Thursday, January 22, 2009

Intellectual Property Rights

I have been thinking about intellectual property rights (patents, copyrights and trademarks) a lot lately. I instinctively doubt that intellectual property laws have any legitimate role to play in a free society.

I have found two highly recommended books that oppose the legitimacy of intellectual property. Both are fairly short and are (of course) available for free. I will be reading them over the next month or so, and I will probably post some reviews.

Against Intellectual Property by N. Stephan Kinsella
Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine

Being willing to lead the way in this great revolution, I hereby renounce my own copyright claim to the renowned poem, "Gayser" (was supposed to be "Geyser"). Any party interested in this literary masterpiece may fairly consider themselves unfettered by the restraints of law or conscience regarding its replication or distribution for personal or commercial use.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read the first article and it was an interesting argument, though I have to disagree. If one sees ideas as not property, then the arguments make sense. If you see ideas as property, you could take the arguments and use them in the same way to defend IP. To me, his argument seemed to be that because of problems in IP, it should be abandoned completely. I believe that an abandonment of IP would give too much advantage to the copier. The author sites examples of simple ideas, but what about the inventor that researches and toils for years, only to have his idea legally "stolen" because it is not physical property? I think the inventor should be able to market his product just as much as someone who creates a physical product.

Brad said...

Hey, thanks for checking out the blog and posting a comment! When you say you read the first argument, which book do you mean? Also, I agree that the entire argument against IP hinges on the definition of property. May I ask what quality rightfully gives something the status of "property" in your mind? Many argue that the entire notion of property is simply a reaction to the problem of "scarcity" - the unfortunate fact that an object cannot be in use by two people in different places at the same time - and that if it were not for this, then the notion of "property" would have no justification. Ideas are certainly not "scarce" in this sense. Is the only justification for IP the notion that inventors should be granted monopoly over their ideas to encourage innovation? If it were then shown that IP laws in fact stifle innovation, would it change your opinion?

Mike said...

The second article was better than the first, but I am not convinced, only left thinking that there are problems with IP, not that it is completely wrong. I could see ideas as property the same way as saying that there is lots of land in the world, but MY land is right here. Ideas are not scarce, but certain ideas are unique, and therefore, scarce. Anyways, we'll have to discuss sometime. It certainly was thought-provoking.