David K. Levine

Worth mentioning that the evidence says that patents don't have an effect on new drug creation/inventions. Evidence is collected here http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm, pretty neat to know that Italy/Switzerland had a patentless pharma industry until quite recently. Having said that, I think you're right that under this system, research/capital definitely gets directed in a different way.

Great link. Another classic on patents as rent-seeking: http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm > intellectual property is not like ordinary property at all, but constitutes a government grant of a costly and dangerous private monopoly over ideas. We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is not necessary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty.

Patents are an evil that has only ever retarded economic progress, and made the vanishingly few fantastically wealthy at the expense of the majority. Copyright - aside from the ability to say “I made this”, and the ability to prevent others from doing so - is almost as reprehensible. http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm

One of the best discussions I ever heard was from Stephan Kinsella when he discussed the patent system as a system of negative servitudes or negative easements (https://www.stephankinsella.com/paf-podcast/kol365-guest-lecture-on-ip… Essentially IP is similar to joining an HOA, which might give you negative rights in your property such as the inability to use it as a dump, the inability to paint it bright pink, etc. but with IP your potential competitors are petitioning the USPTO to create negative rights in property you already own. In general, for anyone with a general interest in the anti-IP position, the following resources are good: * C4SIF - Center for the study of innovative freedom - c4sif.org * The Case Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine - http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm

There are free-rider problems everywhere. From a "rights" perspective, the fact that you can see a free-rider problem and have an idea for some kind of law that you think would improve incentives doesn't justify using legal force to impose these changes on everyone else. But I'm not sure how many people there are these days for whom a "rights" argument carries weight. For a more empirical approach, I think it's worth looking at "Against Intellectual Monopoly" [1], from 2008. "Chapter 8: Does Intellectual Monopoly Increase Innovation?" [2] may be of particular interest. [1] http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm [2] http://www.dklevine.com/papers/imbookfinal08.pdf

If this article is persuasive, I recommend looking at the following: http://dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm

> IExplorer 5 was the best browser available That's web 1.0 > but no, it's not monopolies that create the opportunity for disruption, but the exact opposite of a monopoly, which is competition, often made possible by advances in technology. monopolies innovate less, thus making them prone for disruption. "We develop a new theory of why a monopolistic industry innovates less than a competitive industry" http://www.dklevine.com/papers/monopoly_innovation.pdf

There are large collections of drawbacks; books have been written about it. The two I can remember the name of are “Against Intellectual Monopoly” (http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm) and “The Case for Copyright Reform” (http://www.copyrightreform.eu/). I would rather not argue specifics, but instead get you and people in general to understand what the argument is, and to get people to honestly investigate whether the cost is worth the drawbacks. I called your reply “theoretical” because it talked about principles, not about what society would gain or lose with any available options, without which no cost-benefit analysis can be made. Are you wedded to the idea that the principle should outweigh all downsides in this case? How much would you be willing for this principle to cost society?

He's not got a monopoly on all pictures like that but he has a monopoly right on that particular image he took, lasting for 70 years beyond the date of his death, or else he wouldn't be able to send out DMCA takedowns for it and otherwise control the manner in which it is duplicated and used. (I just googled to check the length and found this heartbreaking message on one of those cheesy Q&A sites: My grandmother has a senior picture of my mom from 1969 and I wanted a copy of it. Is the copyright for that picture up? If not is there a way for me to get a copy of it?) And that is the book, though note it's a slightly out of date version. The final version is here: http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm It's not a great work by any means, but it's a good overview of the craziness of copyrights and patents when viewed from the perpective of economics.

Using Jarnal[0] on OS X with a Bamboo tablet[1] is a great way to store your thoughts while thinking about a problem. [0]: http://www.dklevine.com/general/software/tc1000/jarnal.htm [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Wacom-Bamboo-Create-Tablet-CTH670/dp/B005HGBF9W/…

Am I the only one that thought this post would have been about Economic Game Theory? - http://www.dklevine.com/general/whatis.htm Very nice read though. Day9 is right. The best players all seem to have a knack for maintaining a marginal advantage or taking a small one and getting a bigger advantage.

