

A World Without Intellectual Property - steiger
http://mises.org/Community/wikis/economics/a-world-without-intellectual-property.aspx

======
jacksoncarter
Such an esteemed organization should refrain from using false statements to
support its stance: _Movie makers receive most of their revenues from motion-
picture theatres, not DVD sales._

is contradicted by: [http://www.allbusiness.com/north-america/united-states-
calif...](http://www.allbusiness.com/north-america/united-states-california-
metro-areas/525001-1.html) titled: Digital Verite: studios see more money in
DVDs than theaters.

And then the article says:

    
    
      Spend a few dollars, get a dozen good songs in your possession, or
      Spend the next four hours on the Web trying to find those songs performed by some obscure local artists.
    
      The answer is obvious.
    

The answer isn't so obvious. First, you don't get 12 good songs, you get one
good song and 11 lousy ones. And yes, most would rather go home and type in
the lyrics they heard to figure out what the song and artist is, or simply do
without than pay $20 to get one good track.

This is also not exactly correct: _For-profit entrepreneurs are able to take a
piece of shareware, add useful features, and sell copies with tech support._

And again, a hopeful naivety: _Even though you would have the right to call
your product Cheerios, grocery stores may refuse to carry your product._ Does
Mises really think stores care about the consumer? They care about selling
stuff. If consumers buy it because it says Cherrios on it, then they'll sell
it. Why do grocery stores make their generic brands look so much like the name
brands? Because when it has the same color logos and the pills are the same
colors and the words look the same, the store makes more profit selling the
generics.

Overall, poor showing by Mises on this one.

This article makes sense only if you side with the consumer.

In any society, one must ask, who do we want more of? What do we want more of?
Personally, I want more content to consume and I want higher quality content
at that.

So, to get more of that, we have to reward the producers of content. If we
reward the consumers of content, we'll get more consumers. Do we want more
consumers?

More consumers has led to a consumer society in which we are consuming more
than we are producing. The American culture is in decline, because we aren't
producing anything the world wants. We need to reward producers more and
punish consumers so that Americans will produce more and consume less and
rebuild our nation to its previous glory.

And this goes for everyone. We have to reward those who produce OSS _and_
proprietary/commercial software. We need to reward the producers of movies and
music -- not just the distributors -- the bands. The artists. The actors. The
designers. Not just the big studios.

We need to reward the writers. The programmers, the creators. Not just the
factories.

And we definitely don't need to be enabling the consumer to consume even more
and destroy the planet even more.

~~~
kiba
_More consumers has led to a consumer society in which we are consuming more
than we are producing. The American culture is in decline, because we aren't
producing anything the world wants. We need to reward producers more and
punish consumers so that Americans will produce more and consume less and
rebuild our nation to its previous glory. And this goes for everyone. We have
to reward those who produce OSS and proprietary/commercial software. We need
to reward the producers of movies and music -- not just the distributors --
the bands. The artists. The actors. The designers. Not just the big studios.
We need to reward the writers. The programmers, the creators. Not just the
factories. And we definitely don't need to be enabling the consumer to consume
even more and destroy the planet even more._

3 million MP3s to sniff through is more than enough for my lifetime. If
programming services are needed, they will be paid for.

On the other hand, I think the article is trying to show people that it's
possible for people to make a living without intellectual property, abiet with
poor arguments.

~~~
jacksoncarter
The question is, who makes the living and how? Do you want programmers with
brains capable of creating software worth buying to be doing tech support?
It's a waste of time for programmers like that to be doing tech support --
they should be programming!

The truth is that creators in our society do not make money. They sometimes
make salaries. Sales people make money. Distributors make money. But the
creators very often make almost no money.

We need to reward creativity in our nation. We need to reward the people who
are clever enough to think of solutions to problems. The consumers are
_creating_ problems. We need fewer of those -- both consumers and problems.

