Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David Levine, subject of much discussion on this blog, will be the center of a conference this week at the authors’ home university, Washington University in St. Louis: The Economics and Law of Innovation.
Note that George Selgin, author of Good Money, is on the schedule.
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I’m curious: Is there anyone who was pro-IP, but upon hearing B/L’s masterfully insightful arguments, changed their mind?
Because as best I can see (and Jeffrey_Tucker did an excellent job documenting and summarizing their arguments for us here), all they do is rehash the same, long-refuted anti-IP arguments, and torch some pro-IP strawmen. (Please refer to Jeffrey_Tucker’s liveblog for some fruitful discussion where both sides make their points.)
It’s a shame to see them get so much attention.
Person — didn’t Jeff himself say that his mind was changed upon hearing B/L’s insightful arguments?
Anyway, I fail to see your point. Many students take full courses in microeconomic principles and yet fail to understand supply and demand. Is this because the supply and demand model is incorrect? Or is it because some students are just too dull?
@Brent: Jeffrey_Tucker was already leaning anti-IP before reading B/L.
And my request was for the existence of a single person convinced to change their mind, a criterion that supply/demand models surely meets.
My point is that you always do this. You set up a criterion that doesn’t really prove what you seem to want it to prove.
Halo! The babes are here! This is my favorite site to visit. I make sure I am alone in case I get too hot. Post your favorite link here.
I was pro IP before then became anti-ip and wrote some diatribes. But after reflecting on both sides of the argument, I decided to be pro-IP again. Certainly there are abuses of IP with the acquiescence of State power, but I am looking at the issue from a libertarian property rights perspective rather than personal gain.
Brent,
I believe the only way to develop a truly dependable Supply/Demand model is through Communism, or complete control of human behavior.
It’s amazing how those pesky free-thinking humans can screw up things.
It’s easier to fix a natural problem than to fix a human created problem. Ever tried to find an electrical short in an Automobile? How about that Flood Control on the Mississippi, that worked out well. But it’s fairly simple to induce growth in a plant….
Remember the high prices and shortage of Cabbage Patch Dolls? Amazing what HYPE does to Consumers. Where was that Supply/Demand Curve?
“…abuses of IP with the acquiescence of State power…”
tautology, writ large.
David Spellman:
“I was pro IP before then became anti-ip and wrote some diatribes. But after reflecting on both sides of the argument, I decided to be pro-IP again.”
David, perhaps I should just wait 6 months, until we agree again, before replying.
helo! The babes are here! This is my sexiest site to visit. I make sure I am alone in case I get too hot. Post your favorite link here.
Time to captcha the Mises blog…
Silas,
Would love to see your liveblog, refuting each of the arguments in AIM…y’know, with actual facts and stuff. Let us know when it’s posted.
Personally, I think the attention is well-deserved. It’s a well-researched, coherent treatment of the subject.
“helo! The babes are here! This is my sexiest site to visit. I make sure I am alone in case I get too hot. Post your favorite link here.”
This is the Internet’s way of saying “Your hit count is going up and your site is getting Googled.”
Captchas would help.
@Ron: I responded to Jeffrey_Tucker and Stephan_Kinsella in their posts on IP, including the liveblog, and on my blog. Please refer to this post, which has a list of fruitful IP threads in which I’ve presented my “actual facts” and reasoning (except the 2nd and 3rd in the list).
That post also links back to a previous post on my blog, which presents serious problems in the anti-IP position from the libertarian standpoint. (I’d directly link it, but anything more than one link tends to set off the spam filter.) Serious and unrefuted problems, by the way.
And of course, Jeffrey_Tucker linked the list of liveblog posts, and I’ve posted on those threads.
Anyway, it’s true that B/L have put a lot of reasearch into their book, but as any “a priori deductivist” should understand, that by itself is insufficient. That reasearch, those examples, must also be interpreted in the proper framework, and it must be relevant to good arguments. In this respect, B/L fail horribly. Their examples do nothing to show the pro-IP position to be in error because the provide nothing that’s inconsistent with the standard, *non-strawman* pro-IP position.
To give you a hard example of what I mean, consider their constant tendency to point to examples of giving away Free Software. This is supposed to show that, “hey, of course people still produce ideas when there isn’t property in ideas”. But then, once you notice (as the pro-IP framework does) that people give away *physical* goods all the time, and produce things in which they don’t assert property rights all the time, the examples become irrelevant and help to establish nothing.
