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Copyright and Patent Laws Hurt the Economy
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Mar 10, 2009 06:40 PM
from the speaking-sense-to-power dept.
from the speaking-sense-to-power dept.
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."
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Their site/blog (Score:5, Informative)
www.againstmonopoly.org [againstmonopoly.org]
Re:Their site/blog (Score:5, Informative)
Correct me if I am wrong (as I am sure many will), but aren't patents granted by independent law firms? I didn't think Congress had any direct involvement in decisions about which patents get granted and which don't.
Patents are granted by the Patent and Trademark Office, which is part of the federal government. Congress is not directly involved, but it is responsible for the laws which direct the PTO on what should and should not be patentable.
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Prizes for innovation (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Re:The flip side of monopoly abuse (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:The flip side of monopoly abuse (Score:4, Interesting)
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. :-)
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Re:The flip side of monopoly abuse (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:The flip side of monopoly abuse (Score:4, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Down with GPL - it HURTS THE ECONOMY !! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Absurd! (Score:5, Funny)
Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
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.)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This vile proposal threatens to sacrifice shareholder value on the altar of the progress of science and the useful arts! The founding fathers would never stand for it.
There, fixed your partial quote of the Copyright Clause.
Re:Absurd! (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Absurd! (Score:5, Informative)
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 [uchicago.edu] )
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Thomas Jefferson (Score:5, Informative)
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 [uchicago.edu] )
Thomas Jefferson was originally against copyrights and patents but his beliefs evolved [monticello.org]. In correspondence on 1790 June 27 to Benjamin Vaughan [monticello.org] 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
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Re:Absurd! (Score:4, Informative)
Which it shouldn't.
The US constitution did not specify that author's should be granted a reproduction monopoly, but that their exclusive right to their writings should be secured.
See An Author's Exclusive Right [digitalproductions.co.uk] for more detail.
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Re:Absurd! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it says that Congress has the power to secure it, if Congress so wishes. There is no Constitutional obligation, though.
As for your essay, while I'd agree with you on some issues, and disagree with you on many others, I don't really see the point.
There are really only three options for an author who would see his works published. First, make a deal with a publisher. As there are a lot of authors (who tend to be bad at making deals) and rather fewer publishers (who tend to be quite good at making deals), the author is probably going to get a bad deal. Second, self-publish, but this is often inefficient, as authors are unlikely to get the best deals, or have working relationships with retailers, big-name reviewers, etc. The Internet is making this a little easier, but not a whole lot easier, unless your sights are set low (e.g. being the top dog of some sort of fanfic community). Third, for the law to treat authors paternalistically, not allowing them to make deals which outsiders viewed as bad (by letting the authors terminate transfers, or be unable to sell the entirety of their rights in a work). This is offensive, and it certainly isn't in keeping with the normal level of government involvement in business dealings. If the author were selling land to a developer, we'd certainly let him make a bad deal.
This is what we have under a normal copyright system, and I don't see how your somewhat Lockean approach really would help authors any.
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Re:Absurd! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it says that Congress has the power to secure it, if Congress so wishes. There is no Constitutional obligation, though.
There is no Constitutional *mandate* to grant copyrights and patents at all, but once Congress chooses to allow even one copyright or patent, they must do so on grounds that are fair and equitable for everyone.
Congress cannot merely grant copyrights and patents to whomever they choose based on mere whim. That would violate so many Constitutional provisions... Off the top of my head, the 4th, 5th, and 14th amendments and the General Welfare clause. There may be more, but that would be sufficient for someone to force Congress to apply their copyright/patent rules fairly to everyone.
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Re:Absurd! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the real issue...
Article 1, Section 8 says:... "by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"
A copyright that lasts for 200 years (or even 20 years in our modern society may be too long... 10 years, I think is OK) is NOT conducive to progress.
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10 Years, not Infinity+ years (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:10 Years, not Infinity+ years (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
What I dont get is why your son needs to be rewarded for you working in the first place.
Outside of world leaders & royalty, no other profession gets a free pass for their children.
Are the children of copyright owners incapable of working like everyone else has to?
(not directed at you but at copyright holders)
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Re:10 Years, not Infinity+ years (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:10 Years, not Infinity+ years (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:10 Years, not Infinity+ years (Score:5, Interesting)
someone like that not receiving any royalties (even if they are dead, the royalties being left to whomever they willed it to or whatever) isn't fair.
I wonder, how many times does it have to be pointed out that the copyright clause isn't about "fair" or authors "getting their due"? It's right there in the bloody constitution. It's about being just enough enticement to encourage people to create these works in the first place so as to enrich the public domain to the maximum degree. If Emily-dang-Dickenson wrote 1800 poems without making money off but a few, then obviously the enticement was adequate.
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Re:10 Years, not Infinity+ years (Score:5, Insightful)
The benefit to the patent holder is supposed to be a head start in the market by allowing them to establish name recognition and other first mover advantages, not to milk customers in a non-competitive market for near forever. When the country began, it took much longer to develop and execute a plan to enter the market. Now days, if you can't get your foothold in a year or two, you never will. If fewer companies see shorter patents worth applying for, all the better.
There isn't supposed to be any advantage for the inventor. An inventor used to be free to keep his invention secret, and milk it for all it is worth. You are absolutely free to make an invention, don't show it to anyone, and turn it into products making tons of money forever because nobody is capable of reproducing it. Patents are a bargain that the government allows you to make: You publish your invention, so that the world can learn from it and improve the state of art instead of it being away, and as exchange for that information, you get a limited monopoly.
That exchange doesn't work anymore. If you look at patent applications, what the patent applicant publishes will usually not give anything of use to the world, so giving him a limited monopoly in exchange for useless information is pointless.
What the patent examiners should really decide is: Does the publication of this patent benefit society in a sufficient way to justify giving the applicant a limited monopoly? If not, they should tell the applicant: Go away. Do with your invention whatever you like. Keep it secret, hide it away, we don't care.
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Re:10 Years, not Infinity+ years (Score:4, Insightful)
What if, like many creative people, you struggle in obscurity for years before gaining a reputation?
You mean, like everybody else does in life? Start out small and work hard to develop valuable skills, contacts and a reputation?
When you get your big break and your work finally has some real dollar value, should large corporates be entitled to move in and use your work for free?
If your work has value, then make some more and sell it.
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Re:10 Years, not Infinity+ years (Score:5, Insightful)
Many great artists only had one or two truly great works in them. Some only created one (such as JD Salinger).
Tough shit. No one said life was easy.
Art is not a commodity which can be cranked out like a Model T Ford, and it does not obey the calculus of supply and demand.
Lol. No wonder artists are always starving.
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Re:10 Years, not Infinity+ years (Score:5, Insightful)
What I like is the implication that you somehow have a right to their work
The same reason you have the right to use the English language.
The same reason you can use ideas that you've heard elsewhere and repeat them verbatim or modify them based on other ideas that you've heard/read or thought up. All without paying someone for the use of an idea that they "came up with". How on earth can we have conversations if people that come up with ideas aren't paid a licensing fee each time they're used?
No one would ever think about something and speak their mind without direct monetary compensation! In fact, I'm not really posting an idea that has been rehashed on slashdot again and again and again, I'm really just a twitter sockpuppet.
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Re:10 Years, not Infinity+ years (Score:5, Interesting)
No, I am suggesting an amount of time which would give someone a reasonable opportunity to exploit their own work however they see fit. Unlike you, I am not basing my suggestion on whether they have made "enough" money, I am basing it on the practicalities of exploiting creative work.
Apparently you regard the service of printing and distributing a book to be far more valuable than the service of actually creating the words which go into that book. You must love the phone book - it's totally free and has a huge number of excellently printed words in it.
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Re:10 Years, not Infinity+ years (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it doesn't. Copyright exists from the date of creation in the U.S. and other Berne Convention signatory nations. Further, you cannot register a copyright on an incomplete work. Thus, what you are suggesting makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. There were some changes a few years ago that make it possible to pre-register prior to publication a work that is basically complete to help protect films from being distributed prior to their release, but that's not the same thing as registering your copyright on a book one chapter at a time....