So I'm not so sure really if it is possible for _creators_ to make money
without intellectual property and I definitely do know that without
intellectual property it's easy for consumers to get content without paying
anything.

~~~
kiba
_The truth is that creators in our society do not make money. They sometimes
make salaries. Sales people make money. Distributors make money. But the
creators very often make almost no money._

Entertainment creators, yes. People who solve actual business problems? No.

 _So I'm not so sure really if it is possible for creators to make money
without intellectual property and I definitely do know that without
intellectual property it's easy for consumers to get content without paying
anything._

Release something in the public domain. Try hard to make money, and report
back if it is a success or not.

I don't even care if it is a failure, but I would like to know more data
points about the viability of the public domain.

In my field, there has been a few downers/failure in open source game
developers trying to make money. One guy eventually succeeded, making 43,000
dollars in the space of a few month. He was already making more money than the
rest of would-be game entrepreneurs.

Now, I am making money writing games for a repeat client. My games are also
BSD licensed. We'll see how this goes for future projects.

------
vog
The whole article seems to be very confused. Especially the section about
software has several flaws that leave the impression that the author doesn't
have a very deep knowledge on that topic. (The other sections sound more
plausible, but I can't judge them because I'm neither an inventor nor a
musician nor ...)

Given that predicting the future is almost impossible even for highly
specialized experts in their area, it is hard to believe that broad
predictions based on sciolism are of any value.

 _> They might engineer the software to work only with permission from the
software firm, requiring the consumer to pay for it._

This is true, but is missing another trend that is more important: Software as
a service. Any company providing a paid web service doesn't need to cripple
their software with copy protection anymore. Instead, they control the
computers on which is software is running.

Missing that option in the article is especially odd because it is the only
business model that could work absolutely unchanged if there was no copyright
(which was the premise of the article).

 _> A third option [...] is the open-source freeware/shareware model_

What's "the" business model of open source, freeware and shareware? The term
"open source" alone comprises lots of different models (dual-licensing,
selling "just" service, etc) which are again different from the freeware model
and the shareware model.

 _> or software written by volunteers/hobbyists and made freely available
without difficult licensing restrictions._

Here, "no difficult licensing restrictions" is presented in contrast with e.g.
"open source" of the enumeration above.

However, it is in fact part of it, for two reasons: First, there is a big
movement within the open source scene that exists to minimize the license
terms (BSD-style licenses, public domain, etc). Second, software without
restrictions fulfills the definition of free software as it obviously permits
all 4 essential freedoms.

 _> For-profit entrepreneurs are able to take a piece of shareware, add useful
features, and sell copies with tech support._

Adding useful features to a shareware is quite hard if you don't have the
sources, and it's almost never worth the trouble of disassembling and reverse
engineering the software.

Withholding the sources is an important component of the shareware model, at
least currently, and that is unlikely to change should the copyright be
disestablished.

------
marknutter
I recently got into a very lengthy argument with a friend of mine about this
very issue. I argued that because sharing content is becoming so easy, the
ability to protect copyrights and patents will disappear, and at some point we
(or the next generation) will decide that it's in the better interest of
society to embrace free sharing of ideas and reject the concept of owning
information.

There's no doubt that a lot of people will lose jobs over it, and current
industries and businesses as we know them will cease to exist, but that
doesn't mean the music will stop. If anything, it will remove the people who
are creating content just for the money and increase the overall quality of
all content, media, and information.

It's going to happen, there's no question about this. It's just amusing to
watch people desperately hold onto the old ways. I imagine this is quite like
the transition into the industrial age was; fascinating to watch and be a part
of.

~~~
Aetius
Not sure I agree. Property rights are maintained through the use of force. I
don't think that will ever change.

~~~
kiba
A historical anecdote from memory:

There was once upon a time, expensive sheetmusics. However, the advent of
technologies has allowed sheet musics to thrive. The incumbent companies
respond with ever more forces, to the point of making the police raid pirates'
distribution center.

However, the police eventually give up and move on to other things. Thus, end
the sheet music wars and expensive sheet musics were never seen again.

------
dimasiks
Not sure about this. To analyze the future of so many industries without IP
law in a few sentences is asking for a bunch of angry comments. Take Movies,
for example: I'm pretty sure I won't be going to movie theaters nearly as
often if I could just stream HD to my gorgeous TV.

Software is also controversial. Google works by _hiding_ their code in the
datacenters, you can't just copy it. Microsoft works by compiling their code
into binaries, and the only workable model for OSS has been support, which
isn't very sexy/scalable business model.

~~~
kiba
To be fair, Mises.org put their content empire under the creative common
attribution, have PDFs for people to download for free, and at some point seek
people with bit torrent expertise. They also managed to sell books at the same
time.

They don't fight technological changes, they embrace it.

Realize that the LvMI didn't just go anti-IP in one day. It takes years of
debate for them to change their mind about stuff. That's important, because
you don't see major libertarian think tanks change their mind everyday. When
they do change their mind, it probably mean that a lot of people change their
mind.

Once you got people who have their mind changed, then they will do stuff like
start business models not based on _IP_. That in turn could mean something
improtant for the broader economy as a whole. It might mean intensified
competition as the anti-IP people starts eating IP supporters' lunch.

------
tzs
From the article:

    
    
        There are many good reasons to completely repeal
        patents and copyright laws:  they are too complex
        to be understood or obeyed by anybody except a highly
        trained Intellectual Property (IP) attorney[...]
    

Some parts of copyright law, that most people won't ever come anywhere near
having to deal with, are complex. The 99.99% that covers what most people do
is pretty easy to understand: if you didn't create that song or movie you just
copied, don't give away the copy, and don't take copies from people who are
not obeying this rule.

    
    
        Musicians could still get paid, even without
        copyright.  They would still be able to sell
        concert tickets, even if they did not make a
        thin dime from CDs and MP3 downloads.
    

What about musicians whose music does not work well in concert? What about
bands like Pink Floyd whose stage shows lost money--they relied on album sales
for their money. What about songwriters?

    
    
        Of course, people would still buy CDs, even
        with unrestricted file sharing networks in place.
        If you hear a CD being played in a store, and you
        like it, what are you going to do:
    
            Spend a few dollars, get a dozen good songs
            in your possession, or
    
            Spend the next four hours on the Web trying
            to find those songs performed by some obscure
            local artists.
    
        The answer is obvious.
    

There are two fatal flaws with that argument.

1\. It's not going to take four hours on the web. Right now, it might take
four hours on the web to find the songs, because we have IP laws so that sites
that want to offer the songs have to operate outside the law. That necessarily
causes there to be some difficulty in finding and using them.

In the proposed IP-free world of the article, that barrier goes away. Finding
the songs on the web will take minutes, not hours.

2\. Yes, some people will still prefer a CD--even if they can find the songs
on the web in minutes, and they will prefer to buy a CD rather than burn their
own from downloads. Even if that is a significant number of people, will those
people buy CDs _from_ _the_ _artist_? In the article's IP-free world, anyone
can make and sell CDs. You'd be able to go down to your local CD store and
find a third party copy of the "official" CD, complete with all the artwork,
liner notes, etc., for cheaper than the official CD.

~~~
Rhapso
We are not talking out a pain free process here. In the proposed system Pink
Floyd would at the very least go into debt, dedicated songwriters would likely
cease in exist in the form we see them today. Change is painful, but in the
long run stagnation will kill us far more surely.

------
SoftwareMaven
There are two factors that I think come into play in any discussion about
dumping IP protections. I don't think treating everything as a trade secret is
really that viable of an option; there are too many ways to reverse engineer
things.

First, what will happen to industries that require significant investments
before any return can be realized? Software does not fit in this category any
more (perhaps it did at one time), but biotech, green, and space certainly do.
If you need to dump $200M to get something _right_ , then somebody else can
come reproduce it for $10M in reverse engineering, your screwed. Who would
invest in that space?

Second, would people _really_ pay for "shareware" content? Would they pay
enough to keep good authors writing books, good film makers making movies, and
good musicians making music? Sure, there are a lot of crappy people in those
categories getting paid today, but there are also a _lot_ of really good
artists getting paid today. If payment was optional (and with no IP
protection, payment _is_ optional), how many people would pay?

The first actually bothers me more than the second. I bet JJ Abrams could get
enough donations before making a film to make it worth his while, so, while
the arts would change, it would probably be OK in the end (after some painful
times for all, including consumers). I'm not so sure that SpaceX could get
enough donations (that is, after all what they might be) to build a space
program.

~~~
kiba
Software might be cheap to produce monetary wise, but they require tons of
developer time to develop.

Beside, 10 million dollars reverse engineering might not produce what you're
looking for. It might require more time to perfect the copy technologies.

------
thefool
The one thing I feel people often forget is that the idea of a patent (i.e. a
government mechanism for providing an incentive for inventors to share
innovations with the rest of the world) is a good one.

I think that the existing implementation of the idea and where it has lead has
numerous problems, but the fact of the matter is that it is beneficial for a
society to have mechanisms like patents in place.

The article argues that things would still be done, which is true, but in the
case of inventions, the problem is that they wouldn't be shared and companies
would probably work hard to obscure any innovations that they did make to make
it harder for competitors to copy them.

The argument for getting rid of trademarks is also kinda weak. The end user
should be able to easily understand what it is they are buying. You shouldn't
have to worry that some sneaky guy is selling cow manure in a box and calling
it cheerios.