So you can see, there’s no reason to laud them for their research, no matter how much work it took them. The examples just prove something everyone already knew, and disprove things that were never cruicial or even relevant to the pro-IP case.
This is why I say their work doesn’t deserve the attention it’s getting.
I’m familiar with your arguments, Silas, and you and I have debated them on your blog in the past. I don’t feel, however, that you’ve successfully refuted my counter-arguments. In fact, I’m still waiting on a reply to my latest post on your blog, made back in August, 2008.
(Oops, browser just ate the response I typed in … Here goes a shorter rewrite…)
Yes, Ron, I’m aware of your comment there; I just didn’t realize it was attempt to critique my postition, and thus I didn’t see that I needed to post a response in defense of it. It’s not a slight against you; I just didn’t realize your intent.
All your comment does is show how you apply homesteading to one kind of resource. That’s great, but the entire point of my post is to show a *parallel* between that application, and my application of homesteading to IP. In order for your comment to be an argument (and recognizably so) against my my position, you would have to show how the parallel breaks down. And before you try the obvious: Sorry, but I can tell when someone’s interfering with my IP rights too.
The parallel breaks down on scarcity as has been said 100 times. There is no reason for homesteading if we were all ghost and could simultaneously occupy the same space.
@Nathan: Sure, and there’s no reason for homesteading if everyone could broadcast at the same frequency. And as it turns out, they can! Ergo, no reason for EM spectrum rights. –> “Wait, that doesn’t count, because when people transmit at the same frequency, they can’t transmit *information*!” –> Sure, one intended use is interfered with, just like one intended use is interfered with when more than one person instantiates a new idea. –> And we’re back to my argument.
Which hasn’t been addressed.
***
By the way, I’m sure that even ghosts would want privacy
I think we need to send Chad to cover this event. No?
Wait a minute…
You guys want to keep the babes off?
Well I haven’t done any real research in the matter of Pro-IP or anti-IP but being in the IT field and working extensively with open-source software I have to make this statement. If the Open-Source community is proof of anything its definitely proof that IP is not necessary and that non-IP is extremely competitive with IP equivalent products.
I think the example tends to lead in favor of how productive an industry can be without IP. Many very prominent companies capitalize on their applications in various ways. They do so however without imposing radical license agreements on their customers. In fact many of the best online tools are open-source applications. You just won’t get enterprise support unless you pay. I really do like this business model as it completely promotes ingenuity and improvement amongst the product. It also promotes strong business relationships with other businesses who wish to expand and contribute to an existing idea. Much of the politics and bureaucratic boundaries that Closed-Source apps come with due to their licensing can be avoided with Open-Source Companies, allowing them to operate un-describable more efficient. On the flip side for comparison, the closed source community has ended up becoming bloated at a software level and at a business level. The closed source community packages by comparison are specifically limited in their expansion and integration of other products. Any improvements can only be made by the original developer and that puts your business at the risk of a responsible developer. I have a short list below describing a pattern found in most closed source apps. The list doesn’t mean that all Closed-Source products are bad and that we should all be Open-Source zealots. Lets be honest, there are some products that the closed-source community has provided that has made life wonderful. Microsoft Exchange being one example; I do not know of a better mail transport solution for both small and enterprise class business’s. Even still I would categorize said closed-source apps as having the following traits.
*Bloated
*Proprietary
*Limited Expansion and integration amongst other tools and applications
*Fewer features
*More expensive
Obviously my above points are easily debatable, even in the IT field. But typically only by zealots who chose to take sides in the Open-Source/Closed-Source ideological battle. IT administrators, like me, however don’t really care. We just want the best tools at the cheapest cost which offer the longest value over time. The market alone has shown a huge expansion in the Linux industry simply as a backlashing of Microsoft’s latest OS release. The Software giant has made an effort at forcing it’s customers into upgrading out of an OS they were both comfortable with and knew ran fast/reliably, into an OS that offered no real improvement to a business’ productivity or efficiency and did not adequately take advantage of existing hardware investments. The debate could go on for days but sales numbers don’t lie. Vista simply has been a disappointment. Additionally this closed source example imposed strict compatibility requirements amongst hardware and software vendors further restricting the freedom that each consumer deserves. One example of this is Microsoft’s strong support for DRM, which has effectively forced consumers into buying from a very minor(specific) collection of Microsoft Partners who also promote DRM simply to play your HD and Blue-ray disks. How disappointed will you be to find that purchasing a blue-ray drive($300), HD TV($500), and a legal copy of any Blue-ray Movie($50) from Best Buy simply is not enough to legally qualify you for playing Blue-ray movies? After over a thousand dollars in-hardware you would think you’ve paid enough. Sadly you’re also forced to upgrade Vista to get these components to work thanks to DRM. I digress. Fortunately however the open-source community has delivered consumers a swift response to that nonsense as well.
