KM
Today I’m writing with a thought that has been bouncing around my head for a few weeks now.
As you may know, I’m not a fan of the intellectual “property” concept in general. However, I have to concede that for unique items such as written works, movies, software licenses, or even trademarks and logos, reasonable minds can disagree about whether or not they should be protected by law. One could say that in such cases, the very particular, unique information could be deemed a property, and should be protected as such, or (in case of logos) this information is a label not unlike our own unique names, which, if not protected, would mean legalizing fraud.
However, in the case of patents, these arguments become null. Patents aren’t about unique pieces of information; they are about general solutions, which someone found first. For some reason, in our legal systems, this creates a monopoly on the use of the solution. I don’t see any reasonable reason why that should be the case. The fact that someone figured out a particular way of doing things first doesn’t create any special right for them to forcefully prevent others from using the same solution.
From a consequentialist standpoint, patents are a huge burden on any type of business or technological progress. We can see this from the case of China — one of the countries that the US cannot push around to acknowledge its patent regime. I would argue that China’s rapid growth, despite its own flawed political and economic system, has been thanks to the relative lack of this artificial burden. The very existence of “patent trolls”, or even corporations milking absurd profits from their monopolies on the production of particular chemical compounds, is a sign of systemic failure, which stifles innovation (which itself is a process of copying and improvement), growth, and human happiness all over the world.
Now, as far as I understand it, under the current patent law, patents are temporary and restricted in the types of solutions they can apply to. But imagine if there were no such restrictions. Imagine if someone had a patent on the wheel. Or making fire (Greek gods?). Or baking. Or the use of electricity. Or even lifting your arm in a particular way. Imagine a society bound by these sorts of patents. We would never be able to achieve anything, bound in permanent stagnation, all becoming slaves to patent holders, who could control what we can and cannot do, and would themselves be enslaved similarly. And if it’s unreasonable when done to such a degree, then it’s also unreasonable in any smaller degree. Even having several years during which an entity can restrict other people’s creative freedom unjustly is still harmful and unjust. It’s just a different form of slavery — unreasonable restriction of one’s freedom resulting from something they never agreed to, not unlike the “social contract”.
These are my thoughts. Although I haven’t read it, I’m sure great minds like Stephan Kinsella in his Against Intellectual Property, have already made similar arguments in a much more sophisticated way.
Thoughts?
RM
Hi Krzysztof,
Agreed with you on everything (apart from I don’t find any IP related laws particularly reasonable!).
However, here’s why I think 3L is right to say reasonable minds may disagree and local communities should decide:
- we don’t need to die on the IP hill. Better to acknowledge there are different views on it and we’re in the minority with ours. It will be hard enough abolishing tax. Let’s start there.
- letting local communities decide is a near total victory for the anti-IP-law crowd anyway. You, me, and the others that agree will choose to live in the liberated-information communities, and we will outcompete and therefore attract more talent over time (if our theory is correct). The pro IP crowd may not realise what a huge win it is for us to let local
communities decide… let’s not draw attention to it!
Cheers,
Robbie
SS
Hi Krzysztof and Robbie,
To me, 3L has no basis to say IP should never be treated as property. The 3L position followig the Legal Principle is that states (or other institutions of coercion) should never treat ideas as property. In other words, the concept of intellectual property must not be forced upon people anymore than socialised medicine should be forced upon people.
Individuals can live under legal frameworks which do treat ideas as property (just as they can live under legal frameworks which socialise what would otherwise be their own property). But this must be voluntary or, at least, with the chance to opt out. And, certainly, there is no way to presume IP can be enforced extraterritorially in a way which is consistent with 3L (an inter-community agreement would be one way to overcome this presumption).
Tax is a bit different because, by definition, it aggresses. Otherwise it would be called donating, or a payment etc. So, the tautology of the word “tax” means it is impossible to voluntarily accept to be taxed. It is, however, possible to voluntarily accept being subject to intellectual property.
Krzysztof to your point about public law preventing others from using another’s creation due to fraud – if fraud is committed then that is against 3L’s legal principle. If there is no fraud, 3L has no basis to endorse “pre-crime” enforcement, not unless perhaps there is a reasonable risk or an immediate threat of the legal principle being breached etc (which itself would be against the legal principle). Notwithstanding Robbie’s remarks that we should steer away form this topic publically, for my own interests, can you explain further on your point about how an unprotected label or name, or a logo, legalises fraud? Legally, fraud depends on the use (or action) and is irrespective of whether something is deemed by statute as intellectual property or not.
