I’m so sick of American politicians and reporters droning on about “China is stealing our intellectual property!” without even knowing what the hell they are talking about.
This moron on Fox News reporting on this said they were stealing “secret, patented modified seeds.” Uh, patents are public, not secret, moron. [continue reading…]
Le sigh. Almost no one can ever get quite right even their criticism of copryight. This guy opposes copyright, because he thinks this would lead to “socialized copyright” and he’s in favor of socialism, just like he’s in favor of socialized medicine. No no no. Because he’s not a libertarian, and thus has no coherent understanding of the function and nature of property rights and justice, and because he’s apparently economically illiterate (otherwise he would not favor socialized medicine), he simply can’t get the analysis right.
But, it’s to his credit he somehow dimly senses that copyright is bad.
Shownotes: “The soapbox I’ve been on for 15 years, now summarized in 17 minutes with clipart. Probably the most important video I’ll ever make. ⚠️ Rough/incomplete math warning. ”
But his argument is totally confused. He wants to “relax” the enforcement of copyright and replace it with an “automated royalty system” “managed” by the government. He proposes we phase out copyright in 5 years—but not patent, trademark, or impersonation rights! (Why not? Patents do even more damage than copyright, you unprincipled hack.)1 And then, you cancel your spotify, netflix, disney.com, and find it all at a government-managed content server, “media.gov,” for free. Wow, the government giving us approved content! What could go wrong?
And the cost is low! He tallies up the cost of all these various services by looking at the revenues of various copyright-related industries: the royalties paid by or costs incurred by Spotify, Youtube, Netflix, Disney, the book publishing industry, to artists and creators, and so on. He comes up with $148B paid out to creators, amounting to $881 for every tax filer annually.
I mean he gets it 10% right or, being generous, 1/3 right. Not bad compared to most people but still… pretty sad. I mean at the end he says he wants a self-driving flying car. Yet he still supports the patent system, which impedes and distorts and blocks and slows down new technological innovations.
One would think a soi-disant “libertarian” would actually read up on, you know, libertarian critiques of IP,2 before weighing in on it in public. But alas, in this Internet age, everyone wants to be an expert without putting in the intellectual work.
My friend David Koepsell, an attorney and philosopher who serves on the Advisory Board of C4SIF, has written and spoken a good deal on patent and copyright. Below I collect some of his essential work in this regard:
Now some company (#1) spends $300M doing trials and getting FDA regulatory approval. This temporary monopoly (even without a patent) lets them charge high prices. It lasts a couple-few years at least, normally.
Now suppose a competitor #2 comes along. They could not afford the $300M investment, or maybe they were just unable to create the new drug. So now they get the FDA approval for a lot cheaper since no clinical trials, no huge R&D cost, etc. Once the FDA ensures drug 2 is chemically adequate and the same as the original, they grant the second FDA approval to #2, but on the condition that they pay a pro-rata share of the total expenses originally incurred, by reimbursing #1 for half the expense #1 incurred but that #2 got to avoid. So basically, #2 pays half of $300M = $150M to #1. So now each one has paid about $150M roughly. [continue reading…]
One of the most intriguing arguments against intellectual property — that is, the claim to owning a copyright or patent on any basis other than contract — was first presented to me by the science fiction writer Victor Koman. It is simple but profound. Read more>>
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.
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