up their own space station modules next year and beat us to a habitat on the moon... We have to dismantle the idiocy or we'll never be able to move fast enough to keep up.
Honestly, if I was interested in space or technology or just making new things, I'd be making a beeline to China and doing it there without the millions of laws and tens of thousands of lawyers all suing everyone into oblivion over idiotic patents.
As with many laws that have ballooned out of control in our country's short history, the so-called IP laws need to be rolled back to their original condition. There are too many crooks in the system and too much abuse. We all know these laws were created to give creative people an added incentive to create because such creations advance the cause of the country. The limited time allowed by the original laws made it possible to earn back the costs of the effort and then make a necessary profit. Yes, profit is a necessary component in the system. But when the terms of these IP laws extend into the next millennium, it serves not to advance the well being of the country but to make useful works disappear from existence as their creators no longer exist or no longer care to provide the product. At the very least, if the terms are not shortened back to sane values, there should be a clause for so-called orphaned works, which would state that if you're reasonably sure the creator of a work no longer exists or the creator does exist but is no longer interested in selling the product, the IP laws cease to apply and it enters the public domain. In other words, protect the stuff you're actually selling. If you're no longer trying to sell it, you no longer need the protection.
Well, I feel about the GPL the same way I feel about firearms... I'll gladly toss mine into the bonfire, as long as mine is the last one left after all others are in the pit. I won't need it then.
The other side is that many companies refuse to pursue innovations unless they see parts that can be patented to lock in the monopoly returns. Lesser profits just aren't worth the trouble of pursing innovation as they see it these days.
You've got that completely wrong. Due to the fucked up nature of the US patent system, patents are valuable to a company. Either for blackmailing companies that produce actual value, or for preventing blackmail from competitors. There is no innovation behind them.
My company tries to get patents exactly for the reason to prevent blackmail from competitors, who have patents in the same area. That works quite fine, as long as our competitors are doing well because when they are doing well, they can't afford mutual destruction by patent lawyers. Where it goes wrong is in a case like RIMM, where they totally beat their competitor in the market place, so their competitor had no reason anymore to be afraid from RIMM's patent, and could use their own patents in an offensive way.
The reason why my company innovates is not because of patents, it is because we want to offer our customers competitive products, so that they buy ours and not our competitors, and that way we make money. We do _not_ innovate to get patents. We do, however, like everyone else, turn our innovation and also our failed innovations into legalese to get patent.
Ok, I'll step into the flamewar.
When I see Enron and AIG and all pretty much lying to investors' faces, deliberately abusing the notion of deregulation, and eventually destroying tens of thousands of peoples lives, homes, and savings, I don't sit down and think "damn regulations!".
Maybe I should. Maybe you're right and all the work that the EPA does, and DHEC, and the FDA- maybe it's all just a false savings, and the market could correct against them without government interference.
Obviously, though, I wouldn't be writing this screed if I thought that were the case. I appreciate the phenomenal theoretical beauty of the informed participant model, both from a political and economic standpoint, but I cannot completely agree with it in practice. The fact is that liars are common, and their art is highly profitable. Deception, known in some circles as "marketing", is the bane of that theory, and the backbone of the modern economy. Add to that that our system is rife with the local dependencies that obliterate the free exchange of goods and services demanded by the founders of Enlightenment thought, and I simply cannot agree that economic issues should be allowed to ride roughshod over the social concerns of the day.
So when I hear someone ranting about regulation, I have to stop and think- has this person never worked minimum wage? Never pondered the implications of the forty hour work week, or of working 80 hours at the age of 8? It seems foolish- shortsighted- for us to sit in the midst of our comfortable lives, griping about the difficulty of accruing more comfort, and pondering enacting a system virtually guaranteed to grind the comfort from our lives. Do you think we would live so well without those protections? If so, how? And how can you be sure that that is true for society in general, rather than just yourself, or me? I look forward to hearing your answers.
Exactly. The proponents of unrestricted free trade are like proponents of a frictionless physical world. Sure would be nice if it could exist, but the reality is that because of political manipulation (friction) the system is skewed so that some systematically benefit at the expense of others.
Example: When a large corporation sends jobs overseas it's called "Free Trade" and they even get tax breaks for it. When an ordinary citizen tries to buy prescription medicine from Canada it's called "smuggling."
WRT deregulation, you've also hit the nail on the head. Sadly, those advocating it don't even have a recent historical sense, much less a deep one. It took centuries to achieve things like a 40 hour work week, outlawing child labor, and outlawing slavery. These would *all* come back if we eliminated regulation. For those who doubt the last, slavery, because the efficient market would eliminate it, realize that slavery still exists and is on the rise
It doesn't just "seem" contradictory, it is contradictory.
Anyone can post with their own account and forgo the karma bonus. But the question is: "Why?".
If you object to the +1 bonus that a signed comment gets, believe me, it all works out in the wash.
Further, I want to make sure I give more weight to a comment from someone who's name I know and who's posting history I can examine to someone who might be an astroturfer from the Chamber of Commerce. Why? Because the Chamber of Commerce lies.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The same way the "War to End All Wars" wasn't. The same way the "unthinkable" seems to happen all the time.
Sort of like "How are 19 religious fanatics with boxcutters gonna take down the World Trade Center?" and "Now that we're 200 years past the Enlightenment, how would Religious Fundamentalism ever come back?"
You are welcome on my lawn.