Against Monopoly

defending the right to innovate

Monopoly corrupts. Absolute monopoly corrupts absolutely.

Piracy and Sales

via Slashdot we hear a story about an author who raised sales of his book from 1000 a year to 1 million a year by aggressively making sure copies got pirated. I admit I have my doubts about these numbers; and I'm also quite sure that piracy of Harry Potter novels lowered rather than increased sales of the books. But what most authors (and musicians) rightly fear is not piracy but obscurity...for these marginal creators, IP has little to offer, and indeed, by making it easy for large intermediaries to act as gate keepers, IP is something for them to fear.

[Posted at 01/25/2008 06:31 AM by David K. Levine on Was Napster Right? comments(2)]

Department of Shameless Plugs

What is hopefully the final version of Michele's and my book Against Monopoly is online. It is in production at Cambridge University Press and we hope will hit the bookstores this summer. In the meantime the first review is in and favorable. For the sake of disclosure the author of the review is one of our fellow bloggers here - Stephen Spear. The review is well worth reading not so much on account of the book, but because it gives a wonderfully clear and succinct statement of the case against intellectual monopoly.

[Posted at 01/07/2008 07:40 AM by David K. Levine on Against Monopoly comments(7)]

The Patent Trolls

The series continues at the Wateringhole

[Posted at 01/02/2008 09:51 AM by John Bennett on IP in the News comments(0)]

Congress and the DMCA

[Posted at 12/31/2007 02:14 PM by John Bennet on IP in the News comments(0)]

The Length of Copyright

Christian Zimmermann had spent a busy Christmas finding material for us. In a breathtaking extension of copyright from 70 to 3000 years, Egypt is copyrighting the pyramid. Sounds like a hoax, but apparently not. Why U.S. companies think that they are going to live by the sword has never been obvious to me - the U.S. is johnny-come-lately to the invention business. Suppose England decides to retroactively extend patents to cover the industrial revolution, and demands license fees on every invention that has used an idea from that period? Or the Saudis retroactively copyright the arabic numerals?

On this cheerful note, an oldie but goodie, also from Christian, the Johnson and Johnson lawsuit against the Red Cross - for using the Red Cross...

[Posted at 12/26/2007 09:09 AM by David K. Levine on Was Napster Right? comments(7)]

Obstructing Innovation in the Name of Promoting It

Of all the arguments for IP, the argument that somehow existing inventions can be diffused more quickly if only someone has a monopoly over them is the one that has the least theoretical or empirical support. But the mere absence of facts is no bar to making the argument. Via Stefano Trento, here is an entire manual devoted to that proposition. To quote "It is well established that intellectual property advances product development because intellectual property provides incentives for R&D, commercialization, and product distribution." This is, of course, not well established, and while it is true that IP provides some incentives and disincentives for R&D, it is almost certainly not true that it provides incentives for commercialization and product distribution.

[Posted at 12/20/2007 11:03 AM by David K. Levine on Blocking Technology comments(3)]

TIIP is Up Again

The ever valuable Research on Innovation has its latest issue. There is a discussion of software patents: has the sky fallen? I'm not sure that it is a good argument in favor of patents that they don't cause the sky to fall, by the way. And there is a discussion of Petra Moser's latest research into 19th Century patents: what is striking is even where patents were available, they weren't so much used in that "golden age of patents."

[Posted at 12/13/2007 07:59 AM by David K. Levine on Innovation comments(0)]

Happy Birthday to You

You may be aware of various lawsuits against such major pirates as the Boy Scouts of America over violating copyright by singing songs around the campfire; via Christian Zimmermann the situation is apparently no better in Britain.

[Posted at 12/13/2007 07:55 AM by David K. Levine on The Music Police comments(0)]

Will They Never Learn?

The US Congress is working overtime to create new coyright cops while in Canada they busy passing a new DMCA - with such minor considerations as fair use to be considered at some future time by a committee.

[Posted at 12/08/2007 08:53 AM by David K. Levine on Politics and IP comments(0)]

Non-compete Agreements

It isn't widely recognized, but a variety of private contracts have implications similar to government mandated "intellectual property." One of the most significant things is the enforcement by goverment of non-compete clauses. This makes it impossible for employees to leave a firm to work for a rival or start their own firm in competition with their employer. As with most anti-competitive contracts, this is popular with would-be monopolists, but the consequent lack of competition is not especially good for innovation. There is a literature that suggests that Silicon Valley became...well Silicon Valley... and Route 128 in Boston became not much of anything despite Route 128 having the same starting conditions of computer firms and strong universities as Silicon Valley because Massachusetts enforces non-compete agreements, and California will not. If you want to find out more about this the ever valuable Mike Masnick has done a nice job of digging into some of the literature and details.

[Posted at 12/08/2007 08:24 AM by David K. Levine on Blocking Technology comments(6)]

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