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According to Hernando de Soto (among others), copyright is the reason for pretty much everything good that happened to the western countries in the last couple

According to Hernando de Soto (among others), copyright is the reason for pretty much everything good that happened to the western countries in the last couple of hundred years. And he makes a very convincing case about it, too. The issue is a bit more complicated. The last part of the article was the most interesting. If they can put into law something against commercial lobbying (not a ban of course, but a damper) that could mean changes that are more profound and long term. And might be for the best, too.

ig1 18y ago
I think you're misreading de Soto's work. His argument is about real property rights (land, etc.) rather than intellectual property.
- radu_floricica 18y ago
  I can't find the quote I was looking for, but it doesn't really matter. Hes argument is that "capitalism" is a thing which is harder to define then it seems at first glance, and it includes various property rights of higher order (i.e. I don't only own my house, I also own the right to sell/rent/mortgage/use as collateral). Copyright fits right in. Anyways, my point was that it would be dangerous to mess with an important part of this "capitalism" without understanding how it works. It is true that extending copyright and patent inflation stifle, to a degree, original research. Is even more true that abolishing them would instantly kill all significant private original research.
  - kiba 18y ago
    The improtance of property in capitalism is that it allocate scarce resources such as land, computers, etc efficently. I do not see how musics and source code fit in the overall scheme of property rights. Rather, copyright and patents actually violate property rights by forbidding people who actually own a copy from distributing new copies at will or building on the copy at will. (Remind me why it needs to last 20 years or 13 years, or whatever years? If it is property rights, than it should last infintely.) In any case, your assertion that without copyright and patent, there would be no innovation is well contested by a book called Against Intellectual Monopoly.
    - radu_floricica 18y ago
      My main problem is with taking an issue which is very complicated and offering a simple solution: just remove the copyright. Most decisions in economy are taken in a very rational. A pharmaceutical company will decide how much to invest in researching and getting approved a certain drug based on the chance of success and the potential profits. The profits depend directly on the time it has exclusive rights on that product. If it's only until a competitor reverse engineers the product, then it could only be a few months. If it's 20 years, the profits are completely different. It will invest in both cases, just very different amounts. The length of the copyright should be computed to maximize overall benefits to society. A large enough investment, but not too long. Another case is software patents. There is a very big difference between patenting ideas (usually considered a very bad idea) and patenting software (usually considered necessary). An interesting example: most people decide to use (and pay for) Windows, even when there are free alternatives. Why? Because it simply is better. All those money invested in developing it (based on the expectation of future profits) just make a difference. Or collections of otherwise non-copyrighted data, like maps. Making a map is extremely expensive. Copying one on the other hand is extremely cheap. What incentive would a map maker have to do all this work? All these are very different cases, and they have to be treated as such. Simply saying all IP laws are not necessary because RIAA is evil is not a solution. My personal preference tends to be towards eliminating copyright for non-commercial purposes, with a broad definition of what is commercial. Listening to music at home would not be commercial, but in a restaurant (or any other public place) it would be. But I only consider this my _opinion_. I admit it's limited and with flaws, and I am aware that "the devil is in the details". And most of all, I firmly believe this is a complex problem, which does not have a simple solution. I will take I look at the book you mentioned. I am curious how it treats some particular cases, like some of the above.
      - kiba 18y ago
        Economic calculation and resource allocation is a very complicated problem. How complicated? We're talking billion and trillion of calculations made everyday by humans. When you talk about government solutions, inevitabley, you talk about command economy insitutions that have to determine calculations that affect every single area of the economy. Even if it can gather the informations it needed to do the calculation, it must understand all the consequences that will happen when they decide whether to grant a patent. How long the copyright term should last? What is the unintended consequences? What kind of artistic work will emerge? What resource will need to be allocated to this sector of the economy? Will it really satisfy the consumers? Is there enough supply for the demand in the right time? This is not a mere "complex problem", my friend. It is an espitemology problem. When I said the solution is to remove copyright, I don't say this as a mere naive solution. It is reached by my conclusion that the regulatory agencies cannot calculate, therefore it cannot calculate how long copyright should exists or it should at all. What they relies on is called statistics but it is inferior to the profit and loss check and balance that exists in the market. Without those profit and loss, they do not know if a particular solution or implementation is profitable to society at all. They are not accountable to the market at large because it is largely immaterial to their nature as a political machinery. There's more to what I have to said(including emperical evidence as well my reasoning behind this), but I think it will turn into some half-ass super long eassy if I keep on talking.
jokermatt999 18y ago
I'm interested in what the arguments strongly for copyright may be. Would you mind pointing me towards any articles or papers of his in particular?