However with that said most veteran IT administrators are well aware of these open source tools and recognize that they compete extremely well in the industry as a whole. The open-source community capitalizes on this in a number of ways. It’s not as if they work their life away to make no money. They just do it differently then Microsoft. Similar closed source methods involve having heavy and strict license restrictions which alone has spawned an entire other unnecessary industry of Software Asset Management (SAM). Comically Microsoft offers a product for that as well. Instead of keeping jobs like mine simple I have to run around like a chicken tallying my MS office licenses. The insane amount of licensing that goes on in the software world alone puts a very large burden on any IT administrator taking much valuable time away from his job. Not considering the saved money in going open source, the saved time alone is attractive enough to consider migrating away from Closed-Source.
Another good example is Microsoft’s new prize Sharepoint. IT Veterans know however that the concept of a collaborative environment is nothing new to the industry and has been around for quiet some time. The platform by which Wikipedia runs on for example can easily be installed for free by any highschool drop-out in just a few hours. In fact several services and products were already available prior to Sharepoints release, and still are available, at very competitive prices. Many of these existing solutions, like Deki for example, offer feature rich platforms that can also easily integrate across a large spectrum of other products and services, even other closed-source apps. Unlike the closed-source Sharepoint in which you are largely restricted to products pushed by the proprietary vendor, Microsoft. Any hopes at expanding the functionality of your Sharepoint site comes extremely limited and difficult. Then there is the question of quality.
The comparisons of the Open-Source community to the Closed-Source community are paramount to anyone trying to promote Anti-IP.
If I were Pro-IP I would be trying my best at avoiding this example all together as it would only obscurely, but never truly support my argument. At least not too people who are familiar with the industry. The open source community has been capitalizing on this business model for decades now. A little research will point out that programmers in the US are amongst the most well paid individuals in the country. Not all of them work for closed-source Software firms and recently those who don’t still may have jobs. Infact I estimate that during this recession the Open-Source community is far more equipped at lasting through poor economic times.
Point being, if your going to make an argument at defending IP using the software industry as your example model then you will only be seen as confused and ill-informed.
Cheers
Silas Barta, the response with EM spectrum rights is quite poor parallel to IP rights. 2 people can’t fully own the same land, and so just as true two people can’t broadcast different things on the same frequency, without the other being affected. But two people, even 6 billion people can all have the same idea, and it no way affects the quality of the idea. It’s always the same idea. IP, no scarcity, no interference by others, why does it need property rights then.
@Matt_van_Holdstean: You’re still missing the crucial point I made about the distinction between broadcasting *waves* and broadcasting *information*. Two people can both broadcast at the same frequency and the same time, it’s just that they get all whiny and want to transmit *information* too.
So, if there’s some objective aspect of radio wave transmission called “quality” to which people are entitled when they start using a frequency for the first time, surely the first people to start using an idea have a claim to something similar. Now, like with the first frequency transmitter, the first instantiator of an idea will certainly find his idea of higher quality when other people can’t use it without his permission. So, it most certainly does affect the quality of the idea.
And remember, it’s not the right to *have* and idea that IP restricts, it’s the right to *instantiate* it. So IP infringement is just as observable as radio wave interference.
And we’re back to square one.
I still think there’s a major hole in your EM spectrum rights theory, Silas, vis-a-vis the argument regarding possible legitimate uses of property. I’ll rehash here, for those who haven’t read it:
(BTW, the specific application of homesteading wasn’t really the point of my post. I simply included it as one possible mechanism of acquiring legitimate ownership of property.)
“If you sneak over to my driveway one night and build a brick wall around my car, thereby preventing my use of it to get to work, is this a violation of my property rights? I own the car (or at least the metal and polymer molecules arranged in the form of a car
, and my ability to use it as I wish has been damaged by your wall, even though the car itself may not have been damaged. Have my property rights been violated?
Let’s say I own 100 acres of farmland, and you fly over it in your crop-duster and spray it with some chemical that prevents anything from growing on it. My intended use for the farmland is as a farm…to grow things. You haven’t destroyed the dirt, but you’ve made my intended use thereof impossible. Have my property rights been violated?
