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The Australian: Gadgets meet reality’s big bit

by on October 10, 2012

From The Australian:

Gadgets meet reality’s big bit

  • October 11, 2012 10:00AM
  • PROTECTING intellectual property, or strangling creativity and competition?

While Samsung and Apple’s ongoing court Battles have sparked heated debate among Technology and design enthusiasts across the globe, the high-profile patent case has re-ignited another debate that predates the computer age.

Beyond quibbles about source codes, rounded corners and tap-to-zoom capability are broader ones surrounding the extent to which a progressive society can, and should, stop people from imitating, taking inspiration from, or building on good ideas.

In a 2001 paper, Against Intellectual Property [link], US libertarian legal theorist Stephan Kinsella challenges some of  the key schools of thought behind patents and copyrights.

One is the argument that granting copyright and patent monopolies encourage creativity because of the protection they offer. Kinsella conversely suggests there could be more innovation if companies re-directed money used on patents and lawsuits towards research, and if they couldn’t rely on a “lengthy monopoly”.

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The Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (C4SIF) is dedicated to building public awareness of the manner in which so-called “intellectual property” (IP) laws and policies impede innovation, creativity, communication, learning, knowledge, emulation, and information sharing. We are for property rights, free markets, competition, commerce, cooperation, and the voluntary sharing of knowledge, and oppose IP laws, which systematically impede or hamper innovation. IP law should be completely and immediately abolished.

We provide news commentary and analysis and scholarly resources from our unique pro-property, pro-market, pro-innovation perspective.

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To the extent possible under law, Stephan Kinsella has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to C4SIF. This work is published from: United States. In the event the CC0 license is unenforceable a  Creative Commons License Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License is hereby granted.