patents and IP , property right or monopoly grant?

silverharp

Kama mentioned that it might be worth having a discussion on IP , seems worthy as a discussion topic. I'll have to sign off for now but have included some material that might spark some interesting questions.

Ealier in the year I read a review of a book on IP called "against intellectual property" by Michele Boldrin and David Levineon in the Mises site it starts.....

http://mises.org/story/3298

"At a taped video interview in my office, before the crew would start the camera, a man had to remove my Picasso prints from the wall. The prints are probably under copyright, they said.

But the guy who drew them died 30 years ago. Besides, they are mine.

Doesn't matter. They have to go.

What about the poor fellow who painted the wall behind the prints? Why doesn't he have a copyright? If I scrape off the paint, there is the drywall and its creator. Behind the drywall are the boards, which are surely proprietary too. To avoid the "intellectual-property" thicket, maybe we have to sit in an open field; but there is the problem of the guy who last mowed the grass. Then there is the inventor of the grass to consider.

Is there something wrong with this picture? "

and

From the authors website which starts
"Monopoly corrupts, absolute monopoly corrupts absolutely."

http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm


"It is common to argue that intellectual property in the form of copyright and patent is necessary for the innovation and creation of ideas and inventions such as machines, drugs, computer software, books, music, literature and movies. In fact intellectual property is a government grant of a costly and dangerous private monopoly over ideas. We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is not necessary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty."



it's only right that the book can be downloaded for free

Against Intellectual Monopoly
by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine
http://www.dklevine.com/papers/imbookfinalall.pdf

silverharp

Stephan Kinsella wrote the linked piece below (60 pages) , It gives a good overview of viewing IP in utilitarian terms or as a from a property rights. He comes down on the side that there is no basis for IP or copyright, on the simple premise that the inventor is not being deprived of the use of his property if his ideas are copied. He gives a made up example of the first caveman to build a house, there is no basis for the rest of the clan to reward him if they copy his idea with their own materials. Of note from a Libertarian perspective is that this would conflict with Rand's ideas where the creation element is viewed as property from her perspective.

http://mises.org/books/against.pdf

or summary here

http://mises.org/story/3682

Ostrom

I had a quick read of the Kevin Kelly piece last night. If I am understanding the argument: assuming innovation as a function of complexity, the argument against intellectual property rights is based on the notion that 'ideas' emerge inevitably, and synchronically with other similar ideas, as a predetermined outcome. The idea that mapping trajectories of development could lead to prediction is interesting, but smells a little of fundamentalist historical materialism without the class action - has this worked in practice? On this basis, I would be cautious about any notions of determining logic, denying as they tend to do, the significance of local context and minority alternative trajectories (And no, I'm not arguing for the Actor-Network school ).

I'm not sure about the suggestion of greater or lesser degrees of predetermination (art as the home of idiosyncratic creativity) - could innovation not also be considered as art, given that both emerge from a predefined martix of ideas, stylistic forms, techniques, materials, cultural signifiers etc. I'm curious as to how this would look in practice - in theory, the abolition of intellectual property rights would not stifle creativity in this instance, given that there are likely to be multiple strands of independant research groups/individuals working toward similar outcomes. Would a lack of incentive through security of reward not also serve to slow the pace of 'innovation'? (Our own university now requires science postgrads to meet with the commercialisation office for example, institutional research and 'innovation' are of course, heavily profit driven).

How would alternative regimes reward individual labour?

(edit: Just getting around to reading the Moore's law piece - surely the interpretation of observed patterns as 'an artifact of self-organized scientific and economic ambition' lends greater weight to individual agency through mutual constitution of predicted pattern and labour process. That, in itself would appear to be a strong argument for IP)

silverharp

efla wrote: »

Would a lack of incentive through security of reward not also serve to slow the pace of 'innovation'? (Our own university now requires science postgrads to meet with the commercialisation office for example, institutional research and 'innovation' are of course, heavily profit driven).

it might be a benefit for basic reseach, if resources are being bid away to patentable research then a more natural balance maybe found. Also how does one compute the cost of the whole patent system / legal costs or the fact that businesses are diverted from their primary activity? Companies may even innovate more as they would have to depend on first mover advantage rather then the benefit of a monopolistic trading advantage.

turgon

Once you remove intellectual property rights you have probably removed much of the motivation or incentive for the creation of such property. Motivation is a funny thing in that it generally seems to be taken for granted. If something is created by someone within a particular system, detractors of that system often falsely assume that the motivation that created that thing will remain in their system, even though they remove much of the incentive.

