The bizarre logic of IP
The murky truth of things is something that, as a species, we appear to be fundamentally irritated about. So much so, that we categorically deny that any such condition exists, and devise our arguments on any given topic with a focus almost exclusively on the black or the white of it, with no recognition for reality.
IP is certainly one of those things, most probably because even more so than the rest of reality it is a very human invention, from the concept of property itself right through to what precisely constitutes and idea, and when an idea is an invention rather than a discovery.
Iain M Banks, author of the awesome Culture sci-fi series, posits as part of his advanced civilisation the use of a language specifically designed to imbue certain attributes in the speaker, a function (presumably) of its precision and balance. IP would certainly be an area where us earthlings would benefit from such a design.
It is clear, that we don't understand what we generally mean by any of the following words:
The problem, in its most essential form, appears to be that we feel unhappy when someone does something we disagree with. Normally, this isn't a big problem, because there's not a lot we can do about it other than complain and/or try and do something to resolve the problem.
However, we feel doubly unhappy when this thing we disagree with is somehow a consequence of something we ourselves did. This is almost a definition of ownership, the sense of personal responsibility relating to something which causes us to be doubly unhappy when it goes "wrong".
This became the idea of "property", here is something that, because of some kind of effort or trade, is now related to me and I want a say in what happens with it, so that I can avoid feeling doubly unhappy about something.
When this is related to physical goods, it is mostly tolerable, although there is a constant rough edge between what triggers the doubly-unhappy feeling and what people believe they should be able to do merely by existing (bush walks, beach access, tagging, homeless people, door-to-door godbotherers, new high-rises that block views..)
When it comes to non-physical goods, the whole thing just turns into a big spongy mess. The real source of the mess comes from a need to justify blocking the doubly-unhappy feeling. We can't justify it just by saying we'd feel pissed off, that's never been enough to justify any of the things we've done solely for that reason, so instead we commandeered the idea of "innovation" and made it a sacred cow.
The justification goes something like this:
If anyone could copy any idea I came up with, and do with it what they will, then I would have no motivation to invest good time and money in coming up with new ideas
There's this sense of barely constrained terror at the thought that anyone could just run off and do whatever they liked with ideas, as if it would lead to the collapse of civilisation as we know it, because there's no other motivation for investment in R+D.
Ok, lets be fair, the more reasoned arguments suggest that much of the R+D would continue, it's the large investments that they're worried about.
But referring to the black and white point above, this is a beautiful example. The idea that people would stop coming up with new stuff just because there isn't a monetary incentive is already clearly bunk, people do all kinds of things, including coming up with ideas, and sometimes they even pay money to do it - because it's fun.
Investment, too, would hardly be going out the window. In the end, people will buy the stuff thats marketted to them the best. There are still companies out there selling bread, and doing perfectly fine at it, despite a complete lack of original bread developments.
Yes, things would need to happen slightly differently, but in the end I have the sense that it would actually be for the better. At the moment, we have conflated two roles, that of the idea creator, and that of the producer. People often come up with an idea, then try and "earn back" research that they have done by selling the resulting product at significantly over its production cost.
As a consequence, they are rarely efficient at either research, or production. With a monopoly on the product there is no motivation to become an efficient producer, and with a long time and an easy market available there is no motivation to be efficient at research. All you need is one half decent idea and half assed implementation and you're set until someone works around your "IP".
I'm not saying all "IP" is bad. Trademarks make sense in a limited sense, they protect communication with the purchasers, as do advertising laws and consumer safety etc. However copyright is pretty much unnecessary except where it is taking on protection of communication roles, and patents are a bad idea across the board.
I belief the constantly alluded to idea that an engineer working out of his home garage could come up with something, then patent it to avoid being "ripped off" by a big company is complete fiction, big companies have lots of lawyers and huge portfolios of patents in order to win wars like that, the little engineer has nothing to look forward to but a big legal sink in his savings to play that kind of game. Much better to team up with a producer using standard contract law to protect the information.
In essence, I feel that the whole thing needs a more flexible approach, one less tied to protecting "property" and more focused on providing an economy that actually has efficiency as a motivator. I don't mean to suggest efficiency should be the sole goal of the thing, but at least give it a look in.
IP is certainly one of those things, most probably because even more so than the rest of reality it is a very human invention, from the concept of property itself right through to what precisely constitutes and idea, and when an idea is an invention rather than a discovery.
Iain M Banks, author of the awesome Culture sci-fi series, posits as part of his advanced civilisation the use of a language specifically designed to imbue certain attributes in the speaker, a function (presumably) of its precision and balance. IP would certainly be an area where us earthlings would benefit from such a design.
It is clear, that we don't understand what we generally mean by any of the following words:
- Intellectual
- Property
- Invention
- Discovery
- Rights
- Theft
- Copying
- Sharing
- Ownership
The problem, in its most essential form, appears to be that we feel unhappy when someone does something we disagree with. Normally, this isn't a big problem, because there's not a lot we can do about it other than complain and/or try and do something to resolve the problem.
However, we feel doubly unhappy when this thing we disagree with is somehow a consequence of something we ourselves did. This is almost a definition of ownership, the sense of personal responsibility relating to something which causes us to be doubly unhappy when it goes "wrong".
This became the idea of "property", here is something that, because of some kind of effort or trade, is now related to me and I want a say in what happens with it, so that I can avoid feeling doubly unhappy about something.
When this is related to physical goods, it is mostly tolerable, although there is a constant rough edge between what triggers the doubly-unhappy feeling and what people believe they should be able to do merely by existing (bush walks, beach access, tagging, homeless people, door-to-door godbotherers, new high-rises that block views..)
When it comes to non-physical goods, the whole thing just turns into a big spongy mess. The real source of the mess comes from a need to justify blocking the doubly-unhappy feeling. We can't justify it just by saying we'd feel pissed off, that's never been enough to justify any of the things we've done solely for that reason, so instead we commandeered the idea of "innovation" and made it a sacred cow.
The justification goes something like this:
If anyone could copy any idea I came up with, and do with it what they will, then I would have no motivation to invest good time and money in coming up with new ideas
There's this sense of barely constrained terror at the thought that anyone could just run off and do whatever they liked with ideas, as if it would lead to the collapse of civilisation as we know it, because there's no other motivation for investment in R+D.
Ok, lets be fair, the more reasoned arguments suggest that much of the R+D would continue, it's the large investments that they're worried about.
But referring to the black and white point above, this is a beautiful example. The idea that people would stop coming up with new stuff just because there isn't a monetary incentive is already clearly bunk, people do all kinds of things, including coming up with ideas, and sometimes they even pay money to do it - because it's fun.
Investment, too, would hardly be going out the window. In the end, people will buy the stuff thats marketted to them the best. There are still companies out there selling bread, and doing perfectly fine at it, despite a complete lack of original bread developments.
Yes, things would need to happen slightly differently, but in the end I have the sense that it would actually be for the better. At the moment, we have conflated two roles, that of the idea creator, and that of the producer. People often come up with an idea, then try and "earn back" research that they have done by selling the resulting product at significantly over its production cost.
As a consequence, they are rarely efficient at either research, or production. With a monopoly on the product there is no motivation to become an efficient producer, and with a long time and an easy market available there is no motivation to be efficient at research. All you need is one half decent idea and half assed implementation and you're set until someone works around your "IP".
I'm not saying all "IP" is bad. Trademarks make sense in a limited sense, they protect communication with the purchasers, as do advertising laws and consumer safety etc. However copyright is pretty much unnecessary except where it is taking on protection of communication roles, and patents are a bad idea across the board.
I belief the constantly alluded to idea that an engineer working out of his home garage could come up with something, then patent it to avoid being "ripped off" by a big company is complete fiction, big companies have lots of lawyers and huge portfolios of patents in order to win wars like that, the little engineer has nothing to look forward to but a big legal sink in his savings to play that kind of game. Much better to team up with a producer using standard contract law to protect the information.
In essence, I feel that the whole thing needs a more flexible approach, one less tied to protecting "property" and more focused on providing an economy that actually has efficiency as a motivator. I don't mean to suggest efficiency should be the sole goal of the thing, but at least give it a look in.
posted by PhiRatE at
10:32 PM
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