Against Intellectual Monopoly
'Intellectual property' — patents and copyrights — have become controversial. We witness teenagers being sued for 'pirating' music — and we observe AIDS patients in Africa dying due to lack of ability to pay for drugs that are high priced to satisfy patent holders. Are patents and copyrights essential to thriving creation and innovation — do we need them so that we all may enjoy fine music and good health? Across time and space the resounding answer is: No. So-called intellectual property is in fact an 'intellectual monopoly' that hinders rather than helps the competitive free market regime that has delivered wealth and innovation to our doorsteps. This book has broad coverage of both copyrights and patents and is designed for a general audience, focusing on simple examples. The authors conclude that the only sensible policy to follow is to eliminate the patents and copyright systems as they currently exist.
Stats for nerds
59recommend
133mentions
65people
2008–2026years
89% recommend8% neutral3% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- A scholarly and far more rigorous argument against copyright and patents can be found in Against Intellectual Monopoly by economists Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine. "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 a published book you can buy in hard copy (I bought the ebook on Kindle) but practicing what they preach it's freely available online, http://dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
- I would recommend that great academic (but very digest) book titled "Against Intellectual Monopoly" to understand why the answer is most certainly "no" (though, their answser is closer to "yes" for pharmacetical patents).
- There are solid economic arguments that they were never the right model, even "back in The Day": http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.ht...
Patents are government granted monopolies on ideas. The case for them is that you need the carrot of a monopoly to incentivize innovators (empirically untrue). The case against them is that government mandated monopolies immediately dampen all subsequent innovation until expiry (empirically true across industries throughout history).
- Worth mentioning that the evidence says that patents don't have an effect on new drug creation/inventions. Evidence is collected here http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.ht..., pretty neat to know that Italy/Switzerland had a patentless pharma industry until quite recently.
Having said that, I think you're right that under this system, research/capital definitely gets directed in a different way.
- Highly recommend the book “Against Intellectual Monopoly” which argues against IP law with a lot of historical references.
One such example is paint & coloring in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. From the book - “In 1862, British firms controlled about 50 percent of the world market and French firms another 40 percent, with Swiss and German companies as marginal players. By 1873, German companies had 50 percent of the market, while French, Swiss, and British firms controlled between 13 percent and 17 percent each. In 1913, German firms had a market share of more than 80 percent, the Swiss had about 8 percent, and the rest of the world had disappeared.” Switzerland at the time had no patent protection, and Germany allowed processes to be patented in 1877 but not products themselves.
Parallels are harder to find today due to the expansion of IP law as a condition of trade with many developed nations, but the book does have some more recent examples.
- > What creates a drive for innovation if you take out competition?
Closed-source is _protectionism,_ not competitive.
_Open-source_ is the ultimate expression of competitiveness… because you are competing against anyone who could bring out an identical product copied directly from your own, with only minor changes.
Against Intellectual Monopoly: http://dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
Related
Against intellectual property
20 recommend · 33
2015–2026
The case against education
40 recommend · 118
Against the gods
28 recommend · 45
The antitrust paradox
5 recommend · 38
The new media monopoly
1 recommend · 4
The media monopoly
1 recommend · 8
Modern monopolies
recommend · 2