A nuanced point about protecting the output of creations (movies, written works etc) - the notion, or effect, of IP is not to protect the creation, but to protect someone’s rights to that creation, usually the creator. The analogy with property is that the law doesn’t protect my house or my money, but it protects my right to use that house or money, including to exclude others. In this sense, intellectual property protects rights. Although, IP laws actually create rights, also.
I am finalising a manuscript on intellectual property I will be presenting in a couple of weeks. I will send you the final copy once published, if you are interested. It argues against patents, demonstrating how they are immoral, legally contradictory and against the interests of economic prosperity - such is the same, albeit perhaps to a lesser extent, with trademarks and copyright. All this is consistent with Stefan Kinsella’s, and Butler Shaffer’s, observations. Many “mainstream”/non-libertarian researchers and academics also reconise this.
KM
With logos, if you were to slap someone else’s logo on your product, it could be understood as presenting that product as if the logo’s owner created it. I wouldn’t present that argument myself, but debating in good will, I can understand that someone else (perhaps a fellow closer to Objectivism) could. And I would definitely treat this type of IP as a lesser evil than patents.
Yes, I would definitely be interested to read your take on IP, Scott!
SS
Got it. Yes, that situation would be covered by fraud (or should be covered, if the jurisdiction/government is applying fraud enforcement in a fair manner).
In these cases it comes down to what would the person purchasing/using the non-authentic product is reasonably expected to have known - i.e. did they know it was not authentic, or were they led to believe it was authentic because of the use of the logo.I will send you the manuscript once finalised, which is patent-focused - not trademark-focused– so, it looks like we agree on that anyway. But, the reference list might also interest you.
JW
I would be interested to see how one can argue that ideas can be owned as property in the same way that tangible scarce goods can be owned
That is the issue
MJV
I agree with Robbie. Indeed, if you can identify any issue where members of the council disagree after repeated discussion, we can say with confidence and objective evidence that reasonable minds equally committed to the 3LP in good faith disagree. In such cases, there are two options:
Option One - Endlessly fight about it, causing divisions in the 3LM. See the Libertarians to understand where that approach leads.
Option Two - Agree to disagree and move on. As I sometimes say, “punt” the issue. Let the local communities adopt whichever rule they prefer. Everyone gets a “reasonable construction of the LP” regardless of which rule is chosen. After all, that is our stated goal and all we can reasonably expect: a reasonable construction of the LP.
I’m totally fine discussing these issues among ourselves. No problem. But the bigger issue is how we decide to present them to the world. I suggest we focus on being productive and moving the world in the right direction, even if we never achieve 100% of what we want.
KM
I don’t remember — do we actually have any Council member who supports exclusive property rights to ideas?
RM
I think Marc is on the fence, at least.
Even if Marc being unsure was our only detractor, I’d still recommend we let local communities decide. As mentioned, this is effectively total victory for the non-IP crowd (I guess you could register your business in a non-IP jurisdiction even without having to move there), but it avoids poking the hornets nest (most people are pro IP).
Later down the line, when people see the results of a free society removing the artificial brain damage that is IP laws, the argument will be much easier to win.
ME
I originally learned the argument against IP from Stephan Kinsella and it made much sense to me.
JW
I agree from a “marketing” perspective
I’d still like to hear the case for ideas being property, at least among ourselves.
I’d like to keep it that simple and focused, rather than getting into arcane discussions about trademark fraud, etc.
I honestly think 3L members can disagree on it because many have not thought about it such simple and stark terms.
But maybe I’m wrong. If I am wrong, I’d like to be set straight on it.
But I won’t be bothered if no one else wants to discuss it. :-)
RM
The arguments I’ve heard are mainly utilitarian (‘who would create life saving drugs if patents didn’t protect the IP?’).
JW
Agreed
But that’s not how we define what is property in any other situation I know of
MJV
Correct. As I see it, we decide what the rules about property are. Some people may disagree that land can be owned or that people own themselves. These are disagreements about property rights. The NAP is preceded by a theory of property. We mostly agree, but this is an area where many libertarians disagree. If people do not agree with our theory of property, a discussion about the NAP, or LP, is not possible.
As I see it, because we could deem ideas as property, or not, it makes sense to say what’s best for society. On this point, I’m not sure.
