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> I know this is a controversial view, but how much progress has been lost to intellectual property in general? I do not think the temporary monopoly on an idea

by edanm 8y ago

> I know this is a controversial view, but how much progress has been lost to intellectual property in general? I do not think the temporary monopoly on an idea incentives innovation. Why not? You're saying things that seem to fly in the face of what almost any economist thinks, that fly in the face of common sense, and that fly in the face of actually asking people why they do what they do. So why do you think what you're saying is true?

TACIXAT 8y ago
From personal experience, which I know is not a great indicator, but if it holds true then it would be the society I want to live in (which biases me to the idea). I like to build, a lot. I'm obsessive about it. I would like to build something useful, have it picked up freely, then move on to the next thing that I think would make a difference. I think a lot of innovators are like this. People like money, of course, but I think the builders would still build with no competitive protections.
- edanm 8y ago
  Well, I'd love to live in that society too, but like you say, that's not really indicative. And remember, the question isn't just whether builders like you will build cool things. It's whether builders that build boring but marginally useful products will build them. Lots of people will still build games, but how many will still build web applications for helping perform tax audits for lawyers? Sure biologists would still do interesting work, but how many of them will personally put up the millions of dollars in funding necessary to create drugs that sightly improve some patient outcomes? I'm not saying patents are implemented perfectly right now, or that there aren't better possible alternatives (and I think at least one of my examples is a case where things usually aren't protected by patents). But I think it's wrong to assume that innovation will happen At the same rate if you remove most of the money in it. (and again, just look at the history here - almost all innovation for hundreds of years came from the few really privileged few who could do innovation for fun, afaict)
  - civilitty 8y ago
    The same people who are investing in biotech now would be the ones investing in it then. Inventors may do it for fun but capital needs to generate an ROI to justify its existence and in a growth obsessed global economy, scientific and technological progress leading to spending power increases is the only reliable growth mechanism. Massive underinvestmet in long term prospects and over reliance on government granted monopolies is a symptom of our IP system, not an argument for its existence.
    - edanm 8y ago
      I'm... not sure where we disagree? Except for your first and last sentences? I mean, the whole point of granting a monopoly is to give incentives to investors to invest in biotech, so that they can reap the reward of it. You haven't explained why an investor will choose to invest in something at the same level, if they aren't able to get the same money back for it? If a drug company didn't have a monopoly, the generics that drive down the price of the drug would be out the day after the drug, thus ruining most potential profits. Therefore, developing new drugs wouldn't be worth as much money, so less people will invest in it. You seem to completely agree with this point when you write: "Inventors may do it for fun but capital needs to generate an ROI to justify its existence and in a growth obsessed global economy, scientific and technological progress leading to spending power increases is the only reliable growth mechanism." The whole (practical) idea of the capitalistic system in e.g. the US is to align private incentives with public incentives, so if someone develops a worthwhile drug (or e.g. writes a good book), they will be able to receive a reward for it. Just because scientific and tech progress is the only growth mechanism, doesn't give any one specific investor the incentive to invest in it (I forget the technical term for it, it's a kind of commons problem). Again, I'm not sure I understand you, because you seem to be saying something similar, but coming to a completely different conclusion?
      - TACIXAT 8y ago
        Ok, I was writing a reply and I got to talking about how we do not have perfect markets, we do not have infinite suppliers that would drive the profit to zero. That actually got me asking an interesting question, do we have "infinite supply"? Do we have the means to produce medicine for everyone? This might put a finger on a weird feeling I have about the economy right now. We have a trillion dollar company that is producing easily copied electronics (their operating system is harder to replicate), we have very drugs that can be easily ripped off into generics, we have media that commands hundred plus dollar a month subscriptions that can be readily shared online. I guess the feeling that I can finally put to words is that all of this stuff is horribly mispriced. Would there be a single initial investment? No, probably not. There would still be profit opportunity though. Innovation would be spread between more parties. Rather than one company doing huge amounts of R&D it would be many individuals making incremental improvements, to address their own needs or to address profit opportunities. It is the same with software ideas, I could tell you my most brilliant idea (give up my monopoly) but the chances that you would go and implement it are low. Not everyone is going to be producing generics, not everyone can, not everyone wants to. The profit does not go to zero, hopefully it would just go to affordable.
benchaney 8y ago
Basic economic theory says that monopolies lead to less innovation and poor service, so I don’t see how you could honestly claim that avoiding creating monopolies “flies in the face of what almost and economist thinks”.
- Matticus_Rex 8y ago
  Especially not if he'd looked at the economics literature on the question, which is at best tepid on the question of whether IP has a net positive effect, and at worst an outright rejection of its validity on historical, empirical, and theoretical grounds.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- edanm 8y ago
  Basic economic theory also says that incentives matter. And that all things considered equal, if the value you can extract from a good goes down, so does the amount of that good provided. In this case, the good bring innovation.
betterunix2 8y ago
I can only speak for my own field, cryptography, where patents have slowed the deployment of new techniques and by extension reduced the insights and feedback we can gain from real-world users. Economists' models for human behavior and their understanding of incentives do sometimes fail.
- ratacat 8y ago
  I think the more correct version is something like... Economists models for human behavior do sometimes work.
Matticus_Rex 8y ago
I'd be more careful about asserting that about economists. Economists are much more likely than most people to be anti-IP, and IP abolitionism is a respectable opinion among mainstream economists (see Boldrin & Levine's Against Intellectual Monopoly for the most prominent example. Now, "most economists" are not anti-IP, because most economists have never read a paper even touching on the economics of IP. And while the literature is pretty damning, it's not one of those integrated conclusions of the field that every economist gets taught in school, like the idiocy of rent control.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- edanm 8y ago
  Interesting! How wonder how mainstream is ip abolitionism. I'm not an economist, but do read a lot of economics and haven't really run across this argument. It seems to make little sense to me, but I'd like to try and dig in to their data on this.

