I recently learned of an interesting thesis by Professor Ross Emmett of James Madison College @ MSU about the nature of innovation. He’s working on book entitled “Innovation As an Act of Love: and Why it Matters for Fostering an Innovative Society.” You can find a quick overview of his argument in his TEDx Lansing talk (see below) and some of the pieces of the argument on his website. He tells me he’ll use some of my and others’ anti-IP arguments in his book. As noted here, “Emmett is also working on a fictionalized account of the historical relationship between John Law and Richard Cantillon during the European financial crisis of the early 1700s and an intellectual biography of Frank Knight.”
Those interested in Emmett’s talk may also find of interest Lewis Hyde’s The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World (Hyde also wrote the recent Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership, which I’m reading now).
