The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:
When a patent or copyright expires, does society as a whole...
become slightly wealthier - 71%
stay exactly the same - 26%
becomes slightly poorer - 3%
Which must be the correct answer.
Shakespeare's plays are long out of copyright, but they are still their for everybody to enjoy (or not as the case may be). Everybody can manufacture ring-pull cans without having to pay a fraction of a penny license fee to the original inventor/designer for each one, and so on and so forth.
Of course there is a loss to the original owner when his IP rights lapse but that is more than outweighed by the gain to 'everybody else'. Worst case, it's a break even.
Think about it, there are four variables in deciding what protection to grant:
- whether it gets protection in the first place,
- how expensive the registration procedure is,
- how long the protection should last, and
- to the extent a government taxes earned income, there is an argument for taxing such protected income before it taxes anything else.
Have we got the balance right? In some respects, no, but broadly speaking, we're not far off. Governments have to incentivise innovation without stifling competition, and this is a good way of doing it.
If the 3% who voted "slightly poorer" are correct, then that must mean that patents and copyrights should be protected for infinity, which is clearly wrong, or else we'd have it (doesn't apply to trademarks, they are protected in perpetuity).
Now, if we agree that government protection of what is ultimately earned income should only be time limited, why do we think that governments have the right to sell off the freehold of land for one initial payment, often centuries ago, and protect that source of unearned income in perpetuity?
Is there not a mismatch here?
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This week's Fun Online Poll.
Complete and utter chaos (multiple selections allowed).
Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.