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In principle I'd agree with paying taxes for Intellectual Property, but there are problems: - Copyright is "automatic" whenever you fix a work to a medium. Sho

In principle I'd agree with paying taxes for Intellectual Property, but there are problems: - Copyright is "automatic" whenever you fix a work to a medium. Should it be made manual, like patents? Or should copyright be exempt from taxes? What about Open Source? - Profitability for any given patent varies wildly depending on the company that owns it. So you'd end up with big corporations having patents because their scale (and profits) justifies owning patents, and small companies having no IP. Same thing for trademarks.

kstrauser 5y ago
Those are good questions to iron out. I think as a first approximation you could let the IP owner set their value, and assess taxes based on that. However, that would mean the owner couldn't sue for another larger amount if their rights are violated. Say you make a movie and claim that it's worth $10,000,000 for tax purposes. Well, you don't get to sue for $100,000,000 if someone pirates it, because you've already declared that it's not worth that much. I'm not persuaded by the "small companies have no IP" argument. Apple owns an enormous campus. My company doesn't. Is it fair that Apple gets to lay claim to a larger part of available real estate just because they can afford it? Well, yeah. I believe so, anyway.
- mcguire 5y ago
  "Apple owns an enormous campus. My company doesn't. Is it fair that Apple gets to lay claim to a larger part of available real estate just because they can afford it? Well, yeah. I believe so, anyway." The difference being that Apple cannot arbitrarily claim to own your real estate. If you create a work that is worth a great deal, but cannot claim it to have that value because you cannot afford to pay the taxes (yet), a large organization can safely appropriate that work while only paying the smaller amount of damages. Hm; one question: Could they then claim that it is their work, put a large value on it, and put you out of business?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- catern 5y ago
  >I think as a first approximation you could let the IP owner set their value, and assess taxes based on that. However, that would mean the owner couldn't sue for another larger amount if their rights are violated. You can make this even more elegant by making it a Harberger tax: https://ristret.com/s/ftmbkg/harberger_taxation_has_elegant https://ristret.com/s/ftmbkg/harberger_taxation_has_elegant

kstrauser 5y ago

Those are good questions to iron out. I think as a first approximation you could let the IP owner set their value, and assess taxes based on that. However, that would mean the owner couldn't sue for another larger amount if their rights are violated. Say you make a movie and claim that it's worth $10,000,000 for tax purposes. Well, you don't get to sue for $100,000,000 if someone pirates it, because you've already declared that it's not worth that much. I'm not persuaded by the "small companies have no IP" argument. Apple owns an enormous campus. My company doesn't. Is it fair that Apple gets to lay claim to a larger part of available real estate just because they can afford it? Well, yeah. I believe so, anyway.

mcguire 5y ago
"Apple owns an enormous campus. My company doesn't. Is it fair that Apple gets to lay claim to a larger part of available real estate just because they can afford it? Well, yeah. I believe so, anyway." The difference being that Apple cannot arbitrarily claim to own your real estate. If you create a work that is worth a great deal, but cannot claim it to have that value because you cannot afford to pay the taxes (yet), a large organization can safely appropriate that work while only paying the smaller amount of damages. Hm; one question: Could they then claim that it is their work, put a large value on it, and put you out of business?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
catern 5y ago
>I think as a first approximation you could let the IP owner set their value, and assess taxes based on that. However, that would mean the owner couldn't sue for another larger amount if their rights are violated. You can make this even more elegant by making it a Harberger tax: https://ristret.com/s/ftmbkg/harberger_taxation_has_elegant https://ristret.com/s/ftmbkg/harberger_taxation_has_elegant