SS
The law can certainly influence rights to property, and create rights for the ideas similar to property rights, but it cannot change the fundamental economics related to property.
To define ideas as property means to redefine what property is. Which, if individuals in a society want to do, they can. But, that doesn’t change the economics of property, or the distinction between property and ideas.
It would be like saying, I prefer to call wine “red water”. But the characteristics are not the same and, so, it is not appreciating the full picture when describing it as red water. Economic principles, such as scarcity, excludability and rivalousnous, do not change because of a change in terminology.
Jon - Following Robbie, indeed most justifications for treating ideas, and expressing an idea, as property are utilitarian (or more broadly, “consequentialist”). And precisely so because of the economic difference in the characteristics of property compared those of ideas and expressions.
The main non-consequentialist argument in favor of IP is that “what is created from ideas becomes property”. That is, to protect someones right to the tangible output created from an idea.
But this, as will be no surprise to all on this Council, then conflicts with the holders of the property rights to the materials used in reaching that output.
If I use your paints and your canvas to create my original artistic work that output cannot be mine under any consistent application of property rights (unless we have a contract stipulating that is the case).
Another non-consequentialist argument, which was favoured by Ayn Rand, was that ideas are the creative output themselves. This is trying to connect with natural rights by stating human effort must be protected as an extension of self-ownership. But I have not seen this argument come with a reason as to why those protections should be limited in time (as copyright and patents are), limited by geography (as all IP is), or why the first person to invent or to file the idea with the state takes precedence over another who independetly came up with the idea.
But those are two arguments I have come across attempting to demonstrate why ideas doequate to property (rather than why society should equate ideas to property).
KM
Honestly, I think that even the consequentialist argument is much stronger on the anti-patent side. People invented stuff long before patents were a thing. Patents don’t actually create ideas, and they don’t even enable one to monetize them (you can do that regardless), they just create an additional rent-seeking mechanism for the first person who gets to register them. (There is even a phenomenon of research teams racing to be the first ones to patent a solution.) By innovating, the company already creates a significant market advantage for itself (see Sony and their products). Patents just exaggerate and cement this advantage by slowing down or blocking other adopters.
It’s a classic case of the seen vs the not seen. We see inventions of new drugs by corporations, but don’t see all the innovation and progress that
doesn’t
happen because of patents that stifle them. We don’t see all the people who
didn’t
get out of poverty because of having to spend a lot of money on absurdly expensive drugs. We don’t see superior products that
don’t
get made, because Company 1 holds a patent to solution A, and Company 2 holds a patent to solution B, so no product using those two together will be produced.
JW
Very well put, KM & SS!
Kinsella says there is data proving the economic case against IP, but I haven’t studied it
JW
Again, for marketing purposes we can try to dodge the question and say “the community decides”.
But among us, I don’t understand the argument that we can define property however we want.
Just because we CAN theoretically deem red heads or your car as our property does not make it just.
We need a just and practical theory of what can and cannot be property.
This has been done well by Rothbard, Hoppe and Kinsella in my opinion.
To play deuces wild with property rights seems to undercut 3L at its base.
As always, maybe I’m missing something. :-)
MJV
Hi guys. It isn’t so clear to me. I understand that some innovation may be stifled as a result of IP. However, it isn’t clear to me that drug manufacturers would continue to spend countless sums of money to develop products that competitors could immediately replicate. We don’t know what would happen in the market if IP were to disappear.
The heart of this issue, as I see it, is whether IP is property. Once that is determined, the rest is easy. I don’t see this question as having an obvious answer. All property rights are merely artificially created. We decide what is property. During slavery, people determined that some people didn’t own themselves. I see that as an unreasonable determination. However, what exactly is required to “homestead” property is also an issue on which many people can reasonably disagree. Do we mandate rules here? No, we allow local communities to decide.
Given the number of people, even libertarians, who disagree on this issue, I can’t say that either determination is unreasonable. That resolves it for 3L. Local communities decide. Indeed, this is the best way to resolve the consequentialist question. We would get to see how it all shakes out.
Question: How does your position affect musicians who write music? Is any person free to start playing songs just written by artists and tour, making money off others’ written songs?
We DO define property however we want. The universe doesn’t tell us what rules to have about deeds or real property recording acts, right? Can you own the air? Water in the ocean? The stars? Stocks? A right of first refusal? We have created rules in these areas. We invented the entire concept of property.