It is a common mistake for example to assume that central control of a certain industry will increase productivity. The false rationale being that if we remove the time and money companies spend competing against one another, then we can be more productive.But its obvious that once you remove competition you remove most of the incentive.

I think the same holds through here. You are thinking "would it not be great if all this information we had today were free to use?" But the thing is, if it were free to use, would that information even be there? One has to realize that the fact that something someone creates is theirs and can thus be used to make a living off of is a large incentive.


Of course the argument for such a system is going to be accompanied by ludicrous comparisons. Such as comparing a Picasso painting to a painted wall. The two are completely different. From where I stand, intellectual property rights have a huge impact on the arts (painting, literature, music etc) and some one who equates a piece of art to a painted wall is frankly not deserving of anyones attention.

Kama

Great to see such interest already! The reason for bringing this up initially was in relation to libertarianism; is IP justified prevention of theft of property, or a government-enforced monopoly of the intellect?

I'm only halfway through Boldren and Levine, so I won't comment much on it. Great so far though! They take the 'hard' form; rather than costs v benefit of IP, they argue it has huge costs and no real benefit, other than to rent-seekers.

turgon wrote:

Once you remove intellectual property rights you have probably removed much of the motivation or incentive for the creation of such property.

See, within this 'probably' lurks a large assumption, and the central one in the legitimation of IP generally, that in its absence the inventions or creation would not occur. To me, this needs to be substantiated in some way, rather than assumed. There was creativity in the world before IP, and literature before copyright. Shakespeare had no copyright, Da Vinci no patent, and yet managed to be productive and motivated.

A: Is financial incentive the driver of creativity, and
B: Assuming financial incentive, is a monopoly necessary to gain a sufficiently motivating return?

It is a common mistake for example to assume that central control of a certain industry will increase productivity. The false rationale being that if we remove the time and money companies spend competing against one another, then we can be more productive.But its obvious that once you remove competition you remove most of the incentive.

The IP argument has little to do with central versus decentralized control. The argument of the IP-abolitionists would be that IP-monopolies inhibity competition, and move allocation away from productive investment and towards rent-seekers. Perverse incentives give a perverse result; farms of lawyers squatting patents instead of farms of scientists creating them, a highly inefficient allocation of resources from an innovation perspective.

The incentive in strong-IP conditions, once you make a discovery, is to farm the rent off it, rather than innovate further, and indeed this seems to be what happens. Weak IP or abolition leads to greater competitive pressure, without the extended monopolist 'breather' safe from competitive force.

From where I stand, intellectual property rights have a huge impact on the arts (painting, literature, music etc) and some one who equates a piece of art to a painted wall is frankly not deserving of anyones attention.

From where I stand, IP rights have a immiserating and depressing effect on culture, science and the arts. All culture, and science, modifies and builds upon what has gone before; mashups are nothing new, originality is always tempered with influences; if not the shoulders of giants, that of the highest level of a human pyramid. Attempting to enforce excludability, and a paid 'gatekeeper' function for access, decreases the ease with which this pre-existing strata of development can be accessed and utilized, retarding progress.

silverharp

From a Libertarian perspective the primary concern is that there is a system of rules to deal with the use of scarce resources. As such it is not primarily concerned with the maximisation of wealth for the society as a whole. For example a wealth tax would be a no no even if it could be proved that the bottom 10% of society could use a small % of the top 10%'s wealth in a more efficient manner. Likewise even if it could be proved that patents increases wealth maximisation over other systems , it would still not be the first choice. I guess you would have prove that innovation would grind to a halt and would shock horror open the door to saying that coercive rules in how one uses one property do have a role in improving the lot of mankind. The only other way to start is to say that an idea is a property but it is not axiomatic or clearcut. it would appear that patents need to incorporate utility or labour theory of value

Ostrom

Kama wrote: »

See, within this 'probably' lurks a large assumption, and the central one in the legitimation of IP generally, that in its absence the inventions or creation would not occur. To me, this needs to be substantiated in some way, rather than assumed. There was creativity in the world before IP, and literature before copyright. Shakespeare had no copyright, Da Vinci no patent, and yet managed to be productive and motivated.

