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IPR critics take broad swipes at copyright and patent policies. Two prominent arguments posit that 1) investments into creative productions and inventions can be appropriated by leveraging them as "advertising" for other products, such as t-shirts, 2) peer-production under alternative incentives is sufficient for innovation and continued economic growth. These arguments are fundamentally flawed, and will have drastic implications if set into regulatory policy.
A resource with which to analyze arguments against IPRs is Innovation and its Discontents, Princeton Univ Press (2004), where Professors Jaffe-Lerner outlined the basic tenets for patents. The scholars noted the relationship between innovation costs and marketing, as well as the role of commercialization. Its significant that in a book critiquing the current patent system, Jaffe-Lerner highlighted baselines for IPRs that critics have overlooked. If there were no incentives for those who discover and develop new technology, it is likely that fewer innovations would be developed, slowing progress and the benefits it brings. Potential inventors realize that without adequate protection rivals will rapidly copy their discoveries, and that therefore innovation is at best an uncertain route to future profits. As a result, companies would be unlikely to spend significant amounts of money on R&D that is the source of new products and processes in a modern economy. They would instead choose to spend their money pursuing other activities- for example, marketing campaigns...
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…our capitalist free-enterprise systems has demonstrated a unique ability to generate new technology: industrialized economies have increased their economic productivity more in the last two centuries than in all the millennia of previous human history. The basis for this advance is firms’ pursuit of profit, which forces them to innovate. Society benefits from creators and innovators investing in more than selling t-shirts. Society needs innovation in IT, not ways of marketing t-shirts! Basic research-product development are high risk ventures, advertising for t-shirts is not. It’s a bit ironic that IPR critics would not have creators leverage the phenomenon known as the Internet for anything more than advertising. The difference in margins between delivering products/services online versus selling t-shirts alone suggest that enabling creators to tap the Internet would lend to more innovation and consumer welfare.
The second argument of IPR critics addressed by Jaffe-Lerner is equally problematic. FOSS, the holy grail of the peer-production movement, exemplifies why commercialization and profit motive remain important to society. The informal peer-production of FOSS has had limited success, and is only improving as it formalizes and receives commercial backing. Peer-production supporters may posit that IP holders are stifling innovation, but the argument is confused. Stifled innovation would resemble the FOSS movement but the FOSS movement is not the result of it.
While IPR critics may be passionate about their views, they would little serve innovation nor other important societal interests.
posted by Noel Le @ 3:21 PM | Academia, DMCA, DRM & Watermarks, etc., Free Culture Movement, Patents
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