FYI, Ayn Rand recognized IP as property. Is she unreasonable?
Ayn Rand recognized intellectual property as a legitimate form of property. In her philosophy of Objectivism, she argued that property rights derive from an individual’s rational mind and creative effort. Intellectual property, such as patents and copyrights, represents the product of one’s mind, and she viewed it as a natural extension of individual rights.
In her essay “Patents and Copyrights” from Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966), Rand wrote:
“Patents and copyrights are the legal implementation of the base of all property rights: a man’s right to the product of his mind.”
She believed that intellectual property rights protect the creator’s ability to benefit from their ideas and innovations, which is essential for a free market and individual liberty. Without such protections, she argued, creators would be disincentivized to innovate, as others could freely exploit their work.
However, Rand also emphasized that intellectual property rights should be limited in scope and duration to avoid monopolistic abuses or stifling further innovation. She supported patents and copyrights as temporary protections to reward creators while ensuring ideas could eventually enter the public domain.
KM
There are other options for protecting one’s ideas. Companies have trade secrets and NDAs. Of course, these are imperfect, but so are the IP laws. And unlike IP laws, they don’t create a force-based monopoly (even if temporary). And again, innovators almost always have a market advantage — several studies show that pioneers enjoy long-term market dominance, probably partially due to established authority and customer attachment.
I think that AR might have been a bit biased on this topic, as she was a writer, after all. Since she admits that patents should be temporary, it means that she did recognize the problem; she just didn’t follow it to its logical conclusion. The question is: Is arbitrarily
rewarding
an inventor/corporation with a temporary legal monopoly a valid role for the government? If we decide that the government’s role is just to stop people from aggressing against one another, then the answer is a clear no.
JW
Why do we have property rights?
Why don’t we have property rights in the air and other unlimited things (let’s ignore air pollution for now)?
The purpose of defining property is because two people cannot physically own and control the same scarce resources at the same time. It is physically impossible. Thus we define ownership of any scarce tangible good like a car to minimize conflict.
And we need just rules to define property or else it would not end the conflict.
Ideas, like how to build a wheel or a mousetrap are not scarce. Endless numbers of people can know the same idea without keeping it from anyone else.
Since there is no physical conflict over an infinite thing like an idea, it cannot be justly called private property, just like the air cannot be called private property.
This seems very obvious and straightforward to me. But most people haven’t thought about it this way.
Rand was wrong on IP and the need and desirability of a monopoly on force (or anything else)
As someone knee deep in the world of cancer drugs and alternative treatments, I think drug patents are one of the worst evils of the past century and there have been lots of evils.
JH
Excellent discussion on property rights regarding IP. I side with those who see no such right. A great example was given of stolen art resources - colors, brushes, canvasses. If someone uses the stolen property, which we all agree IS property, to create a new original work of art, who owns it? The artist or the owner of the supplies? We could say the same about electrical parts and tools that are stolen and then assembled by a genius into an entirely new invention. Who owns this invention? The inventor or the owner of the parts? What would Ayn Rand say about this situation? In my view, the owners of the supplies still own the supplies, no matter how they were rearranged, because those are the real property. If the inventor or artist bought the supplies, and rearranged them however he wanted, he would remain the owner of the supplies. Yes, the creation was his idea. He can sell the rearranged supplies with a stipulation to the buyer that the buyer must not copy his rearrangement with their own supplies, and if the buyer agrees, then there is your contractual “intellectual property”. This is exactly what has been done with software for decades. The buyer (or licensee) of software must agree to a EULA (end user license agreement) which prevents copying and reselling, reverse engineering, etc.
While it is true that legal terms can mean whatever we agree that they mean, and any word can take on any meaning that we all agree upon, it is also true that logical consistency in our definitions is crucial to avoid conflicts and to avoid practically useless arbitrary labeling. We want our labels for concepts to be sound.
Now let’s consider Elon Musk, the “wartime CEO” that I follow closely as an investor with the vast majority of my financial resources devoted to his companies. He works 80 hours, 120 hours, or more per week. He sleeps on the factory floor. He insists that his department heads and as many workers as he can convince do the same, and he incentivizes them accordingly. He considers patents to be tools for slow minds. Speed and depth are the only real competitive advantages, he says. He releases many of his discoveries freely to the public, but nobody can keep up with his energy and tireless motivation. And he DOES patent some important breakthroughs, but not to sit on them for the rent! He patents only because if he doesn’t, then other latecomers WILL patent them and then prevent or disadvantage ELON! So while he is all for widespread free flow of information for discoveries and inventions, he still uses patents but only to protect himself from the patent system !!!
