Via I’m-not-sure-where comes this well-thought out discussion of intellectual “property”. I’m still reading it, but haven’t found a thing to disagree with. Loved this quote:
The argument so far shows that there is no economic justification for granting inventors and creators the right to control positive externalities flowing from their creations, except to the extent necessary to enable them to cover their average fixed costs. But, the reader might object, while you have shown there is no need to grant such control, you haven’t shown there is anything wrong with giving creators greater control over positive externalities. Wouldn’t it be easier just to treat intellectual property rights as absolute?
There are a number of costs to granting overbroad intellectual property rights. Because most of these arguments are well known in the literature, I will detail them only briefly here. These costs fall into four categories. First, intellectual property rights distort markets away from the competitive norm, and therefore create static inefficiencies in the form of deadweight losses. Second, intellectual property rights interfere with the ability of other creators to work, and therefore create dynamic inefficiencies. Third, the prospect of intellectual property rights encourages rent-seeking behavior that is socially wasteful. Finally, overinvestment in research and development is itself distortionary. The ultimate result of these costs is that, as David Friedman puts it, “what we want is not merely an incentive but the right incentive.”
I seem to be heading into a bit of an energy trough; losing last Friday afternoon to work-socializing and workshopping threw me off more than I would have thought.
On the plus side, though, the elbow has quieted down a bit, after being a right pain in the, er, elbow all last week. Therapy tomorrow morning.