3 ms·

Is this guy seriously wondering if GUILDS are better than IP Law? /me facepalms

• lukifer 16y ago
  Is this guy seriously declaring a legitimate question to be absurd a priori, without any discussion or supporting ideas? /me facepalms
  • roel_v 16y ago
    The economic inferiority of guilds over higher-level rule of law systems has been documented a lot in economic literature. That is not to say that questions can't be re-evaluated every now and then. The problem is that this article isn't trying to do that, or to form an objective opinion - it's reasoning backwards from 'IP law is bad!', and trying to form as many supporting arguments supporting that a priori standpoint as it can find.
• hugh3 16y ago
  I don't think he's actually arguing it, at least not outside the context of the magic industry. I think it fairly clearly wouldn't make any damn sense in, say, pharmaceuticals. The only thing that makes the guild system possible is good magic tricks aren't readily reverse-engineered. Also, since the quality of a magic act is more to do with the quality of the magician's showmanship and patter than the quality of his actual tricks, secrets in magic aren't nearly as important as you might think.