Compare Elon with the drug companies. Execs that take off. Workers who clock out. Extensive vacations for everyone. Let’s sit back and draw rent on our patents and take it easy! What is the patent system actually doing for us?
I need to make two more points. These are unrelated to property rights. They have more to do with my concerns about 3L itself and about what I see as very bad timing for the movement. Perhaps some of you can hear me out and then talk me in off the ledge.
#1. Marc used to say “I don’t care how big the government is. Just so it doesn’t trample on anyone’s rights!” That was mind blowing when I first heard it. But after a few years of mulling this over and not fully understanding why it bothered me, I finally got it. One of the reasons I was attracted to Hoppe’s idea of radical decentralization of authority, which turned me from a libertarian to an anarcho-capitalist, was my distrust of human beings to act with power without corruption. As a lifelong software developer (or turnkey solution provider) I probably trust AI with political power more than I trust people. In 3L we are coming to envision a quasi one world legal system, or at least I am hearing too much about our formal doctrine and far too little about deliberate design safeguards against corruption, with power structures designed to keep the power hungry at loggerheads with each other. I like the idea of little sovereign neighborhoods having their skirmishes with each other so that no one gains the upper hand. I don’t care how pure we make our doctrine, cronies will find a way to grab power if there is power to be grabbed. And while putting a fine line on property rights is very important, I see formally designing ways to thwart corruption as far more important!! Just saying. Are we still for radical decentralization of power? Or do we truly believe that we should not care how big the government gets??
#2. We are facing an onslaught of AI and humanoid robots over the coming years. Some think 10 to 20 years. I tend to agree with the 3 to 5 year estimate. The next generation of Grok, to be released next year, will have the equivalent of a post PhD in every subject and is presumed to be a contender for AGI, the ultimate goal of AI. “Artificial General Intelligence”. It will begin to replace jobs in every white collar position. Perhaps not formally. But if I can get legal advice 24/7 from AI that’s as good as any breathing lawyer at several hundred dollars per hour, it won’t take long for the human legal service providers to see dwindling business. Then humanoid robots with the same intelligence as AI will start to take blue collar jobs. Let’s not forget self-driving technology which will eliminate the driving jobs of a significant population of men of a certain IQ. What will be the natural human reaction to being put out of work?? I see an uprising of a popular movement to make such tech illegal and drive it underground and force companies to “hire human”. Now who is on the side of freedom and who is on the side of government power? The freedom side will be the tech investors. The pro-government power side will be the dispossessed workers!! Of course, we know how well driving AI underground will stop it, just like the thriving illegal drug trade. Use your imagination here. So we, in 3L, will be pushing for freedom right at the time that the vast majority of the public will be clamoring for government to force companies to keep their jobs!! What is wrong with this picture??
The ultimate solution to the AI “problem” will be some kind of sovereign wealth fund that pays people to live on the wealth and abundance produced by the AI / robots. But that will take time and major upheaval to accomplish.
So these are the serious problems I believe we face with 3L. I’m so discouraged that I’m almost willing to give it up. Taking a ride to another planet in one Elon’s rockets with a team of robots is sounding better all the time. Can anyone talk me off the ledge before I jump?
SS
This is a great thread. We should integrate it into the 3L knowledge base. It’s cutting to the core of the issue. Great use case of the Council - despite it not being a priority topic. It shows how we can weave all our thoughts together. As we deal with socially-relevant issues (which is coming after October), this forum will be all the more practical.
Marc,
I don’t think Ayn Rand was unreasonable. She was wrong. At the very least she her argument was incomplete (that essay you shared gives no rational why the monopoly should cease to exist after 17 years, for instance, although her example uses copyright). Also, it seems to me, she approached from “what ought to be” rather than “what is”.
And her justification for first to invent in now way accords with the economics of subjective value or the libertarian view of market preferences.
As you say, humans define what property is and what property rights attach to which concepts. However, my earlier email sought to distinguish the characteristics of that which we currently call property (and have throughout history). Those characteristic are very different from the nature of intellectual property. Proponents of IP acknowledge this or else there would be no need to qualify it with the adjective “intellectual”.
