Intellectual property law

[TCO]

Originally posted by Echinda


How you can say this when earlier you were advocating government pharma research instead of private?!? Those positions are completely inconsistent.

I would argue back but I'm wise to your tar baby ways, grasshopper.

Are we on the same side this time?

[- Groucho -]

Originally posted by GP
Are we on the same side this time?

We usually are on the fiscal stuff. And it's hard not to be on the same side when the other guy is the drunk driver of economic theory.

[Vanguard]

ever taken a micro class?

Sure. That was quite a while ago, mind you. But I think I remember aceing it. Just a simple matter of memorizing some ridiculous tautologies and then regurgitating them on command. Easy.

But what does microeconomics have to do with deciding IP policy for the world? Demand curves are kind of useful for a company trying to determine how to recover its investment in a drug. But they say nothing about which drug, or which investment, will reduce human suffering the most.

How you can say this when earlier you were advocating government pharma research instead of private?!? Those positions are completely inconsistent.

I would argue back but I'm wise to your tar baby ways, grasshopper

I did NOT advocate government pharma research instead of private. I said,

Sure. So what? If developing new drugs is such a good idea, why doesn't the government throw hundreds of billions of dollars into developing a cure for aging or wrinkles or that keeps hair from growing out of your nose?

How much is enough? How do we know that the money we will be spending on drug research wouldn't have been better spent developing new computers that makes drug research easier? Or software that unravels genetics? Or that stops global warming?

You can't pick out one economic consequence and assume that it proves something. Economic consequences are a tangled skein of unknowable potentialities. Trying to reduce inefficiencies is about the best you can achieve.

This is the exact opposite of advocating government pharma research. If you can't even understand a simple hypothetical, then it is probably better if you don't try to argue with my "tar baby ways", grasshopper.

In fairness, I also did say,

I agree with the idea that IP does not always do a good job of allocating research for the public good, however.

But this is true. Relatively meaningless, but true. I can't ignore the truth merely because it doesn't agree with theory. Others don't seem to have this problem however....

If the product would have been developed anyway, than the patent creates a net societal detriment (deadweight loss). If the product would not have been developed than the producer surplus and consumer surplus created are societal benefits.

I appreciate your attempt to form a dilemma here. But this makes no sense from your position. It would seem to indicate, for example, that patents cause a loss to the economy in a large number of instances. Even if the other side of the coin balances the losses, where is the benefit to society?

In addition the second part isn't completely true. Developing an invention is a societal benefit, but only if the investment needed to develop it would not have been better spent elsewhere. Investors' desire for profits does NOT guarantee that societal benefit will be maximized. Not in the short term, not in the long term, not ever. The dogma of the invisible hand is as ridiculous as any other form of religious dogma.

But now I'd like to frame a dilemma of my own, if I may.

If IP law does increase the amount inventors make from their investment, then IP law is essentially a subsidy. It is a profit incentive to invent things that are covered by IP law.

How then do we know that we aren't "over-investing" in things covered by IP law? Wouldn't that money be better spent investing in things that aren't covered by IP law, which generate less ROI, but more societal good?

If, on the other hand, IP law doesn't increase inventor's ROI, due to some macroeconomic balancing mechanism, then it shouldn't give an incentive to invent. And then what is the point of spending huge amounts on legal costs to enforce IP laws?

[moomin]

Originally posted by Ned
As well, if hackers break the protection system, they can be prosecuted even under current law if they distribute the hack.

If Congress required that all sound cards or players sold in the US have this technology incorporated, even Linux would have to comply.

So it does come back to having the FBI break into houses to check that you're not running illegal software on illegal hardware. Not for bio-weapon shops or other such real dangers, but to ensure that your computer sound card is equipped only to play RIAA tunes, and to make sure you didn't download the patch to fix that of a Norwegian server.

It is way too draconian and intrusive to be tolerable in any society that wants to call itself democratic, IMHO.

[Ned]

Originally posted by moominparatrooper


So it does come back to having the FBI break into houses to check that you're not running illegal software on illegal hardware. Not for bio-weapon shops or other such real dangers, but to ensure that your computer sound card is equipped only to play RIAA tunes, and to make sure you didn't download the patch to fix that of a Norwegian server.

It is way too draconian and intrusive to be tolerable in any society that wants to call itself democratic, IMHO.

I would certainly agree if the solution is to monitor what you are doing in your home. I don't think, though, that is what the plan is. The whole theory behind the new law is to go after those who distribute the hack, not go after those who hack.

However, if a person using the hack wanted to, for example, upgrade his OS, I believe it might be legitimate to prevent that if the the upgrade installer detected a hack on the person's system.