Finally, if I set up a radio station and begin broadcasting at a particular frequency, then you set up a radio station across the street and start broadcasting at the same frequency, but with a much more powerful signal…powerful enough to drown out my signal, have my property rights been violated? You haven’t damaged my radio equipment, but you’ve ruined my ability to use it, assuming that there aren’t any other frequencies on which someone else isn’t already broadcasting at a higher wattage than me. I disagree, therefore, that broadcasting at a particular frequency is an “intangible”.
“Ownership” of any legitimately obtained thing is actually the right to use the thing in any manner that does not violate the same rights of another. Agreed? Therefore, if I “own” a car, what I really own is the right to drive it, set it on fire, or crash it into my house if I so choose…so long as my doing so doesn’t deprive someone else of the same right to use their property. I have acquired that right by exchanging something of value for it. If I “own” the farmland, I really own the right to plant crops on it, let it lie fallow, or start a nudist colony. This right I may have earned by homesteading a previously unowned piece of property. By the same token, in order to broadcast at a certain frequency in a given area I must own the rights to do so. I could go about obtaining this right through homesteading…being the first person to broadcast on that frequency in that area.”
And further…
“Consider the car case again. Your brick wall prevents me from being able to drive the car, but I can still get in it (assuming I’m able to scale your wall) and rev the engine or listen to the radio. So, at what point have you violated my rights?
I postulate that interfering with any possible use of my property which does not violate someone else’s right to use their property is a violation of my property rights. As you’ve stated before, “intended use” is naturally subjective. You and I may purchase identical items with the intent of using them in completely different ways; however, no one can know our intended use except us, so there is no objective way to determine whether or not that intent has been violated. Attempting to draw the line of rights at the point of “intended use” necessarily makes that point arbitrary and subject to interpretation.
Let’s change up the car scenario a bit to say that, instead of building a wall around my car, you simply grab a couple cans of Krylon and paint graffiti all over it. This won’t prevent my ability to drive the car to work (assuming you didn’t paint over the windows), but what if I had bought the car simply for aesthetic reasons…to park it in my driveway and admire it as art. You have interfered with only one possible use of my car, but since the act of looking at my car violates no one else’s rights it is a perfectly legitimate use thereof, and any infringement of a legitimate use constitutes a violation of property rights.”
to ron & silas:
i can’t see the sense in a competitor wantonly choosing to use a radio frequency already in use. even if the newcomer had a stronger transmitter, its own signal would suffer distortion in certain areas. i find it hard to believer advertisers would rush to the new-kid-on-the-block until some amicable solution had been negotiated. mutually assured destruction usually gives rise to peace.
if the government liberalized the em spectrum, the available frequencies would be so vast that any scarcity argument would be postponed for some time.
roaming – doesn’t the ability to change frequency opportunistically to use vacant spots in bandwidth also diminish any scarcity argument?
perhaps an engineer will enlighten me on this point.
Agreed, Newson. It’s likely that any such interference problems would be easily resolved if the em spectrum were not under gov’t control. In fact, scarcity of broadcasting frequencies is becoming less and less of an issue with the advent of such technologies as digital broadcasts.
Agreed, Newson. It’s likely that any such infringement problems would be easily resolved if IP enforcement where not under gov’t control. In fact, scarcity of land is becoming less and less of an issue with the advent of such technologies as farming machinery.
Silas, no matter how much new technology and other societal developments increase the effective supply of land it will still *always* be economically scarce and thus a candidate for property protection. Ideas and patterns have zero scarcity by nature and as such don’t require such protection. Do you actually have an argument to counter that that doesn’t involve a comparison to the EM spectrum (about which the jury is still out) or not?
Douglass C. North, the Nobel prize winner is also on the schedule.
Isn’t he an institutionalist?
Greego, I’ve already answered that point several times.
AGAIN: What is scarce, in both cases, is the *exclusive right* to do something. In one case, instantiating an idea. In the other, instantiating an EM spectrum frequency.
In both cases, infinite people can do it: Infinite people can instantiate an idea. Infinite people can blast waves at a given frequency.
In both cases, there is an *additional* benefit to doing it while having the exclusive right to.
In both cases, it is possible to detect if people are infringing on that exclusive legal right.
So no, it’s plainly obvious that there’s no “constraint”, natural or otherwise, that applies to one and not the other. And you haven’t even said something responsive to my original argument yet.