To me, the point for 3L is whether it can be a 3L-endorsed situation. It is clear that it can be. In other words, 3L has no basis to say that people should not be creating rules in a society which treat ideas as property. We, equally, cannot say that people should be creating laws for IP. Conversely, 3L does say that people should not be creating laws which permit rape or taxation.
But on this i may be wrong - i mean i am open to the possibility IP is agressing.
As for the argument that no useful drugs or music would be produced if not for IP, Butler Shafer has an essay concisely laying out the logic for why this is not the case. And there are several studies and treatises, far more than those which support the consequentialist case, showing that this is either unsubstantiated or incorrect. John Howard makes a nice example with Musk.
Jon Wolfenbarger, your experience is indeed the reality i would conclude from this logic. Others argue fake drugs (by infringing trademark) can harm people. But a market sorts that out, usually, very quickly. A market can rarely overcome the adversities caused by political force. Your point about there being no physical conflict over infinites hits the nail on the head about the nature of property vs the nature of ideas.
As to John Howard’s point on size of government, personally I am wary that a big 3L court / governance system will be prone and vulnerable to corruption and incentives. Public choice will apply to 3L ambassadors and judges as it does to every other human being.
John, a tongue-in-cheek but no-less real point is that accurate legal advice from a machine is not a high bar, albeit we don’t have it yet. Other disciplines are more representative of the precipice you’re conveying. And, generally, don’t jump off any ledge, soar from it.
To your comment “So we, in 3L, will be pushing for freedom right at the time that the vast majority of the public will be clamoring for government to force companies to keep their jobs!! What is wrong with this picture??” doesn’t at all resonate with me. But I am not in the U.S. so maybe this influences my optimism. Or opportunism. But I need to ponder on this to work out why my intuition does not agree with the implicant of that sentiment.
RM
Strong agreement on letting local communities decide on this one.
If 3L is to be a reconciliatory power, it will be because we stick to being the least necessary common agreement. It’s going to be a compromise for everyone for different reasons. Many will already find it a bitter pill to swallow that IP may be ignored in some local communities. Allowing abortion in some communities and being clear about transitioning to no taxation over time will also be difficult and essential pills to swallow for many.
Tolerance is key. If we can’t tolerate different opinions that we strongly disagree with on many topics, we get the status quo; endless and worsening cycles of lawfare.
The libertarians have shown us where arguing this stuff gets us: nowhere. Letting local communities decide is a powerful medicine. It allows the arguments to play out in action rather than words, and ensures freedom for each different local community.
RM
While I don’t want to fight about imposing my preferences here on others, here is what I would say to the IP crowd: I like concepts that prevent conflict.
If something is scare, property rights are the best way known to avoid disputes/conflict over control.
If something is abundant (like ideas), making it artificially scarce creates disputes/conflict over control that otherwise didn’t exist.
- See IP copying as one of the foundational disputes between the two nuclear powers of China vs USA.
- See the army of patent lawyers from large companies suppressing start-up competition where the purpose is not to win but to smother to death under legal fees.
- What we don’t see: all the creative works that have never happened because it’s safer just not to guess where the arbitrary lines of information ownership have been drawn… if composing an arbitrary combo of chords/lyrics/melody could make me an outlaw, I’m safer not bothering. Even if I make sure to compromise my creative process to ensure difference with the music I know about, what about the remaining 99% of music I’ve never heard that I could be unknowingly illegally copying?
What answer do IP people have when two unconnected people come up with the same idea concurrently? Inventor A may have conceived the idea after thousands of hours, billions of dollars and actually come up with idea first by a few minutes but can’t find a way to prove it. Inventor B conceives of the same idea during a brief meditation but patented it before inventor A thought to do so and now A is denied use of his idea. This is not just hypothetical - unconnected people are often forming similar ideas around the same time. Knowing that this could happen is a huge disincentive to investing the hours and money to innovate… it’s not fair to say that patents only encourage innovation… they discourage it too.
Think of all the potential conflicts that IP could create down the line.
- Company XYZ develops some CRISPR technology that enters the human genome. What are the implications of a company owning our DNA?
Does the genesis of copyright control not sound alarm bells? The church wanted to limit the right to copy the bible because the big secret was that indulgences aren’t mentioned - the copying undermined the lucrative racket of toll collections at the fake gate to heaven. This concept of making ideas artificially scarce is far more recent than the ancient idea of physical property rights.