A: Is financial incentive the driver of creativity, and
B: Assuming financial incentive, is a monopoly necessary to gain a sufficiently motivating return?

Is there any way to substantiate by comparison other than doing so historically? My concern with the Kelly approach is that he includes the institutional -economic aspect of innovation as an aside driven by the laws of convergence & co-development. In terms of value, development in technology at university level is very much exchange driven; competition for doctoral funding, inter-lab competition, post-doctoral research positions, patent rights, right of publication, departmental competition for state/industrial funding. I cant comment on industry, but from looking through the above, the incentive appears no different with performance-based contracting.

Financial incentive, insofar as you are referring to innovation generating profit within a framework of monopoly rent, would appear to be the motivating factor of innovation, certainly under capitalism.

As to question B, (assuming no contemporary alternative comparisons), it seems the only way to establish the necessity of monopoly is to theorise an alternative. Can you elaborate on a possible alternative? Could the return on labour to the individual be protected without formal legal protection? In the absence of private monopoloy law, would this role be assumed by the state via. establishment of common ownership?

Kama wrote: »

The IP argument has little to do with central versus decentralized control. The argument of the IP-abolitionists would be that IP-monopolies inhibit competition, and move allocation away from productive investment and towards rent-seekers. Perverse incentives give a perverse result; farms of lawyers squatting patents instead of farms of scientists creating them, a highly inefficient allocation of resources from an innovation perspective.

Could this not be achieved through reform? Perhaps educating the producer on self-management of IP to avoid the network of rent-seekers. The recent emergence of commercialisation offices in graduate studies departments offering short courses on patent law and IP management comes to mind. I'm having trouble imagining how the process would reorganise in such a way as to reward the individual, and also provide the capital for production of the specific technology.

Kama wrote: »

The incentive in strong-IP conditions, once you make a discovery, is to farm the rent off it, rather than innovate further, and indeed this seems to be what happens. Weak IP or abolition leads to greater competitive pressure, without the extended monopolist 'breather' safe from competitive force.

From where I stand, IP rights have a immiserating and depressing effect on culture, science and the arts. All culture, and science, modifies and builds upon what has gone before; mashups are nothing new, originality is always tempered with influences; if not the shoulders of giants, that of the highest level of a human pyramid. Attempting to enforce excludability, and a paid 'gatekeeper' function for access, decreases the ease with which this pre-existing strata of development can be accessed and utilized, retarding progress.

Complete agreement, but given the embeddedness of the 'economy of innovation', I cant see how anything further than reform would be possible without extensive social change involving a fundamental restructuring of not just IP law, but of technical labour markets, industry and production, research and development, and systems of reward.

Is the abolishionist argument predicated on 'creativity as its own reward'?

(Also, how the bloody hell do you find the time to read all this stuff )

turgon

You tell of the person your reading criticizing rent-seekers. The rent seekers presumably being the creators of the IP? So their problem is that people who create work, both scientific and artistic, that is groundbreaking and innovative, benefit from it?

Then you accuse me of making large assumptions. I dont consider the "profit-motive" a large assumption. Do you think there is no such thing as profit motive?

Now Shakespeare and Da Vinci both got paid for their work. What you appear to argue is that any rights the owner has over the work are gone. So the owner of the Globe Theater could have stolen Shakespeares manuscript and gone around the country performing it without paying him a penny. But you argue that this is good for the world of Arts? How so? Why would anyone want to publish or make public anything if they are going to be abused in such a fashion?

I think if we had no IP rights we would have a lot more JD Salingers in this world - recognized creators of greatness who keep their works locked in cupboards.

I think removing IP rights in the Arts is nothing short of lunacy. Out of curiosity, do you have an interest in any particular Art?


The Sciences are a different matter. They are a case where innovation, is on the face of it, inhibited by keeping of secrets through patents.

So your argument is, let Physers release the ingredients and recipe for Viagra and we (and our mickeys :P) will all benefit. Question: if they knew they had to release it, would Viagra be even invented? If there was no monetary gain to be made from researching these things, why would a company bother?

The whole idea of a patent emerged as a way of rewarding research. For a limited period of time the company has exclusive rights to produce and use that advancement. Why would companies bother spending millions and millions on research if there was no way for that to be made back?

Kama

efla wrote:

Financial incentive, insofar as you are referring to innovation generating profit within a framework of monopoly rent, would appear to be the motivating factor of innovation, certainly under capitalism.

Starting on the rents angle, the pro-IP argument is identical to that of 18th century mercantilism back in the day; without a enforced monopoly, there will be no incentive to produce, so the King grants a Silly Hat monopoly to the East Eurasia Company to make Silly Hats. We would tend to agree now that a monopoly on Silly Hats is costly and inefficient, yet are enforcing monopolies on the concept of Silly Hats.

Monopoly costs are generally acknowledged; x-inefficiencies, rent-seeking, and (by definition) barriers to market entry. Advocates argue that this is offset and exceeded by the incentive-benefits. So the economic-theoretical argument here rests on cost-benefit analysis (incentive versus suboptimality). In historical terms, we'd go for regime comparison: do countries with low IP protection have retarded innovation?

What, I'd argue, we tend to see, is that IP is not in the interests of those 'catching up', forced to pay the monopolist gatekeeper, while it is in favor of developed incumbents. Reversed in perspective, the newcomers 'parasitize' the previous innovation of the would-be monopolist to compete. So 19th century Britain explicitly allowed the patenting of imported inventions, the Dutch and Swiss didn't respect IP until early 20th century, building their Pharma industry off the shoulders of neighbouring Germany, who itself tended to patent processes rather than products, and so on. The role of monopoly as a political choice, and the varying interests (and varying pull, guangxi, and ability to form law) of incumbents and newcomers.

To repeat, the incentive for the holder of a monopoly is most decidedly not to innovate; Watt held back the development of other steam engines with determined litigousness, enforcing his turf. Besides its other costs, the monopolist benefits for innovation would need to be balanced against these disincentives.

As to question B, (assuming no contemporary alternative comparisons), it seems the only way to establish the necessity of monopoly is to theorise an alternative. Can you elaborate on a possible alternative? Could the return on labour to the individual be protected without formal legal protection? In the absence of private monopoloy law, would this role be assumed by the state via. establishment of common ownership?

The alternative to a monopoly is competition. The assumption of the monopolist is that there is no advantage to initial innovation other than through enforced monopoly; fare thee well, Scumpeterian creative destruction, I own the rights for the next 50 years.

Could this not be achieved through reform? Perhaps educating the producer on self-management of IP to avoid the network of rent-seekers.

The problem, for me, is that the dominant incumbents are the ones pushing policy regimes in their interests. The incentives are there, they are merely responding to them. Given complex and interdepedent products, like in software, to attempt to prevent being sued for infringement, it is necessary to pre-emptively patent as much as possible, into the future. So Microsoft adds a thousand patents a month, claiming the ground for building in the future.

The network or 'IP thicket' is not avoidable, and grows almost exponentially with technological advance. Navigating it requires greater allocation to legal ass-guarding and land-grabbing. As always, self-protection that is pre-emptive can be easily (mis)construed as an aggressive attack; those who can enforce (legal) enclosure being those with the power to do so, with clear anti-competitive advantage to incumbents.

Complete agreement, but given the embeddedness of the 'economy of innovation', I cant see how anything further than reform would be possible without extensive social change involving a fundamental restructuring of not just IP law, but of technical labour markets, industry and production, research and development, and systems of reward.

Indeed, and no bad thing; are you arguing reform should not take place on purely conservative grounds, despite its cognitive dissonance to the usual narrative of capitalism? Or that abolition is a 'step too far'? Pragmatically, viewing patents as a repressive and inefficient cost, I'd generally argue full abolition, while realistically viewing it as a direction to push for and agitate towards in a reform process. Given the rapidity of technological change, I'd accept a radical shortening quite happily.

Is the abolishionist argument predicated on 'creativity as its own reward'?

Creativity as quite capable of producing a reward without the assistance of monopoly rights, and the incentives of rights-squatters to inhibit creativity, yes.

(Also, how the bloody hell do you find the time to read all this stuff )

Still not finished Levine

Kama

turgon wrote:

You tell of the person your reading criticizing rent-seekers. The rent seekers presumably being the creators of the IP? So their problem is that people who create work, both scientific and artistic, that is groundbreaking and innovative, benefit from it?

Eh, its not just one guy criticizing rent-seeking. Its fairly widely recognized economically to be Considered Harmful. The critical issue here is whether the IP system is creating wealth or extracting a rent without increasing productivity. The question is, does this incentive produce the innovation, at a level which more than compensates for its (admitted) costs.

And nope, the rent-seeker does not necessarily mean the creative. In music, the tendency is for artist income to come from touring and other revenues, while the rent from ownership goes to the label. The 'creative', whether in science or music, tends not to own the revenue stream from the IP they develop.

Then you accuse me of making large assumptions. I dont consider the "profit-motive" a large assumption. Do you think there is no such thing as profit motive?

In the context of calling it the central cause of the entirety of human scientific and cultural advance? Yes, I consider that an assumption. While I accept the profit motive as an incentive,
I, personally, don't regard it as the only form of incentive, if thats what you mean. Taking art, in which several of my family have happily had notable success, I was given this speech in my youth:

'Don't go into it thinking you'll make money. You probably won't. Get a real job, and do it in your own time. Only go fulltime if you can't help yourself and are passionate, and understand that you may well not get recognizedor compensated, even if you're good, in your lifetime'.

While the non-commercial bohemian artist is a stereotype, it's not an entirely untrue one. The incentive are not always strictly monetary. This isn't just about artists; Titmuss on blood donation, or Google's 10 (increased to 20) percent time, stressing the importance of intrinsic over extrinsic motivators in creative development and innovation. Doing what you're interested in trumps having a carrot in incentivizing creative problem-solvers, reognized by a highly-successful profit-oriented company. If a task is well-defined and 'closed', ends means and process known, extrinsic motivators work well; if its not well-defined, creative, open-ended etc, there's evidence that extrinsic motivators actually retard individual progress.

(I'm not balls-to-the-wall on Pink, if anyone is familiar with the research in question hit me up plz)

Now Shakespeare and Da Vinci both got paid for their work. What you appear to argue is that any rights the owner has over the work are gone. So the owner of the Globe Theater could have stolen Shakespeares manuscript and gone around the country performing it without paying him a penny. But you argue that this is good for the world of Arts? How so? Why would anyone want to publish or make public anything if they are going to be abused in such a fashion?

Shakespeare had no copyright over his works, yet managed, we assume, to make a living. I'll quote the kk piece here: 'Like most great artists, Shakespeare stole from others. He "borrowed" stories, phrases, and themes from earlier writers like Petrach. He recycled plots. He lifted "Romeo and Juliet" from Arthur Brooke's epic poem "The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet." Clear infringement here, any court would call it. Hard IP = No Shakespeare.

In a hard-IP climate, Shakespeare either would have had to navigate a copyright thicket to gain permission, or not written these works. Shakespeares success stemmed from judicious appropriation of styles, tropes, and narratives that were floating around, unregulated, in his historical context. Genius, sure; original, hardly.

To answer your direct question, as long as it's not misattributed (which is dishonest fraud) I don't see it as a problem. The artist gets free exposure for their work, the public sees more theatre, and the uncreative 'thief' puts on plays for the public to enjoy. Win-Win imho. This is the model which music is moving towards now; free and fair use of tracks, recombination and mashups, music as shared and non-rival; meanwhile the incumbent industry attempts to impose artificial scarcity to keep an elevated price on a good whose reproduction cost has essentially hit zero.

Having your play performed, or music played, does not reduce its value, it more than likely adds to it. The greatests threat to artists, as Neil Gaiman pointed out, is not being ripped off and copied; the greatest threat is obscurity. Independent artists have been the winners from the new 'free economy', while large established monocultures are whining about their losses. As would be expected, in a Schumpeterian sense, the large and hidebound are attempting to maintain a profitable status quo, by legal-punitive measures and political clout, while new entrants are adapting faster to the changed context.

I think removing IP rights in the Arts is nothing short of lunacy. Out of curiosity, do you have an interest in any particular Art?

Yup. Sculpture and painting (general interest) literature and dance (specific) would be my main interests. As mentioned, there's a family tradition in the area. If the Arts ran like a Microsoft-style IP regime, there may well be greater 'creativity', if just for the reason you'd be sued into the ground for doing anything remotely derivative, or showing the influence of previous artists. I wouldn't argue that this would be a helpful development; artistic schools and traditions are key to development.

Specifically in physically-instantiated art, there's not a problem; compare the prices of a Picasso to a print or reproduction of a Picasso. The original has a substantial price difference, yes?