[GePap]

Limits

As i said earlier, I support IP laws, but with limits. The creator of something can benefit and should benefit from their creation, but not in perpetuity and not at the cost of society. This does not apply as much to music as it does to drugs, which have also come up. Currently, pharmaecuticals are the most profitable business in the world, since drug companies are able to almost endlessly extend their patent protection into several decades, well beyond the time when they fully recoup any and all research costs while stifling companies that could make generic drugs for the masses, just as effective, but many times cheaper. We should rmember that for every company protected by patents there are others hurt by them.

[Ned]

Re: Limits

Originally posted by GePap
As i said earlier, I support IP laws, but with limits. The creator of something can benefit and should benefit from their creation, but not in perpetuity and not at the cost of society. This does not apply as much to music as it does to drugs, which have also come up. Currently, pharmaceuticals are the most profitable business in the world, since drug companies are able to almost endlessly extend their patent protection into several decades, well beyond the time when they fully recoup any and all research costs while stifling companies that could make generic drugs for the masses, just as effective, but many times cheaper. We should remember that for every company protected by patents there are others hurt by them.

GePap. Drug patents are extended due to delays in the FDA approval process. The end up getting the same effective term as any other patent - 20 years from filing.

BTW, there is a strong correlation between a good patent system and investment in industry. The best patent systems are the US, German, Japanese and English patent systems.

[SpencerH]

The idea that the phramaceutical companies "invent" drugs, vaccines, etc is a figment these days. Very few of the pharmaceutical companies do any basic research anymore so they rarely take products from conception to finish. For the most part, they take new ideas that have been developed at taxpayer expense that are in the public domain and test them in humans. Of course its expensive to do that but they are still parasites of the poor IP laws governing public research.

Having in your posession MP3's or programs that you have not purchased the right to use is theft.

[TCO]

Vanguard, with all honesty you did not learn the basics about evaluating surpluses, etc. Your view of econ (spitting back tautologies) shows that you were not forced to think. I'm not going to waste any more time on you. Believe me I've got a lot better background that you...and it's painful to have to inch you along.

[Vanguard]

On the contrary, I was forced to think about what economics really means. I didn't just memorize the definition of a demand curve and then apply it to prove whatever policy happens to be the status quo.

I mean honestly. If we had no intellectual property laws, and the Democrats were proposing some, but businesses were opposed, wouldn't all you guys be arguing that economics conclusively "proves" that IP laws would destroy innovation, music and the economy?

[Adalbertus]

Having in your posession MP3's or programs that you have not purchased the right to use is theft.

... not purchased or otherwise got the permission to use. For things in the public domain you don't have to pay.

[TCO]

Vanguard you weren't even able to follow my logic about consumer choice between a monopoly product vs other products. Or free choice for the given product among different firms. It really is painful inching you along. There is an interesting argument to be made about IP laws per se...but you do a poor job of stating it.

[Seneca]

I oppose the notion that the relatively small number of hours it takes to create a song should enrich a composer for life.

Even less so his children or grandchildren - why should a copyright run 75 years after a composer's death?

[Akka]

Originally posted by Colon
Vanguard, you're forgetting about the creation side of the deal. Maybe authors do not have a natural right for a compensation, but without a compensation for their work, they'll be less motivated to create and that's a loss for society. If the street musician doesn't get any cash, he won't play music and the subway will be a colder place.

I won't talk about the economics, about the law, nor about the rest of the thread. I'll restrain my answer on this single post, and only about artistical value :
If any artist does create only for money, his creation is not worth what it's paid.

In other words : any worthy creation is one that come from a desire to create, and not a desire to gain money (now, both CAN be done together, but the truth remains).

[Vanguard]

GP, I understand your arguments fine. I just don't see how they prove anything relevent.

In your best argument, you show that there are high start-up costs for drug products and you argue that drug companies therefore need patent protection to develop drugs.

But high start-up costs also mean that we waste more money when we develop unneccessary drugs. Why should we give drug companies more financial incentive to invent hundreds of different types of pain-killers, when aspirin works perfectly well for 95% of the population?

Your argument about choices between monopoly and other products is predicated on the assumption that people choose products rationally.

But this assumption is false, especially for drugs. People buy drugs based on branding, advertising, doctor's prescriptions and a lot of ideas that aren't "rational" even under the most generous of economic assumptions. If the assumption of rationality fails than the whole argument fails.

But even if you were to prove your arguments you still don't show that there is an advantage to granting exclusive rights to inventors. At best you prove that it is no worse than eliminating patent protection. Except that you never deal with the question of enforcement cost.