Perhaps you're thinking about statutory damages, which cannot be claimed on an unregistered work.
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Re:Different length for different product - (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:10 Years, not Infinity+ years (Score:5, Insightful)
The entire idea is to give people a way to protect their source of income while they labor to create more stuff. If it takes you more than 10 years (off the top of my head) to create something else that people are willing to pay for then you should find yourself a new career.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The changes to copyright law have pretty obviously been made solely to benefit huge corporations.
That's the whole problem. If we had 10 years for a sole-proprietor patent, 5 years for a corporation patent, and maybe 12 years for a copyright we'd totally shut down all this wasted litigation money from corporations. I don't think an individual should be able to get a patent; if they aren't planning to make money on it, it should be given to the public domain.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:10 Years, not Infinity+ years (Score:5, Insightful)
What about "Life of author or x years, whichever is longer"?
I'd still prefer X years where X is single digit, or Very low double digit.
Just because its 'intellectual property' doesn't mean they shouldn't have to work for a living just like every one else.
If one album can only guarantee income for 5 years, then they would be encouraged to, i don't know, make another one! Or perhaps get out and find a real job. Either would be better for society as a whole.
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Re:10 Years, not Infinity+ years (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd still prefer X years where X is single digit, or Very low double digit.
Just because its 'intellectual property' doesn't mean they shouldn't have to work for a living just like every one else.
If one album can only guarantee income for 5 years, then they would be encouraged to, i don't know, make another one! Or perhaps get out and find a real job. Either would be better for society as a whole.
Bearing in mind, of course, that you're discussing copyrights and the article is about both copyrights and patents, in some industries it may take much longer than 5 years to research and develop the idea - pharmaceuticals take 10-15 years to go from lab to market, due to all the human trials they have to run. The patent would be expired before the thing even got off the bench in a 5 year term... Or, if you want to go 5 years from market date, then imagine drug prices 10-20 times higher then they are now, because they have such a short time to recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars it costs to run all those fraking human trials.
But yes with regard to copyright. Those bastards should get up off their asses and make another album. 5 years between releases is way more than reasonable.
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Re:10 Years, not Infinity+ years (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now if something is patented, you need to figure out another way to do the same thing. Sometimes the new method is even better than the original. THAT IS THE [IMPLIED] GOAL. Without a patent, everyone would just use the 1st method and nobody would want to improve upon it.
Why don't we outlaw the wheel, then? I'm sure that will force the market to come up with all sorts of creative alternatives. We'll probably waste billions of dollars in the process, but at least we'll be promoting "innovation"! Isn't that what's important, after all?
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Their book... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Their book... (Score:4, Insightful)
A man has the right to the product of his mind, and to do with it what he sees fit.
I agree. The problem is that when you share what's on your mind with everyone else, now it is in our minds too, and we can use it just as well as you could. You're arguing against intellectual freedom and censorship. To argue in favor of copyright, you have to say that Alice has the right to censor Bob, merely because Bob is repeating what Alice said first. There may be a good reason to do this, but the right to censor others for no other reason than the provenance of what they say could only be artificial in origin. It's granted by the people who are being censored, in fact, which means you'll essentially need their consent, which is unlikely to be granted unless they're benefiting from it somehow.
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Read it Online, Free (Score:5, Informative)
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 [dklevine.com]
Re:Read it Online, Free (Score:5, Informative)
That link is 2 versions old (from 2005), here's the newly released one:
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
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Genius... (Score:5, Insightful)
And of course, such a thing as "social value" can be easily determined before the product has the ability to hit the market...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Limited Time (Score:4, Insightful)
Copyright definitely kills innovation (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Copyright definitely kills innovation (Score:4, Informative)
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The Cathedral and The Bazaar (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
They do have a point (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Why bother inventing... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Why bother inventing... (Score:5, Insightful)
... 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.
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Re:Why would we listen to economists? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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