Recently, I came across one of the best things I've ever read on the whole IP topic: Against Intellectual Monopoly: http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm Don't be fooled by the shitty site, these are Cambridge professors, they just also put the book online. It shows lots of amazing examples throughout history where the concept of IP actually hurt business, not helped. One good example: Dickens was heavily copied and sold here in America, because British copyrights didn't apply here. In the UK, his books sold for $6 each; in America, they sold for $0.06 (or so). He made more money here.

It’s very good to see someone as influential as Sam talking about this. The idea that automation can be used (intentionally!) to lower the cost of living to zero has been a key component of my personal writing and work for some years now. [1] There is a lot that I agree with here and some things I disagree with. For example capitalism can encourage value creation but it can also encourage rent seeking. Since I have been focused on the idea of lowering the cost of living I’ve come to see rent seeking as a direct antagonist to that goal. Taking something that could be distributed for free and adding a cost to it makes it much harder to bring the cost of life to near zero. The most common way this is done is with intellectual property, and I’ve found several helpful critiques of IP restrictions [2][3][4] that have led me to believe we’d be better off phasing them out and intentionally collaborating with one another. But my biggest disagreement with Altman here is about the means of producing equity in society. I think the proposed tax and UBI would be good. But I don’t think it is the best solution. The elephant in the room here is that Socialists have been working very hard for two centuries to try to understand how to organize an industrial society in such a way as to provide a decent and fair life to all. We’ve completely vilified the notion of socialism in USA to the point that we never even learn about it. Richard Wolff talks about getting an Ivy League economics…

I think "overlearning" is not a good term (edit: it is quite accurate, though), because it tend to suggest the worst solution of all: that we refrain from learning. I prefer "lost purposes"[1]. The primary purpose of a game is generally to Have Fun. This purpose is lost if you have "solved" the game. The stated purpose of patents is to foster innovation. However it doesn't work[2]. The purpose of schools is learning. However its methods are flawed [3,4]. And so on. The trick is to know your goals, and then find out means to best achieve them. The author said: > But, in real life, we need to keep "playing the game": we need to have elections, and protections for inventors, and laws that govern society, and a market where companies can raise money. But the actual goals are different: We don't need election, we need a working democratic system (which may, or may not, mandate elections). We don't need protections for inventors, we need innovations. We don't need laws, we need a fair and working society. We don't need a market where companies can raise money, we need a working economy. Well, I could attempt recurse further up until pure morality, but that would be intractable. But at least you get the idea. If something looks broken, think about its ultimate purpose before you try to fix it. [1]: http://lesswrong.com/lw/le/lost_purposes/ [2]: http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm [3]: http://vimeo.com/5513063 (Dr Tae) [4]:…

I recently asked a patent lawyer acquaintance of mine the question: "Do you think patents encourage innovation?" His answer was: "There's absolutely no question at all whatsoever." Which I was certainly a bit suprised by. Maybe the truest conclusion I can come to is that, well, because he's a patent lawyer and his livelihood is based on that being true, he has every incentive to believe it. I think it's worth pointing out that Nilay Patel is a laywer. [EDIT: non-practicing lawyer, never a patent lawyer] It's clear to me when I read his writing on the subject as well as when I hear him talk about it on the podcast that he's so far from my own thinking on this as to be almost incomprehensible. I've slowly been reading this: http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm But it seems to be light on data. Seems to me that theoretical arguments are well established and fairly strong on both sides at this point. Does anyone know of any empirical studies that have been done on the subject? Is that even possible? Any strong natural experiments?

