One of the things I like about economics is 'revealed preferences' - how people act rather than what they say.
Via 'look inside this book' on Amazon, the book's copyright is Copyright 2003, "all rights reserved". Apparently they didn't feel strongly enough about laxer IP to fight their publisher for publishing it under different terms.
I don't think the current situation is ideal, but without IP, how would people be compensated for creating?
One answer is to say "they wouldn't!". From there, you have to ask: would they still create? Probably, yes, but in a much more limited way. You couldn't create a lot of things that require a big payback without some form of IP. This is presumably why they "surmise" that we're better off with it than without it.
It seems fairly logical to me that without IP, you'd have fewer "IP goods", although having actual numbers to plug in, somehow, would doubtless improve the discussion a great deal.
That it's difficult is without a doubt; in part because it becomes a question of what the ideal level of production of various "IP goods" is.
I would reaffirm my point that the simplistic answer of throwing the whole thing out, though, risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Via 'look inside this book' on Amazon, the book's copyright is Copyright 2003, "all rights reserved". Apparently they didn't feel strongly enough about laxer IP to fight their publisher for publishing it under different terms.
http://www.amazon.com/Economic-Structure-Intellectual-Proper...
I don't think the current situation is ideal, but without IP, how would people be compensated for creating?
One answer is to say "they wouldn't!". From there, you have to ask: would they still create? Probably, yes, but in a much more limited way. You couldn't create a lot of things that require a big payback without some form of IP. This is presumably why they "surmise" that we're better off with it than without it.
It seems fairly logical to me that without IP, you'd have fewer "IP goods", although having actual numbers to plug in, somehow, would doubtless improve the discussion a great deal.
That it's difficult is without a doubt; in part because it becomes a question of what the ideal level of production of various "IP goods" is.
I would reaffirm my point that the simplistic answer of throwing the whole thing out, though, risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater.