RE: CNI-COPYRIGHT digest 1282

The Eldred decision crystalized quite a bit of comment about "big picture" copyright-related issues. I predict that it will be very hard to keep focused here on narrow issues of law, and that we'll be driven to discuss larger political issues. That's consistent with our charge of discussing "Issues related to copyright, intellectual property rights, and public access to information in the digital age."

For example, Ivan Hoffman writes:

>I completely support the decision. Intellectual property is today's
>means of production and the source of wealth in the world today.
>You just have to look at the top 10 richest people in the world to
>see that. A hundred years ago, the source of wealth might have been
>steel mills etc. Later, the source of wealth might have been real
>estate and the like. Today, the source of wealth is IP. Ownership
>of IP rights is essential if your goal is to be successful and
>wealthy. That is the reason I constantly stress the need to "own
>everything."

One response is a straightforward political one -- that this is essentially the same argument that was used to justify the U.S. robber barons of a century ago but that drove the creation of laws busting trusts. At a first level of analysis, one would predict that those who support Ivan's position would also support minimalist government regulation of other monopolies, while those who support limitations on copyright would also support other forms of antimonopolistic legislation. One would predict that the little guys (the Red Hats, for instance) would favor weak IP while big existing corporations with large IP portfolios (defined by what one happens to be able to protect with current IP laws) would favor strong IP.

The economic analysis, though, is slightly different in the two cases. In the analysis of trusts, the usual concern was that monopolies shackled Smith's hidden hand of competition and created artificially high prices. In the analysis of intellectual property, the economic argument is that strong IP policies prevent new players from innovating (since to do so they must create derivative works or build on the shoulders of other giants). A fortiori, one should be concerned that strong IP policies may limit technological innovation. It seems to be no accident that much of the concern with strong IP policies comes from research universities, the traditional center of scientific innovation in the U.S.

JQ Johnson                    	Office: 115F Knight Library
Academic Education Coordinator	e-mail: jqj[_at_]darkwing.uoregon.edu
1299 University of Oregon     	1-541-346-1746 (v); -3485 (fax)
Eugene, OR  97403-1299        	http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj