Intellectual Property: The New Backlash
11 July 2006 at 12:42 pm Peter G. Klein 11 comments
| Peter Klein |
In the “new economy” or “knowledge economy” literature it is taken for granted that strong intellectual-property protection is not only efficient, but also just and fair. Without the temporary monopoly protection granted by copyrights and patents, who would have sufficient incentive to innovate? And don’t innovators deserve to reap the benefits of their creations?
There have always been doubters, and lately the critics have become more vocal. Stephan Kinsella makes a strong normative case, based on libertarian principles, against legal protection for intangibles. (See also his bibliography and blog.) For the utilitarian case against IP see Michele Boldrin and David Levine’s Against Intellectual Monopoly (and their blog). And for a summary of arguments against using patent counts to measure innovative activity see this article by Pierre Desrochers.
Entry filed under: - Klein -, Classical Liberalism, Institutions, Recommended Reading.
1.
Stephan Kinsella | 11 July 2006 at 2:56 pm
See also There’s No Such Thing as a Free Patent, Mises.org, Mar. 7, 2005 ( http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1763 ), which points out that those who put forth a utilitarian or wealth-maximization defense of patents rarely make a serious attempt to actually determine the costs of the system, to weigh them against its supposed benefits.
2.
JC | 11 July 2006 at 9:22 pm
One of the intriguing aspects of patents is that they are the vestigial remains of the mercantilist policies that Adam Smith was so anxious to attack as inefficient.
The history of their transportation to the US, and of the various political shenaginins involved, is interesting and revealing for those of us who argue that the declaration that ‘markets are efficient and a-political’ is itself a profoundly political and interest-oriented statement.
3.
JC | 11 July 2006 at 9:23 pm
PS the Desrochers link seems to be broken.
4.
Peter Klein | 11 July 2006 at 10:57 pm
Sorry about that, the link should work now.
5.
Laurent GUERBY | 12 July 2006 at 3:01 am
The funny thing about patents is that most libertarians and “small government” advocates are big fans of them , see for example Cafe Hayek
Or the case for a small government
For typical economists nonsense about IP, see econlog:
My favourite Hayek quote:
6.
JC | 12 July 2006 at 5:49 am
Yep. Just fine now. Thanks.
7.
Jüri Saar | 12 July 2006 at 7:34 am
Thanks for all the links.
8.
Paul D | 12 July 2006 at 8:21 am
Now that the Internet lets people share, produce, and modify culture so easily, there’s a bit of an awakening. Made-up property (copyrights, patents) only “works” if the big intellectual monopoly corporations control what the rest of us do with our real property.
9.
ajbadger | 12 July 2006 at 4:14 pm
Thank you for the information. I found it very useful.
10.
JC | 12 July 2006 at 5:10 pm
Hmm .. Laurent’s message popped into the middle of this thread.
The issue here is non-rivalrousness – sometime known as ‘public goods’.
Clearly the ecnomic notion of property collapses without some form of scarcity. For most goods, such as corn, their materiality supports their rivalrousness. Immaterial goods have a problem. There is no point in having any law about such goods unless they can be rendered rivalrous, and that is what patents and other IP legislation is designed to achieve. Clearly, as technology evolves, it sometimes renders the law ineffective, as we saw with Napster. But this cannot be grounds for denying the need.
Whether it is, in fact, necessary for a society to implement such legislations seems to me an empirical matter rather than an economic one. After all the notions of property are grounded at law and in no other way.
Likewise it seems remarkable to me that Hayek should make so free with the struggles writers and composers have with making a living, especially when they are so vulnerable to publishers ripping them off and property-izing their work by packaging it. Why on earth should the publishers’ investment be more worthy of protection than the author’s or the composer’s?
11.
Organizations and Markets » Patently Silly | 20 July 2006 at 10:56 am
[…] It’s a bit unfair to interrupt our serious discussion of intellectual property by taking cheap shots at the US Patent Office, but I can’t resist plugging Patently Silly by Daniel Wright and Alex Eben Meyer. You’d be surprised what the USPTO considers unique, useful, and non-obvious. […]