Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property vs. Real Property: My opponent is correct in saying that brilliant ideas are not in infinite supply. However, that does not mean that they are economically scarce. As I said before, I can use someone else's idea without taking it from them. It makes no difference that effort goes into the idea; it is still not a scarce resource. As for copyright infringement being theft: No, it isn't. If I steal your TV, you no longer have a TV. If I download a song off the internet, no one loses anything. My opponent states copyright infringement is "gaining something for free that you really should be paying for." Well, that's your personal opinion, not an argument. You're free to compensate artists as much as you want. I just ask that you refrain from forcing me to. Furthermore, I never said that ideas shouldn't be compensated. In fact, I explained in my final point how they would, and have in the past, been compensated without intellectual monopoly. "My opponents final (and chunkiest) point can be summorised as follows: IP laws should be abolished because then the brilliant people out there would have more time to come up with more brilliant ideas instead of wasting time in court." That is only part of my point. The rest includes the fact that IP laws discourage creativity and innovation (see previous post for elaboration on this). As for your point about Shakespeare and Christopher Paolini, the part about Shakespeare not being sued was only a small part of my point. He also produced the greatest literature in the English language without needing the incentive of an intellectual monopoly to do it. Do you think Christopher Paolini would have simply refused to write books and done something else instead if he didn't get quite as much compensation? I don't know how many books he's sold, but let's look at J.K. Rowling's books. Without intellectual monopoly, she could have been compensated for selling a publisher the rights to publish her book first. (See my previous section about books, particularly the 9-11 Commission Report) She wouldn't have become a billionaire, but it's estimated that given the popularity of her books and how many were sold immediately following their release, she would have gotten millions of dollars per book. [1] Another example of this is British writers during the 19th century. Their books were copyrighted in Britain, but not in the U.S. They still were able to make more money in the American market than in the British market by selling American publishers the right to sell their book first. [2] Reform vs. Abolish: You say that people should lose the rights to their inventions once someone improves upon them. How do you define improvement? Anyone could take any invention and change it slightly, and claim it was improved. If that were allowed, then this reform would have the same effect as completely abolishing patent laws. If significant improvements were required, then, while it would be better than current laws, legal battles would still hinder innovation as inventors fought over what counted as a significant improvement. Sources: [1] Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, Against Intellectual Monopoly (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 25. [2] Plant, A. (1934), "The Economic Aspect of Copyright in Books," Economica 1, n.s., 172.