Who is Ayn Rand? An utterly dreadful writer and philosopher who believed that the axiom of reflexivity of identity had substantive ontological, social, moral and political consequences. It's no accident that Objectivists sought to justify their belief in the "virtue of selfishness" in the law of reflexivity; they have no use for altruism. Rand's philosophy glorifies the sociopath homo economicus, whose sole objective in life is to maximize his expected utility. However, results in evolutionary game theory show that a society of self-seeking, self-regarding agents will generally face conditions that ultimately lead to its collapse. Gary Cooper's goofy speech in The Fountainhead ( see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc7oZ9yWqO4 ) typifies Rand's attitudes. Among other preposterous propositions, Cooper is made to utter the nonsense that great inventions are uniformly the work of sole inventors, selfishly and reflexively seeking their own interests. This is ahistorical; see Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine ( http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm ) for the history of inventions such as the steam engine, radio, telephone, and so on. In each case, ideas were in the air, and there were a number of people who came up with similar inventions more or less at the same time. Cooper argues the basic notions of intellectual monopoly, which are that intellectual property is essentially indistinguishable from tangible property, and…

At first I thought you were linking to "Against Intellectual Monopoly" by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine: http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm

Funny to read such a comment while the US government is busy trying to keep a 5-10 years advantage in microchip manufacturing over China, and so far they may have succeeded simply by blocking one machine manufacturer (ASML). A company like NVIDIA makes money by being 1-2 years ahead of the competition. Even if patents and copyright didn't exist at all, NVIDIA would push an innovative new chip to the market and the competition would take years to replicate it. NVIDIA wouldn't lose anything of significance. This is very common across all industries and indeed there's zero evidence that intellectual property has any effect on encouraging innovation. See "Against intellectual monopoly". http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm

> Why would active management have failed to find and exploit these mispricings before? It should also be noted that idea of taking advantage of mispricings is not new. From 1980: * http://www.dklevine.com/archive/refs41908.pdf * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grossman-Stiglitz_Paradox

https://questioncopyright.org/ http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm

From my understanding, it's wildly considered that patents slowed steam engine innovation significantly. http://www.dklevine.com/papers/ip.ch.1.m1004.pdf

Patents have stalled technology in many areas since a long time. The book "Against Intellectual Monopoly" [1] by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine analyze the economical impact of patterns on society. They give some surprising examples, like how the Wright brothers invested heavily in patents and legal actions to stiffle competition instead of continuing development of airplanes. [1] http://dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm

Historically, from steam engines to 3D printing, innovation has been stifled by patents. The book "Against Intellectual Monopoly" [0] from Boldrin and Levine (two economists, Levine website has more work by other economists) gives an historical perspective on IP and offers answers to common (and less common) rebuttals ("Why would anyone invest in research if another company can just copy their work?"). [0] http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm

I firmly disagree with pretty much everything you have said. There is no evidence that intellectual property in any way increases production of works, and indeed there is plenty of evidence that inhibits it. See http://dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm for a comprehensive look at the subject. While I dont agree with their conclusions, the data they show is solid.

Does the book "Against Intellectual Monopoly" not have any such examples? http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm

This says we can't use game theory to analyze this situation, but the only argument given in support is that humans aren't rational. "Irrational" (or otherwise emotional) strategies are by no means outside of the analysis of game theory. It's well known that by "irrationally" eliminating one of your choices, you can push your opponent into different options. For example, take this infamous episode of split or steal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0qjK3TWZE8 One side makes a choice to go with perhaps the most "irrational" choice. But if you think about it for a bit, it's obvious that they end up guaranteeing the better choice for both parties by being less greedy than they might be. Anyone interested in the topic of rationality as it pertains to game theory might also like reading this: http://www.dklevine.com/archive/refs4375.pdf

Intellectual property is not necessary for innovation and likely hinders progress. http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm

There are a lot of baseless assertions there. You have no evidence on your side at all. On the other hand, there's lots of evidence that patents fundamentally retard progress. See http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm

> as with pharmaceutical research It's also not really the case for pharmaceutical research: http://www.dklevine.com/papers/imbookfinal09.pdf (Whole book: http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm)

While those terms are interchangeable, I don't think they are equivalent. The OP doesn't have a monopoly over the Houston skyline, and anyone is welcome to set up a camera in the same spot and take an identical photo and use it for their website. Is this the link to the book mentioned? http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm