Intellectual property law

[Ned]

Originally posted by Vanguard


Okay. So I should copy mp3s then? That certainly maximizes my returns better than paying for music.

That's what I thought, but thanks for your approval!

You better watch out, Big Brother is watching you.

No, but the above example is a what has happened again and again, every day, for the last two centuries in all the major industrialized countries - people making decisions about where to invest. Patents are important for developing new products and markets. This is why, more than any other reason, the US, Japan, Germany and the UK are so developed.

[Mihai]

When it comes to those things that are not a basic necesity for your survival, you can complain but you can't whine about it.

An artist create something that you don't HAVE to have it. If he ask money for his work and you are not willing to pay, then don't use his work.

My position is a little hypocritical since I don't owe a single software/song original. I just can say that if I couldn't buy pirate copies, I would buy at all, therefore nobody lose anything . But I don't try to convice myself or others that stealing software/song is OK.

[Vanguard]

No, but the above example is a what has happened again and again, every day, for the last two centuries in all the major industrialized countries - people making decisions about where to invest. Patents are important for developing new products and markets. This is why, more than any other reason, the US, Japan, Germany and the UK are so developed.

I give you credit for stating the principle clearly and eloquently instead of trying to hide it behind a bunch of jargon. Let me generalize the statement:

"Individual economic actors, each trying to maximize his own self interest, collectively produce a system that generates the greatest wealth for everyone."

That is basically your idea, correct? It is also the idea underlying GP's assumptions.

But if this idea is true, then it applies to all economic actors, not just inventors or investors in record companies. It should be just as beneficial for an individual consumer to "decide" to copy a song cheaply for his own use as it is for a record company to "decide" to invest in copying songs to sell them dearly to consumers.

Actually it should be more beneficial. It is clearly cheaper for an individual consumer to copy a song off the internet than it is for a record company to maintain lawyers, corporate officers, cd pressing plants, payola and a distribution system.

The same thing is true for patents. Classically patents should not help innovation, they should hurt it. And while there are empirical studies that indicate that strong patent law does increase the number of patents, there is no evidence that these extra patents represent valuable innovation.

By your own assumptions you are being anti-capitalist if you support patents. You are creating an artificial legal obstacle to competition, an obstacle that requires signifigant costs to maintain.

[Vanguard]

dp

[Ned]

Originally posted by Vanguard


I give you credit for stating the principle clearly and eloquently instead of trying to hide it behind a bunch of jargon. Let me generalize the statement:

"Individual economic actors, each trying to maximize his own self interest, collectively produce a system that generates the greatest wealth for everyone."

That is basically your idea, correct? It is also the idea underlying GP's assumptions.

But if this idea is true, then it applies to all economic actors, not just inventors or investors in record companies. It should be just as beneficial for an individual consumer to "decide" to copy a song cheaply for his own use as it is for a record company to "decide" to invest in copying songs to sell them dearly to consumers.

Actually it should be more beneficial. It is clearly cheaper for an individual consumer to copy a song off the internet than it is for a record company to maintain lawyers, corporate officers, cd pressing plants, payola and a distribution system.

The same thing is true for patents. Classically patents should not help innovation, they should hurt it. And while there are empirical studies that indicate that strong patent law does increase the number of patents, there is no evidence that these extra patents represent valuable innovation.

By your own assumptions you are being anti-capitalist if you support patents. You are creating an artificial legal obstacle to competition, an obstacle that requires signifigant costs to maintain.

Actually, If company b cannot use company's a's inventions because of patents, company b can compete by coming up with a better product that company a's patented product. In this way, patents incent invention to leapfrog their competitors patents. Patents promote innovation even with competitors.