ig1 18y ago

I think you're misreading de Soto's work. His argument is about real property rights (land, etc.) rather than intellectual property.

radu_floricica 18y ago
I can't find the quote I was looking for, but it doesn't really matter. Hes argument is that "capitalism" is a thing which is harder to define then it seems at first glance, and it includes various property rights of higher order (i.e. I don't only own my house, I also own the right to sell/rent/mortgage/use as collateral). Copyright fits right in. Anyways, my point was that it would be dangerous to mess with an important part of this "capitalism" without understanding how it works. It is true that extending copyright and patent inflation stifle, to a degree, original research. Is even more true that abolishing them would instantly kill all significant private original research.
- kiba 18y ago
  The improtance of property in capitalism is that it allocate scarce resources such as land, computers, etc efficently. I do not see how musics and source code fit in the overall scheme of property rights. Rather, copyright and patents actually violate property rights by forbidding people who actually own a copy from distributing new copies at will or building on the copy at will. (Remind me why it needs to last 20 years or 13 years, or whatever years? If it is property rights, than it should last infintely.) In any case, your assertion that without copyright and patent, there would be no innovation is well contested by a book called Against Intellectual Monopoly.
  - radu_floricica 18y ago
    My main problem is with taking an issue which is very complicated and offering a simple solution: just remove the copyright. Most decisions in economy are taken in a very rational. A pharmaceutical company will decide how much to invest in researching and getting approved a certain drug based on the chance of success and the potential profits. The profits depend directly on the time it has exclusive rights on that product. If it's only until a competitor reverse engineers the product, then it could only be a few months. If it's 20 years, the profits are completely different. It will invest in both cases, just very different amounts. The length of the copyright should be computed to maximize overall benefits to society. A large enough investment, but not too long. Another case is software patents. There is a very big difference between patenting ideas (usually considered a very bad idea) and patenting software (usually considered necessary). An interesting example: most people decide to use (and pay for) Windows, even when there are free alternatives. Why? Because it simply is better. All those money invested in developing it (based on the expectation of future profits) just make a difference. Or collections of otherwise non-copyrighted data, like maps. Making a map is extremely expensive. Copying one on the other hand is extremely cheap. What incentive would a map maker have to do all this work? All these are very different cases, and they have to be treated as such. Simply saying all IP laws are not necessary because RIAA is evil is not a solution. My personal preference tends to be towards eliminating copyright for non-commercial purposes, with a broad definition of what is commercial. Listening to music at home would not be commercial, but in a restaurant (or any other public place) it would be. But I only consider this my _opinion_. I admit it's limited and with flaws, and I am aware that "the devil is in the details". And most of all, I firmly believe this is a complex problem, which does not have a simple solution. I will take I look at the book you mentioned. I am curious how it treats some particular cases, like some of the above.
    - kiba 18y ago
      Economic calculation and resource allocation is a very complicated problem. How complicated? We're talking billion and trillion of calculations made everyday by humans. When you talk about government solutions, inevitabley, you talk about command economy insitutions that have to determine calculations that affect every single area of the economy. Even if it can gather the informations it needed to do the calculation, it must understand all the consequences that will happen when they decide whether to grant a patent. How long the copyright term should last? What is the unintended consequences? What kind of artistic work will emerge? What resource will need to be allocated to this sector of the economy? Will it really satisfy the consumers? Is there enough supply for the demand in the right time? This is not a mere "complex problem", my friend. It is an espitemology problem. When I said the solution is to remove copyright, I don't say this as a mere naive solution. It is reached by my conclusion that the regulatory agencies cannot calculate, therefore it cannot calculate how long copyright should exists or it should at all. What they relies on is called statistics but it is inferior to the profit and loss check and balance that exists in the market. Without those profit and loss, they do not know if a particular solution or implementation is profitable to society at all. They are not accountable to the market at large because it is largely immaterial to their nature as a political machinery. There's more to what I have to said(including emperical evidence as well my reasoning behind this), but I think it will turn into some half-ass super long eassy if I keep on talking.

jokermatt999 18y ago

I'm interested in what the arguments strongly for copyright may be. Would you mind pointing me towards any articles or papers of his in particular?