“The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them,” Mark Twain said. Paraphrasing his words I can claim that the man who cannot use good ideas has no advantage over the man who simply can’t understand those ideas. So does the copyright protection of intellectual “property” help the engineer, the writers, the artists or the scientists to be more creative when they are severely restricted in using copyrighted, patented or licensed materials?
Yes, but only in theory. Instead, the intellectual “property” rights allows the monopolization of knowledge and makes it easier for companies to blackmail innovators and customers.
The Canadian composer John Oswald once said, “If creativity is the field, copyright is the fence.” In our market-based life, when someone’s ideas run out and new competitors come in with fresher ideas, the old players use the government-enforced monopoly to protect their old ways of doing business. The copyright laws are then brought out of the closet to prevent innovative inventions from competing with the existing, often obsolete ones.
Small companies are frequently unable to compete with big corporations simply because they cannot afford to pay the fees required by the license-holders, and thus cannot even enter the market.
Indeed, the impression one can get from simple observation of the economy today is that the more inefficient certain industry of a country is, the stronger is the demand for monopolistic protection from new entrants. Copyright laws are probably the best gun the monopolists can use against the newcomers.
The case of Microsoft is one of the best known when it comes to hiding knowledge behind the copyright gates. Holding firm for the copyright policy, Microsoft prevented any serious competitor for entering the market and in the same time kept the improvements of its products to the bare minimum. And why should Microsoft spend money for further development when they knew they were the monopolists? Back in the 90s, you either buy software from them or don’t buy software at all.
The situation was that until Linux was introduced on the market. It took years for the creators of the free operational system to construct it. They had to start from a scratch because the knowledge of Microsoft was unreachable. Instead of paying for lawyers (because the source code, or the knowledge, of Linux was distributed for free), companies like Red Hat and Novell spend their money for actual research. Now, even though they sell open-source software those companies are market successes. Novell achieved 1.19 billion $ of revenues for the year 2005 for example .
When dealing with copyright issues one question should receive an answer: how do we define the owners of an idea? Maybe those who manage to fill a patent application first are the owners? But there are a number of companies which only goal is to acquire as much licenses as possible so if one day somebody comes up with invention they can charge him.
PanIP, a San Diego-based intellectual “property” firm, filed more than 50 lawsuits against small e-commerce firms in 2002, claiming that their Web sites are infringing on its patents. The company owned US Patent No. 5,576,951 from 1996 and US Patent No. 6,289,319 from 2001. In a few words, the first patent made the use of multimedia presentations for commercial purposes without the approval of PanIP illegal. The second patent allowed the online credit card transactions only after PanIP got paid for it.
[Read more about the PanIP case here and here]
PanIP, however, neither invented, nor developed these technologies. The company did not contributed in any way to the field, yet they tried to make money abusing the copyright laws. And the question of who owns an idea is still left unanswered.
We know that property is a good thing. Ownership of land, building, vehicles and weapons contributes to our wealth or power. Defenders of the copyright laws often find it convenient to use this analogy and state that ownership applied to ideas is also beneficial for the society. If property is good for land and weapons, does this necessary means that is good for ideas too? The difference between tangible goods and intangible ideas should not be ignored.
“Intellectual “property” does not behave like material property. If I give you a physical object I may no longer have use or control of that thing, and may ask for something in return — some payment or barter. But when I give you an idea, I lose nothing. I can still use that idea as I wish. I need ask nothing in return.
[…]
We say “an idea came to me”. I did not make it happen. What I do is shape the ideas “that come” into forms – usually words and images – that satisfy me, and hopefully communicate something to others. If I am to be paid for my work (which I am not averse to), I should be paid for my time and energy, not some dubious concept of intellectual property.
Thoughts are free. They should remain free, and be given freely.”
Ideas cannot be owned. Ideas are for everybody.
to be continued…
References:
Boldrin and Levine, Against Intellectual Monopolly
(K) All Rites Reversed — Copy What You Like
