4 ms·
> it's nonsense to argue that "there is no evidence that intellectual property in any way increases production of works" Please, offer the evidence, then. As i
by beefield 7y ago
> it's nonsense to argue that "there is no evidence that intellectual property in any way increases production of works"
Please, offer the evidence, then. As it is nonsense to claim otherwise, it should be easy to come with unambiguous peer-reviewed research on this. (I'm not actually holding my breath here. All evidence I have ever seen reduces to assuming that IP increases production of immaterial goods. I am happy to be proven wrong here.)
- chadash 7y agoSure, I'll quote the original source linked to above from economist David Levine (who makes the case against copyright): "we find that France, where copyright is introduced, the number of composers per million increased substantially more than in other countries." I'm cherry picking this quote, but then again, this entire book cherry-picks examples that work in their favor. I'm not arguing that patent or copyright law are correct. I think the patent system in particular needs a lot of reform. And copyrights are way too long. What I am arguing is that copyright (specifically, I'm not getting into patents) helps creators profit off of their work, and that profit motive induces people to create content in the first place, at least some of the time. I'll add that from a moral perspective, I think that if you write a book, Amazon shouldn't be able to copy your book and start selling it for free without reimbursing you. Economist Grew Mankiw notes that he spoke with the authors of the book linked to above and asked (I assume jokingly) if they would mind if he made copies of the book and sold them for a profit and the authors didn't feel that that would be fair within the current system.