Beyond that, the point that removing IP restrictions everywhere else would
only have a positive effect is something that I tend to agree with.

~~~
kiba
_I think that the existing implementation of the idea and where it has lead
has numerous problems, but the fact of the matter is that it is beneficial for
a society to have mechanisms like patents in place._

It has been a problem for centuries. At what point do we stop experimenting
with various schema for patents and realize that is not working?

Theories that work on paper but turn out to be wrong in reality are just bad
theories and should be rejected.

~~~
thefool
It's not just on paper. In my own experience I have gotten a lot of utility
out of researching old patents (I do aluminum anodizing as a hobby and found
detailed descriptions of stripping solutions in patents).

Society needs a system to ensure that innovations are not lost. Abolishing it
is in someways similar to the idea of abolishing scientific publications. If
you do that, how will breakthroughs be communicated to future generations? Or
are you saying that having such a mechanism in place is a bad thing?

Just because a problem is hard and a solution hasn't been found doesn't mean
that the idea motivating it is flawed.

------
_delirium
For a rather more in-depth argument, the Mises Institute also published this
70-page book/essay: [http://mises.org/store/Against-Intellectual-
Property-P523.as...](http://mises.org/store/Against-Intellectual-
Property-P523.aspx) (PDF: <http://mises.org/books/against.pdf>)

------
steveklabnik
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-...](http://www.amazon.com/Against-Intellectual-Monopoly-Michele-
Boldrin/dp/0521879280)

1: <http://www.micheleboldrin.com/research/aim.html>

------
evandijk70
The author conveniently forgets the farmaceutic industry. There, billions need
to be invested to find a drug and thoroughly document it's effects and how to
make it. The production cost of the drug is only a fraction of the research.
This would lead to a very big decrease in the number of new drugs appearing

~~~
henrikschroder
...and the pharmaceutic industry also spends more money on marketing and
advertising than they do on research.

I'm not so sure they would be worse off without IP protection either.

------
Tycho
I just don't understand the gall of people who want to take what isn't theirs
to take. There's plenty of copyright-free work/art they could make do with,
but for some reason they're not content with that.

~~~
famsam
You really have the gall yourself to say that in a world where you can't as
much as sing Happy Birthday to your child without violating copyright.

You would put fish into a tank with barbed or poisoned food and blame them for
dying not sticking to the safe food.

You might have a point if I had a reasonable choice of not sending my children
to a public school which teaches them the poisoned memes, eliminating free
broadcasts of corrupt (aka copyrighted) content, etc. fighting the poison in
other ways, but in America, corporatism is God, so it only works the other
way, doing whatever it takes to hook our children on corrupt themes that will
make money for the corporations even if free alternatives would have done just
as well.

If you are going to spout naiveté, then the opposite extreme sounds more
attractive. If they didn't want it copied, why did they broadcast it in the
first place. If they don't publish it, then no one will "take" it.

But you want to have it both ways, on the one hand use public ideas with just
a twist that you can poison with copyright and use to make money, make it
popular and embed it into everyone's public spaces and minds, and on the other
hand, retain tight control over what these people who have been polluted with
it can do with it, when it has become part of them and their thought
processes.

This is corruption, pure and simple. There should be no place for governmental
policing of thought in America just to satisfy corporate greed.

~~~
Tycho
New fallacy alert: appeal to brainwashing. If I recognise someone has created
something I recognise it as their property and choose to only use it in line
with their permission or not use it at all. If my friend plays a song he just
wrote I don't turn around and sell it to the world or release it P2P against
his wish. Why is it people like you always revert to the brainwashing argument
whenever individual choice becomes a problem for your argument.

------
stretchwithme
We have rights to our work, that is clear. the nature of our existence
requires it.

you must be able to keep others from taking the results of your efforts. If,
for example, you could not improve a piece of property and keep the benefits
for yourself, our modern society or even a primitive agricultural one would
not be possible.

Our work takes many forms and so does the nature of rights associated with it.
But one thing is clear. If people will not do a kind of work we value without
having their rights to the results protected, than it is necessary to do so.

But we should not hand out rights if "we" aren't getting something of real
value in return.

One problem is that "we" the people have far too little say about how our
interests are defined and promoted by the lobbyists who have the most
influence over what government does. The collective right to make such deals
with innovators has been captured by private interests.

~~~
stretchwithme
Also worth pointing out is the fact that length of time one retains a right to
intellectual property influences how many works are created.

Handing out rights for 70 years for literary work probably doesn't get us any
more benefit than limiting them to 25 years. Writers don't really decide
whether to create based on such long term considerations, so why should we
give it away for nothing in return?

On the other hand, if we make the period too short, a lot fewer works would be
created.

~~~
wake_up_sticky
90% of the works created are crap anyway.