The Sciences are a different matter. They are a case where innovation, is on the face of it, inhibited by keeping of secrets through patents.

*pleasantly surprised*

So your argument is, let Physers release the ingredients and recipe for Viagra and we (and our mickeys :P) will all benefit. Question: if they knew they had to release it, would Viagra be even invented? If there was no monetary gain to be made from researching these things, why would a company bother?

Interesting example. Viagra was not made to be Viagra, but was accidentally discovered while trying to develop heart treatments, which just goes to show how unpredictable research can be. Viagra was not developed on a Demand-->Research-->Product flow process, but as an unintended consequence of research on a relatively unrelated issue. Now, we can then argue that this (capital intensive) heart research would not have occurred, so the unintended consequence would not have occurred; the counters would be that the incentive for rightsholders is to drip-feed the market as the patents time out in strong-IP conditions, and that the requirement for new products doesn't go away in weak-IP conditions. Innovation will still be required, research will still occur, albeit the structure would change, and there might be a falloff in employment among lawyers specialized in the field.

The whole idea of a patent emerged as a way of rewarding research. For a limited period of time the company has exclusive rights to produce and use that advancement.

Actually, it emerged more from the political whims of sovereigns, to reward their favoured courtiers with an income. The power-based reading of IP protection is one I'd tend to favour, as in the historical examples earlier. Competition is for the Little People.

Just found reference to the problems of 'patent thickets' on La Wik, as 'the Tragedy of the Anticommons', hellah clunky phrase:

If the creation of a certain product involves the use of many techniques and components patented by different people or different companies, then it can be very difficult to negotiate effectively with all the patent holders at once, and the result may be that one has to pay so many license fees that it becomes too expensive to create the desired product. Thus, a product that is in great demand may not be produced because costs associated with patents are too high.

Why would companies bother spending millions and millions on research if there was no way for that to be made back?

Lets pose you Levines question: can you name one example of a new industry emerging due to the protection of existing patents? Instead, we tend to see new industries develop, and then a rush to patent and squeeze out competition. Problematically, this prevents the 'shake-out' of inefficient producers, a classic oligopolist problem in markets.

Without strong IP, there will still be an incentive to innovate, first-mover etc, but there will not be an incentive to rights-squatting, refusal to innovate or deploy innovations to milk rights, or to squeeze out competitors through licensing etc. We'd expect more research to be shared ventures, spreading the costs and sharing the information and initial advantage, to make a guess as to the restructuring process.

(To some extent this already exists with patent pooling, insituted due to the technological deadlock from application Balkanization...but again, only those who already own the pool can swim in it, new competitors are unable to access the ecology of knowledge, a distinct and compounding advantage for incumbents.)

The inefficiencies from lack of transparency and free exchange of information, so fundamental to the scientific process, and the economic inefficiencies of monopoly rights would be (de)legislated out of existence. I would think this no bad thing.

Permabear

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Kama

Not an anti-Stratfordian then, DF?
Oxford's my man...


Lets take a historical example, from the relevant section of Boldren and Levine, which Silverharp so kindly linked:

Start with English authors selling books in the United
States in the nineteenth century. “During the nineteenth century
anyone was free in the United States to reprint a foreign
publication”10 without making any payment to the author, besides
purchasing a legally sold copy of the book. This was a fact that
greatly upset Charles Dickens whose works, along with those of
many other English authors, were widely distributed in the U.S.,
and yet American publishers found it profitable to make
arrangements with English authors. Evidence before the
1876-8 Commission shows that English authors sometimes
received more from the sale of their books by American
publishers, where they had no copyright, than from their
royalties in [England] where they did have copyright.

In short without copyright, authors
still got paid, sometime more without copyright than with it.
How did it work? Then, as now, there is a great deal of
impatience in the demand for books, especially good books.
English authors would sell American publishers the manuscripts of
their new books before their publication in Britain. The American
publisher who bought the manuscript had every incentive to
saturate the market for that particular novel as soon as possible, to
avoid cheap imitators to come in soon after.