By the way, did you understand how my last post refuted the idea that frequency-hopping somehow makes frequencies “not scarce”?
to silas:
you still haven’t explained the logic of broadcasting on occupied bandwidth – why would interlopers waste money on a self-destructive exercise? how could greenmail work if both parties’ product (programming) were ruined in the exercise? wouldn’t advertisers and listeners just change channel, leaving the warring parties either to go broke or to reach some accommodation?
pirate radio existed successfully in britain and italy for many years, without the problems you’ve posited, how could that be?
As an engineer I do not understand the parallel your trying to make between broadcast frequency’s and the manifestation of ideas.
Trying to compare radio waves as a medium to the propagation of idea’s is vastly ill-logical.
The truth is a radio wave is a physical medium. It is scarce in the respect that a single signal is transfered at a specific frequency. If two signals send at the same frequency on the same medium attenuation will occur.
That said, human beings are not restricted by these silly rules and comparing the two methods of propagating information is entirely ridiculous, arguably desperate.
It would be only slightly more accurate to use the CSMA/CD algorithm in trying to compare human communication. That however isn’t enough because you would have to apply the algorithm to every specific source type of medium humans use. Taking into consideration that those mediums are preferred on an individual basis and that the preference process is completely subjective.
The medium by which humans transfer information is not limited to any specific physical medium. Instead the medium used by which humans transfer information are mediums innovated by those human beings. The end result is the an infinite number of possible methods to propagating information. While radio frequency’s may become more fine allowing more different bodies of transmissions eliminating some scarcity, the general medium by which we transmit data is limitless.
Additionally, humans have the freedom by where and how their idea will be spread amongst the masses.
If two inventors create the same product at the same time but at opposite ends of the world. Assuming their product is desired then they will both be successful and if they grow large enough will become competitors. The only way to judge who’s specific product is better or more innovative is by typical market mechanisms. As consumers we also get improvements to our product when the two inventors begin to compete.
It may be that I didn’t read your other article and cannot understand where your coming from Silas. However I can find no logical parallel between broadcast frequency’s as a medium and IP, or human communication in general.
In fact getting into the technicality’s of how radio frequency’s work seems rhetorical and ultimately pointless if your goal is to defend IP rights.
The argument is also flawed in the respect that human transmission of data does not follow the same rules as a single medium like radio.
Attenuation occurs over radio waves because they are forced onto the same medium.
The transmission of Idea’s is not confined to such silly rules. Instead, when two equal idea’s are introduced at the same time, the exact opposite happens. Instead of a corrupt radio signal, their signal is amplified. Due to several common factors, one being competition. The other being the notion that if two independent entities created the same idea then it’s logical to guess that their may already be a demand for that object. The demand needs to be met.
Attenuation is the process by which a signal is not lost but parts of it are corrupt. Where the two signal messages randomly mix together creating a new un-readable signal.
When human’s transmit at the same time their transmission is either amplified and moves to various nearly infinite numbers of mediums. If human’s transmit at the same time on the same frequency, like speaking in the same room, then they can use algorithms like CSMA/CD. Wiki CSMA/CD if your confused.
Also, in your comparison radio waves are fixed at a certain number of available frequency’s. While modern technology increases the number of frequency’s we can use they are still finite.
Humans transmit themselves across nearly an infinite number of mediums, and humans also choose which methods they will receive the information they are most interested in. Say choosing Wikipedia over Encarta, or the Internet over TV. Books over magazine’s. And any variation you can imagine.
Humans also can use fancy tools in which each person can receive information without canceling or disrupting the received information of a neighbor. Like everyone using headphones on an airplane. They all receive input at the same time with 0 attenuation.
Also, if we take your analogy and apply it to other aspects of economics you will see how it is broken. Through your analogy we could make the same argument that for each produceable good we permit only one single company to produce it.
Microsoft is the soul proprietor of all operating sytems.
Cysco is the soul distributor of food.
Sony is the soul manufacturer of HD TV’s.
We force any competition out of business so as not to cause attenuation in the market.
Using your analogy we could eliminate any attenuation which may arise from competitors. After all, we wouldn’t want to hinder the signal of Microsoft. (Although some would argue in this respect that their signal has gone un-hinderd for far to long)
We would live on some phsuedo corporate fascistic state where monopolies made everything.
In short, your analogy is not consistent and really cannot apply to the transmission of data amongst men.
The market rations goods on its own via scarcity. IP laws are not necessary and the market can manage the scarcities, if any, that exist amongst ideas. The only thing your scared about is that scarcities amongst idea’s cannot be measured by any logical method. They very well could be limitless and IP laws may very well be one of the most harmful things we’ve allowed in this country.
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