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Any given good idea is certainly suprabundant: any brain that needs a copy of the idea can have one without depriving any brain that previously had it to lose a copy. This is in drastic contrast to normal economic goods: a car can not be copied into existence, if person A has full ownership of it then person B doesn't.
Copies of music and software are certainly near-superabundant as well since the age of high-fidelity analog duplication/broadcast began then followed by digital followed by duplication. In fact, before the 1960's, if anyone were to assert that anyone else playing his sheet music would have to pay a fee to the composer, people would think he is nuts. Yet, it was from a single court decision in the late 50's early 60's regarding radio broadcast that made it illegal for analog devices then digital computers to play back "sheet music" / recording without paying the record maker. There followed was the whole recording industry, an industry that vastly enriched the promoters and lawyers while impoverished both the fans and all but a select few lucky performing artists who were lucky enough to be selected by the recording industry . . . a stranglehold that was not broken until in the last few years' technological progress making enforcement against practically all music lovers infeasible.
Even the recording industry executives have stopped making the argument that without the fees that the industry collects, people would stop making music. Musicians can make money from performances, just like they did before the "recording industry" came into being in the mid-20th century. In fact, musicians would have strong incentives to sell CD's or distribute recorded music at very low cost, so that fans are enticed into buying concert tickets. Sure, the pay to recording industry suits may not be as secured without copyright laws.
Regarding software, the lawyers there have been actually a little more clueful regarding the flimsiness of the case behind copyright. Most software are not simply covered under copyright, but usually under a specific end-user license agreement.
One thing I should re-emphasize to anyone reading this, none of the argument that I have presented here should be used by anyone to take law into their own hands and violate existing copyright or patent laws. The arguments are regarding the legitimacy and rational basis of the existing laws themselves, just like arguments against drug laws and speeding, they are arguments for abolishing the specific laws, not advocacy for violating them before they are abolished. It's best for one's own physical well being to passively comply with the existing laws (despite intellectual disagreement with them) so long as they are still the laws in the books, especially when your own compliance does not involve harm to other fellow human beings.
The case regarding companies A and B, where A has an innovation that B is able to copy yet A is unable to copy what B is doing "right" (in the eyes of the consumer), there are several arguments against a legal structure that bans B from copying A's innovation:
1. This ban actually is preventing the rise of a superior product, which combines the advantages of both companies, and turning out products that is even more advantageous to the consumers (and by extension the industry overall). This was the rational behind the liberal cross-licensing agreements that the semi-conductor industry had . . . as well as the rational behind why Volvo and Mercedes let their patents on seat belt and crumple zones slide. In today's more nihilistic time, corporate executives are less likely to do that but would insist on the full profit from their so-called "rights"; this could well lead to government "eminent domain" seizure against certain critical "intellectual property" which would weaken the sanctity of property rights in general and affect the rational free market allocation of scarce / economic goods, when such non-scarce and non-economic goods should not have been legislated as "property" to begin with.
2. Not every human effort deserves full return on capital, or even any pay at all. I can plant a tree in the town common, but that does not entitle me to the land or even the tree itself. I can plant a magnolia tree in my own yard, yet that does not mean I can insist on collect a park admission ticket on everyone passing the street where the blooming flowers' molecules reach. Heck, they can even pick up fallen pedals on the curb without paying me. I doubt many would argue that without laws requiring all sniffers to pay up would stop people from planting trees and flowers in their yards.
3. So long as company A has a significant production facility, the "lead time" advantage would be significant because bringing products to market and market survey for consumer response both take time. There is no particular rational reason why company A should enjoy benefit of exclusivity beyond those naturally imposed by the physical world. Any benefit beyond that comes directly at the expense of the consumers. If company B gets wind of the idea and start making its own version before company A's product is even in the market place, then company B is playing the role of betting on different ideas before consumer response just like company A is. Aside from any non-disclosure that employees of company A might have signed, a race to the patent office is hardly more just than a race to see which company can bring the product to consumers more quickly and more efficiently.
posted by 96.233.42...
, Thu, 6 Jan 2011 23:03:23
, Fri, 7 Jan 2011 15:31:58, Fri, 7 Jan 2011 16:23:21, Sun, 9 Jan 2011 03:24:46
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