by edanm 8y ago

TACIXAT 8y ago

From personal experience, which I know is not a great indicator, but if it holds true then it would be the society I want to live in (which biases me to the idea). I like to build, a lot. I'm obsessive about it. I would like to build something useful, have it picked up freely, then move on to the next thing that I think would make a difference. I think a lot of innovators are like this. People like money, of course, but I think the builders would still build with no competitive protections.

edanm 8y ago
Well, I'd love to live in that society too, but like you say, that's not really indicative. And remember, the question isn't just whether builders like you will build cool things. It's whether builders that build boring but marginally useful products will build them. Lots of people will still build games, but how many will still build web applications for helping perform tax audits for lawyers? Sure biologists would still do interesting work, but how many of them will personally put up the millions of dollars in funding necessary to create drugs that sightly improve some patient outcomes? I'm not saying patents are implemented perfectly right now, or that there aren't better possible alternatives (and I think at least one of my examples is a case where things usually aren't protected by patents). But I think it's wrong to assume that innovation will happen At the same rate if you remove most of the money in it. (and again, just look at the history here - almost all innovation for hundreds of years came from the few really privileged few who could do innovation for fun, afaict)
- civilitty 8y ago
  The same people who are investing in biotech now would be the ones investing in it then. Inventors may do it for fun but capital needs to generate an ROI to justify its existence and in a growth obsessed global economy, scientific and technological progress leading to spending power increases is the only reliable growth mechanism. Massive underinvestmet in long term prospects and over reliance on government granted monopolies is a symptom of our IP system, not an argument for its existence.
  - edanm 8y ago
    I'm... not sure where we disagree? Except for your first and last sentences? I mean, the whole point of granting a monopoly is to give incentives to investors to invest in biotech, so that they can reap the reward of it. You haven't explained why an investor will choose to invest in something at the same level, if they aren't able to get the same money back for it? If a drug company didn't have a monopoly, the generics that drive down the price of the drug would be out the day after the drug, thus ruining most potential profits. Therefore, developing new drugs wouldn't be worth as much money, so less people will invest in it. You seem to completely agree with this point when you write: "Inventors may do it for fun but capital needs to generate an ROI to justify its existence and in a growth obsessed global economy, scientific and technological progress leading to spending power increases is the only reliable growth mechanism." The whole (practical) idea of the capitalistic system in e.g. the US is to align private incentives with public incentives, so if someone develops a worthwhile drug (or e.g. writes a good book), they will be able to receive a reward for it. Just because scientific and tech progress is the only growth mechanism, doesn't give any one specific investor the incentive to invest in it (I forget the technical term for it, it's a kind of commons problem). Again, I'm not sure I understand you, because you seem to be saying something similar, but coming to a completely different conclusion?
    - TACIXAT 8y ago
      Ok, I was writing a reply and I got to talking about how we do not have perfect markets, we do not have infinite suppliers that would drive the profit to zero. That actually got me asking an interesting question, do we have "infinite supply"? Do we have the means to produce medicine for everyone? This might put a finger on a weird feeling I have about the economy right now. We have a trillion dollar company that is producing easily copied electronics (their operating system is harder to replicate), we have very drugs that can be easily ripped off into generics, we have media that commands hundred plus dollar a month subscriptions that can be readily shared online. I guess the feeling that I can finally put to words is that all of this stuff is horribly mispriced. Would there be a single initial investment? No, probably not. There would still be profit opportunity though. Innovation would be spread between more parties. Rather than one company doing huge amounts of R&D it would be many individuals making incremental improvements, to address their own needs or to address profit opportunities. It is the same with software ideas, I could tell you my most brilliant idea (give up my monopoly) but the chances that you would go and implement it are low. Not everyone is going to be producing generics, not everyone can, not everyone wants to. The profit does not go to zero, hopefully it would just go to affordable.

benchaney 8y ago

Basic economic theory says that monopolies lead to less innovation and poor service, so I don’t see how you could honestly claim that avoiding creating monopolies “flies in the face of what almost and economist thinks”.

Matticus_Rex 8y ago
Especially not if he'd looked at the economics literature on the question, which is at best tepid on the question of whether IP has a net positive effect, and at worst an outright rejection of its validity on historical, empirical, and theoretical grounds.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
edanm 8y ago
Basic economic theory also says that incentives matter. And that all things considered equal, if the value you can extract from a good goes down, so does the amount of that good provided. In this case, the good bring innovation.

betterunix2 8y ago

I can only speak for my own field, cryptography, where patents have slowed the deployment of new techniques and by extension reduced the insights and feedback we can gain from real-world users. Economists' models for human behavior and their understanding of incentives do sometimes fail.

ratacat 8y ago
I think the more correct version is something like... Economists models for human behavior do sometimes work.

Matticus_Rex 8y ago

I'd be more careful about asserting that about economists. Economists are much more likely than most people to be anti-IP, and IP abolitionism is a respectable opinion among mainstream economists (see Boldrin & Levine's Against Intellectual Monopoly for the most prominent example. Now, "most economists" are not anti-IP, because most economists have never read a paper even touching on the economics of IP. And while the literature is pretty damning, it's not one of those integrated conclusions of the field that every economist gets taught in school, like the idiocy of rent control.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
edanm 8y ago
Interesting! How wonder how mainstream is ip abolitionism. I'm not an economist, but do read a lot of economics and haven't really run across this argument. It seems to make little sense to me, but I'd like to try and dig in to their data on this.