tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976144462093297473.post6461363710253638385..comments2024-03-26T19:10:00.791-04:00Comments on West Coast Stat Views (on Observational Epidemiology and more): Do the connotations of "property" influence the "intellectual property" debate? Josephhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10760453165301871031noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976144462093297473.post-76784334663482836552013-03-30T03:51:43.261-04:002013-03-30T03:51:43.261-04:00Walt,
The antecedent for "my" in this c...Walt,<br /><br />The antecedent for "my" in this case is Mark Lemley, but I'll try to serve as proxy.<br /><br />Overly weak IP laws reduce the incentive to develop new ideas and (perhaps more importantly) encourage innovators to keep processes secret, but overly strong IP laws can also stifle innovation. Excessively broad patents can impose a heavy toll on the people who actually develop new products. Walls of patents can block small players from entering a field. <br /><br />On the arts side, perpetually extended copyrights strongly favor a handful of huge companies. It's no coincidence that Disney and Marvel made extensive use of public domain properties and weak IP laws when starting out then shifted to lobbying for stronger laws once they became established. <br /><br />Considering that we've reached the stage of patent trolls and lawyers actually clawing movies back from the public domain once they become sufficiently popular, I think there's a good case to be made that we've overshot the optimal point, but even if we're not there yet, the term 'property' probably doesn't help the discussion. It's rhetorically loaded and it makes for a poor analogy. <br /> Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14705408455380402571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976144462093297473.post-6833025516535805432013-03-30T00:30:21.420-04:002013-03-30T00:30:21.420-04:00“My worry is that the rhetoric of property has a c...<i>“My worry is that the rhetoric of property has a clear meaning in the minds of courts, lawyers and commentators as ‘things that are owned by persons,’ and that fixed meaning will make all too tempting to fall into the trap of treating intellectual property just like ‘other’ forms of property.”</i><br /><br />Methinks you might expand on your worry: I personally believe that clear meanings are intentional, and that without clear meanings we are lost to the whims of politics and the propaganda of powerful corporations, who use billions of lobbying to change the public perceptions.<br /><br />We may have empirical evidence that the current IP regime is not efficient, given the rate of change, and the ability to turn a “short-term” monopoly into a permanent market advantage.<br /><br />As yet, the empirical studies *I* have seen, claim nothing of the sort: the good work that I have seen merely reinforces the idea that yes, IP monopoly grants have the intended result of rewarding R&D spending; the studies suggest that the monopolies may in fact accelerate R&D spending.<br /><br />The broad social question of how the world, or the USA, finances R&D is of course not testable empirically. However, I see no evidence that current political trends support broad financing of IP; that means that if we want R&D investment, we must provide some reasonable compensation for it.<br /><br />The irony of the broadside attack on IP is that that it is most obvious to me, in the very industry — computing, especially mobile devices — that have HUGE R&D expenditures and likewise have made HUGE advances in technology. There could be no better evidence of trying to kill the golden goose.<br /><br />The reason why some corporations are happy to attack others' spending is obvious, but why sensible economists would support such attacks on investment returns is beyond me.Walt Frenchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00873789914522579055noreply@blogger.com