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[G-Flex]

And don't forget the whole "intellectual property" deal. Those really fuck up competition by turning everything into a monopoly.

Um. What? Having a "monopoly" on your own product that you designed is hardly monopolizing at all unless you abuse the system heartily.

[GlyphGryph]

Well, one of the very bases of a free market is dependent on the concept of interchangeable goods. As such, intellectual property and, to an even greater extent, patents, are incredible perversions in the natural functioning of such a system. This doesn't mean they are bad, but they are inherently anti-free market, anti-laissez-faire, and arguable even anti-capitalist.

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[Earthquake Damage]

But without them innovation wouldn't occur.

False.  Less innovation would occur, but some would.  How do you think we reached a point where we even care about intellectual property?  Think of it this way:  Windmills, plows, yokes, and other notable advancements in history happened without intellectual property rights.  I'm pretty sure they weren't command decisions, either (as opposed to market decisions).

Of course, modern research can be damned expensive, so without such rights it'd pretty much fall on governments, NGOs, and wealthy philanthropists to develop new things.  So we'd progress much more slowly.  Slow progress is, however, still progress, not "wouldn't occur".

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[G-Flex]

But without them innovation wouldn't occur.

False.  Less innovation would occur, but some would.  How do you think we reached a point where we even care about intellectual property?  Think of it this way:  Windmills, plows, yokes, and other notable advancements in history happened without intellectual property rights.  I'm pretty sure they weren't command decisions, either (as opposed to market decisions).

It's a good thing patents don't last forever then, right? Copyrights last much, much longer than any sort of patent does.


Also: Intellectual property is not a new concept. It has steadily grown in scope and importance proportionately to the growing availability/feasibility of mass reproduction of the written word. Ever since people have been able to duplicate others' work verbatim and distribute it (or at least very near to that point in time), some form of intellectual property has existed.

[mainiac]

It should be noted that while innovations existed for tens of thousands of years (from the plow to the printing press, it was all done without patents), innovations that had a noticeable economic impact were completely absent from history until the invention of the powered loom.  All prior inventions completely failed to raise the standard of living because any benefits would be offset by a rise in the population.  Prior to the powered loom, humanity always lived at the Malthusian level or at a slightly better level due to local demographics and politics.  The compass might have been great at letting the right have pepper with their salt but it didn't do bugger all for 99.99% of the population.

Starting with the powered loom and with the vast majority of the living standard raising technologies afterwards, some form of entry barrier be it patents or jealously guarded secrets, allowed the owners to earn some sort of benefit for their work even if nothing more then a government salary.  In fact it was rare enough for an inventor of an standard of living raising device to not earn a benefit for their invention that the exceptions to the rule (like the cotton gin) are remembered for being exceptions.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

From what I recall, the original institution of copyright had to do with restricting access to printing presses, not fostering creation. I know this was in an Ars Technica article, but now I can't find it... Patents also had less to do with encouraging innovation than with encouraging openness in innovation, since previously you had secretive engineers, inventors, and guilds jealously guarding their designs and inventions.

It should be noted that while innovations existed for tens of thousands of years (from the plow to the printing press, it was all done without patents), innovations that had a noticeable economic impact were completely absent from history until the invention of the powered loom.  All prior inventions completely failed to raise the standard of living because any benefits would be offset by a rise in the population.  Prior to the powered loom, humanity always lived at the Malthusian level or at a slightly better level due to local demographics and politics.  The compass might have been great at letting the right have pepper with their salt but it didn't do bugger all for 99.99% of the population.

Starting with the powered loom and with the vast majority of the living standard raising technologies afterwards, some form of entry barrier be it patents or jealously guarded secrets, allowed the owners to earn some sort of benefit for their work even if nothing more then a government salary.  In fact it was rare enough for an inventor of an standard of living raising device to not earn a benefit for their invention that the exceptions to the rule (like the cotton gin) are remembered for being exceptions.

What? Believe it or not, Malthus' theories were batshit insane and dead wrong. People do not and have never actually reproduced to the point where meaningful amounts of the population are starving, and as early as ancient Rome you had populations that were fed almost entirely with imported grains carried by ship. Of course, if something fucks up somewhere, and the food doesn't show up, then people start starving, but technology has consistently improved the quality of life by making it more stable and enabling larger populations not devoted to food production. The industrial revolution is possibly the first time where quality of life decreased with advancing technology, even though it was only for a few decades before things stabilized and started going uphill again.

[Leafsnail]

The real problem that can occur with intellectual property rights is the one in which you take out a patent on a very vague, theoretical technological idea, or a copyright on something ridiculously broad.  Patent trolls and the like go in the first category, while things like "Orange suing Easyjet over the use of the colour orange" goes in the second.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

You don't even have to make up absurd examples to have absurd examples: how about Monster Cable suing Monster Energy Drink, Monster.com, and Monster Miniature Golf for using the word "monster"? Or the asshole who owned a dev studio with the word "edge" in it going around suing anything game related that involved the word "edge," over a decade after his company stopped producing anything?

[Karl Marx]

I approve of this thread.

[Leafsnail]

You don't even have to make up absurd examples to have absurd examples: how about Monster Cable suing Monster Energy Drink, Monster.com, and Monster Miniature Golf for using the word "monster"? Or the asshole who owned a dev studio with the word "edge" in it going around suing anything game related that involved the word "edge," over a decade after his company stopped producing anything?

It wasn't made up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4281845.stm

[Virex]

Note that it's a court struggle between Easygroup and orange. Easygroup holds Easyjet but there are many more businesses they're involved in, amongst which also the telecom business. Orange wasn't too keen on Easygroup using orange branding colors for their telecom operations because it looked a lot like Orange's characteristic logo and branding system.

The real problem that can occur with intellectual property rights is the one in which you take out a patent on a very vague, theoretical technological idea, or a copyright on something ridiculously broad.  Patent trolls and the like go in the first category, while things like "Orange suing Easyjet over the use of the colour orange" goes in the second.

Second isn't a patent, that's brand law (and pretty stupid on Orange's side because they're not in the transportation business, nor anything even remotely related so they have next to no chance at winning). Note that you're probably thinking of Stelios vs. Easyjet here, which was primarily about Easyjet not adhering to the contract that forced them to get 75% of revenue from core businesses, which Stelios understood as air traffic, while Easyjet thought that hotels and car rentals should also be marked as core businesses.

[Leafsnail]

I didn't say it was a patent.  It goes under "a copyright on something ridiculously broad".  I am not thinking of Stelios vs Easyjet since I've never heard of that until now.

[Virex]

Wups yeah, added a note about this being between two telecom companies and not a telecom company versus an airliner though.