Against Intellectual Monopoly
by Michele Boldrin, David K. Levine · first published 2008
91% recommend6% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Economists argue that patents and copyright do more harm than good, citing the Wright brothers and pharma in countries without patents. Freely available online; suits readers wanting an empirical anti-IP argument.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
'Intellectual property' — patents and copyrights — have become controversial. We witness teenagers being sued for 'pirating' music — and we observe AIDS patients in Africa dying due to lack of ability to pay for drugs that are high priced to satisfy patent holders. Are patents and copyrights essential to thriving creation and innovation — do we need them so that we all may enjoy fine music and good health? Across time and space the resounding answer is: No. So-called intellectual property is in fact an 'intellectual monopoly' that hinders rather than helps the competitive free market regime th
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There's plenty of academic studies now that show that pirating and digital distribution don not hurt economically the developer but only the "middle men". See Boldrin and Levine's "Against Intellectual Monopoly" to have some numbers: http://www.amazon.com/Against-Intellectual-Monopoly-Michele-... Free to download here: http://www.micheleboldrin.com/research/aim.html It's time we move away from the stereotype…
on “The Pirate Bay up again - bandwidth provided by Swedish Pirate Party” ↗Here is an interesting book arguing for total abolition: Against Intellectual Monopoly, Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, Professors of Economics, UCLA and Washington University, 2010, http://www.micheleboldrin.com/research/aim/anew.all.pdf
on “German Patent Ruling Threatens Microsoft's Windows Phone Earnings From Android” ↗…about asserting that about economists. Economists are much more likely than most people to be anti-IP, and IP abolitionism is a respectable opinion among mainstream economists (see Boldrin & Levine's Against Intellectual Monopoly for the most prominent example. Now, "most economists" are not anti-IP, because most economists have never read a paper even touching on the economics of IP. And while the literature is pretty damning,…
on “Sci-Hub Proves That Piracy Can Be Dangerously Useful” ↗…historical evidence contradicts Matt Maroon's assertion, conventionally held by corporate intellectual monopolists, that copyrights "incent" [sic] creativity. See Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine's Against Intellectual Monopoly for a detailed discussion.
on “IP” ↗Since no one seems to have mentioned it yet: Against Intellectual Monopoly (http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/anew.all.pdf)
I don't know if this is the book you're thinking of, but "Against Intellectual Monopoly" by Michele Boldrin and David Levine has such arguments. It's a very interesting book -- I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the subject, whatever their position.
on “Command & Conquer in HTML5 with multiplayer” ↗…helped get the invention out sooner, that benefit is void, and the patent, unjustified. Also, apparently, we haven't read the same "tons of studies". The arguments againts patents I have read so far (Against Intellectual Monopoly was a good read), sounded very compelling —not to mention grounded in evidence. Could you give me some pointers to the studies you speak of?
on “Software patents are crumbling, thanks to the Supreme Court” ↗Patents must be abolished. Recommended reading: https://www.amazon.com/Against-Intellectual-Monopoly-Michele...
on “Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview” ↗The history of economics is littered with such examples. Perhaps you want to start reading Against Intellectual Monopoly in which you read lawsuits by James Watt against his also somewhat innovative competitors, the lucrative bargain between British authors and American publishers in the era of no foreign copyrights, the…
on “It's not my fault your business model sucks.” ↗…you want to reform the system, you have to reform the overlying political system that allow such regulatory capture in the first place. Secondary, I would like to direct your attention to a book called Against Intellectual Monopoly by two economists, Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, who explains the evidence for why patent and copyright monopolies shouldn't exists in the first place.
on “Court: Microsoft violated patent; can't sell Word” ↗If you're truly interested in this question, you should read Against Intellectual Monopoly, available for purchase here[0] and reading for free online here[1]. It's written by two professors from Cambridge? It's the most thorough discussion of intellectual property law I've ever read. 0: http://www.amazon.com/Against-Intellectual-Monopoly-Michele-...…
on “A World Without Intellectual Property” ↗…3 grips with the patent system are 1) patents have more legalese than technical details 2) patents last damn too long 3) because of #1 they give out patents for too generic stuff. Have you ever read Against Intellectual Monopoly? It's a fascinating account against patent and copyright in general. I learned that the patent and copyright of today are totally not unique to our time. It doesn't matter if you do software or steam…
on “When Rob Pike first met rms” ↗…general, provides monopoly protection beyond what is necessary to compensate for these externalities, and is hence detrimental to the economy. See, for example, chapters 4 and 8 of Boldrin and Levine's Against Intellectual Monopoly (Google to find the PDF), which presents empirical evidence that patent protections go beyond what is necessary. "To sum up, careful statistical analyses of the nineteenth century's available data, carried…
on “Make Patent Trolls Pay All Costs If They Lose” ↗…copyright/patent maximalism that forces a "get permission first" culture is not a good idea. For an extremely detailed argument on why copyright and patents hinder innovation in general, see the book "Against Intellectual Monopoly" by Boldrin and Levine. You can find a copy on the internet using, e.g., Google. For a more story-based exposition, see the "This American Life" episodes "When Patents Attack".
on “TPP Leak Confirms the Worst: US Still Trying to Trade Away Internet Freedoms” ↗This is empirically false as Boldrin & Levine describe in chapter 9 of their book Against Intellectual Monopoly that countries which had no patent protection for pharmaceuticals had a high innovation rate in this field. Link to chapter: http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/ip.ch.9.m1004.pdf
on “Non-profit’s $300 hepatitis C cure as effective as $84k alternative” ↗