This led to mass
publication at fairly low prices. The amount of revenues British
authors received up front from American publishers often
exceeded the amount they were able to collect over a number of
years from royalties in the UK. Notice that, at the time, the US
market was comparable in size to the UK market

Points to note; the US regime refused to co-operate with UK copyright until quite late, as it was not in their interests, and rent-seekers lacked the ability to coerce them into payment through legal means; and UK writers received payment for their works, in the absence of a copyright regime, in a market of comparable size to that where they 'enjoyed' the protection of copyright.

donegalfella wrote:

In a world without copyright law, Joe Bloggs could legally take the novels of Ian McEwan and republish them under his own name. Other writers could cut and paste excerpts from his book into their own.

Indeed they could; but they could not produce a new, and valuable book. Ian McEwan could, and can demand a premium for supplying the new book, based on his widespread success and reputation, only amplified by the legions of copying imitators. So he could still sell his books; indeed, the pirates and imitators serve only to increase his reputation, by the purest form of flattery. Few will be convinced that Bloggs wrote the book, so McEwans reputation is not damaged, and Bloggs will not be hired for the Chair of Creative Writing in preference to McEwan.

Pirates could legally make cheap copies of McEwan's work and undercut his publisher on price.

Cheaper producers create cheaper products; isn't this what competition is all about, shaking out inefficient producers? Books are cheaper, McEwans work has more readers, and these readers increase future demand for McEwans work, increasing the price McEwan can command for writing more books. Sounds like a virtuous circle to me.

However, watching others bowdlerize and profit from his imaginative creations, McEwan ultimately would have little motivation to go on writing at all.

The assumption being made by Turgon and DF seems to be that in the absence of IP protection, incentive evaporates. In contrast, the argument of Levine and Boldren seems to be that the structure of incentive depends on the structure of the regulatory environment; there is still a demand for good literature, this demand is transmitted to the 'creative' suppliers, and the monopoly form is unnecessary to fulfil this. Books still get printed, people still read, writers still write, and the sky does not fall on our heads.

Permabear

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silverharp

DF , I'm sure you have read the differing views among Libertarian writers about the role of patents or seperately copyright. Standing back a bit do you think it comes down to definitions of terms as to why say Stephan Kinsella has a much more narrow view of what a property right is versus say Rand? Do you think Kinsella is right that you have to mix some form of utility/labour theory of value to justify patents or even copyrights?

Permabear

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Kama

Starting from basics, is the justification of IP:

A: maximizing innovation, content or development
(a social surplus argument)

or

B: protecting the property right of the creator or developer?
(an individual rights argument)

silverharp

Intuitively I can see that copyright is much less problematic , by definition the work is unique , so there is a stonger common sense approach to letting the artist have more control over it, also the effects either way of "progress for mankind" is not strong.
Patents on the other hand are more interesting as inventors whether they know it or not are in a first past the post system and I can see a much stonger case that one inventor should not have the ability to curtail someone elses work, regardless if they have knowedge or not at the time. This particular incentivised system does have positive and negetive consequences and alternate systems would alter the technological development of mankind over time.

silverharp

Kama wrote: »

Starting from basics, is the justification of IP:

A: maximizing innovation, content or development
(a social surplus argument)

or

B: protecting the property right of the creator or developer?
(an individual rights argument)

I was responding to DF above , but I'll ask does the topic have to split between patents on the one hand and copyright on the other?

Permabear

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silverharp

donegalfella wrote: »

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The system is over egged i'd guess, I'm sure there is a patent on replying to a blog or putting a thanks on a comment and companies seem to use the system as a MAD tactic to avoid being sued as they will have a ready counter suit ready
It is simply a matter of logically defining where a property right starts and ends? If you take the Wright brothers for instance they had a natural property right to do with their invention as they please , but after that one "seems" to be jumping the fence into the area or what rewards society wants to grant the inventor, a perpetual patent? for the lifetime of the inventor? for a fixed time? Didnt the guild system have an implicit definition of a property right by limiting competition in the same town , no doubt to protect the property rights of the craftsman to have the right to a return on his training
The alternative would be no system , it would be up to the inventor to rely on branding and first mover advantage which does no harm in the fashion industry. It would be interesting to guess at the effects on the Pharma business for instance

Kama

Donegalfella wrote:

Surely "A" is a logical consequence of "B," rather than a separate justification in and of itself?

What you consider the primacy to be is important.

Take the US Constitution:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

The aim is 'Progress', the means is a monopoly right; the monopoly right seems derived from the social surplus argument here. But the last thing I want to do is have an individualist vs collectivist argument with you, DF, there's more fertile issues in this to be had. The 'guild' analogy seems a very close one.