Intellectual Property

--Property-- Pro argues that my claim that there is no real difference between "benefits" and "profits" is wrong, but conveniently fails to respond to my argument that some of those "benefits" really are monetary profits. One example I gave was with home prices—if I keep a well-kept house and lawn, the property values of my neighbor's homes goes up. This is a clear monetary profit. If Pro's claim that profiting off of another's labor without their permission is theft were true, then my neighbors would be stealing from me. I mentioned this in round 2, and round 3, and Pro failed to respond during either of those rounds. Pro also argues that my claim that property is determined by use, not usefulness is only my opinion—but so is her claim that property is determined by labor. The difference is that my claim makes sense, while her claim, if logically followed, would mean that my neighbors are stealing from me if I keep a nicely kept lawn (see previous paragraph). Next, Pro claims that income from one's product is a form of use, and people can have property rights in this income. While this sounds right at first glance, it can't be true. If this were the case, then someone who has property rights in a store also has property rights in the future income of that store, and if someone competes with him, lowering his profits, they are stealing from him. Obviously, this is not how capitalism works. Next, Pro completely misstates my position, again. "Ergo, it's absurd to compensate someone simply for the price of the paper and labeling it a fair trade as Con suggests." This, of course, is not at all what I suggest. I agree that an inventor has property rights in the first copy of the idea. I obviously don't mean the price of the original paper that idea is written on. What I said is that the creator has the right to whatever someone will pay for the right to use the idea first. Pro also claims that labor "deserves to be paid to the fullest extent of its value"—and how exactly is that determined? Pro believes that the "full extent" is determined by the amount one would get from having a monopoly over the use of an idea—but doesn't justify this claim. There's no objective reason to believe that the "fullest extent of [an idea's] value" is the payment for a monopoly on that idea rather than the payment for the rights to the first copy of that idea. Next, Pro claims that creators are appropriating ideas in the same way that a farmer building a farm on un-owned land appropriates it. I agree—these things do confer the same rights. Just as the farmer doesn't gain the rights to every farm, the inventor doesn't gain the rights to every copy of his idea. Property Conclusion: Pro's definition of what theft and property are is incoherent. If followed logically, it leads to the conclusion that my neighbors are stealing from me if I keep a well-kept lawn, as I explained in this round, round 3, and round 2. Pro never responded to this point—choosing instead to misstate my position, or only respond to half of my argument. In addition, Pro never justifies monopoly rights on ideas. She shows that creators have the right to profit from their ideas—but not that they have the right to control every potential copy of their ideas. --Economics-- A) I never claimed that the increase in price was a *sufficient* reason to abandon IP. My argument is that this, in addition to the fact that IP fails to increase innovation, is why IP should be abandoned. B) Pro states that, "If one didn't profit from their endeavors, they wouldn't invent anything." Yes, obviously. But I never claimed that IP results in inventors getting *zero* profits, so this doesn't really rebut my argument. I claimed that IP has effects that increase incentives for inventors to innovate, as well as effects that decrease incentives for inventors to innovate. Because the effects go both ways, we must look at empirical evidence to see whether or not IP increases innovation. C) Yes, the current pharmaceutical industry relies on patents—of course they do! Current pharmaceutical companies exist in a world with patents, so obviously they use them. As I explained earlier, past pharmaceutical industries thrived without patent protection. D) The reported costs of developing new drugs are largely exaggerated, and would be lower without IP law. Without patents, firms could draw on the research of other companies, which would reduce development costs. In addition, about 75% of current R&D spending is on copycats of existing drugs. [1] How many different drugs have you seen that help you get an erection? Why do different companies waste their time and resources making a bunch of different drugs that do the exact same thing? It's because of IP laws. Pharm companies can get a lot of money developing a new erectile dysfunction drug as long as it's somewhat different, chemically, than the current drugs on the market. If there were no IP laws, companies wouldn't waste their money on this nonsense. They wouldn't need their version to be slightly different from their competitors--they could just use the same formula. Since 75% of R&D is spent on this, not having this copy-cat "research" would free up a lot of money that could be used to create new, useful drugs. E) This is actually a point in my favor. The lack of patents in Brazil is not because of lack of patents there, but because of patents in the West. If patents were abolished, as I suggest, pharmaceutical companies wouldn't be less likely to sell their product in Brazil than they are to sell it anywhere else. The current system does sometimes hurt people that live in countries without patent protection, but I am not defending the current system. F) Germany was a long time ago, so it isn't as relevant, but Switzerland and Italy were more recent examples. They had thriving pharmaceutical industries when they introduced pharmaceutical patents in 1978 and 1979, respectively. As I explained earlier, if patents really did promote innovation, pharmaceutical innovation would have increased following the introduction of patents in those countries—but it didn't. As for Pro's study, I agree that many of the drugs today wouldn't be produced without patents. But there are also drugs that aren't produced *because* of patents, which is why overall innovation didn't increase after the introduction of patents in the examples mentioned earlier. For an example of this, Peter Ringrose, the chief scientific officer of Bristol-Myers Squibb told the New York Times that, "There were more than 50 proteins possibly involved in cancer that the company was not working on because the patent holders either would not allow it or were demanding unreasonable royalties." [2] There are countless examples of this sort of behavior—all hurting medical innovation. As for Pro's claim that "the institution of pharmaceutical patents does not necessarily lead to price increases": this couldn't possibly be true. The entire *point* of patents is to increase prices—if they didn't, the patentee wouldn't get more money for their production, and wouldn't bother patenting anything. G) This, like E, does not demonstrate the costs of not having patents; it merely demonstrates the cost of a country not having patents while other countries do have them. Obviously, businesses will prefer countries where they enjoy monopoly protection over ones where they don't—but they wouldn't have that choice if IP were abolished. Finally, I'd like to thank theLwerd for a great debate—I had a lot of fun, and hope she did too. [1] Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, Against Intellectual Monopoly (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 226. [2] Pollack, A. (2001), "Bristol-Myers and Athersys Make Deal on Gene Patents," New York Times, January 8.