Against Intellectual Monopoly

msstate.edu/i[Wrights/WrightUSPatent/WrightPatent.html (accessed February 24,
2008). The story of Glenn Curtiss and the Wright brothers is from Shulman (2003).
The evidence suggests that Curtiss not only contributed far more to airplane design
than did the Wright brothers but also was far less inclined to use patents as a tool
against competitors.
    37. The story of Levinstein and Badische Chemical, together with the demise of the
British coloring industry, is discussed by Penrose (1951), p. 106, and Gardner (1981),
Chapter 28. See also http://www.colorantshistory.org/BritishDyestuffs.html.
    38. Information about the Diamond lawsuit can be found at http://www.wired.com/
news/business/0, 1367,16586,00.html (accessed February 24, 2008).
    39. For information about Napster, go to http://www.grammy.aol.com/features/0130-
naptimeline.htmI (accessed October 31, 2006).
    40. The figure of 40 million current users is from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/
webguide/internetlife/2002-10-14-p2p-swapping-x.htm (accessed February 24,
2008).
    41. If a search on Google Book Search does not bring you the information on Dilbert
you crave, try visiting Dilbert's Web site, at http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/
dilbert/ (accessed February 24, 2008).
    42. The story of the Google Print project, its unfortunate transformation into the Google
Book Search project, and the legal battles we mention are easily traceable at - well,
Google Search, what else?
    43. When we started writing this book, arguing that patents and copyright are bad
for our economic system was thought to be a radical-fringe position. No longer. Mainstream media, from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal, from Fortune to Business Week, are reporting regularly about the evident damages the patent
epidemic is causing our free market economy. The irresistible, and more relevant
than ever, quote from Jefferson we found in a Business Week article (dated January
9, 2006) on yet another case of submarine patent affecting the car industry, the title
of which was, in fact, "The Patent Epidemic."

    44. In case our short list of insane patents amused you, and you need more of them for
your weekend barbecue with friends, Jaffe and Lerner (2005) is a good source.
    45. http://www.worlds.net/news/PressReleases/prn054.html (accessed April 30, 2006).
    46. See http://freeculture.org/cereal/ (accessed February 24, 2008).
    47. See http://velonews.com/news/fea/7550.0.html (accessed February 24, 2008).

     

FIVE
The Devil in Disney
    Patents threaten our economic prosperity, we have argued, because of the
many evils of monopoly and especially because of the evil we call IPinefficiency. Copyright seems less threatening. Enriching without reason a
few actors, singers, or book writers is not as bad as letting millions of people
die because some monopolist is not producing enough anti-AIDS pills. The
copyright industry itself is economically insignificant. The entire motion
picture and recording industry has fewer employees than the IBM Corporation. If we consider all employment in copyright-connected industries,
we find that industries such as fabricated metal production and transportation equipment manufacturing employ substantially more workers - the
"copyright" industry is about on par with the furniture industry in terms
of economic importance.)
    In important respects, copyright law seems less threatening than patents.
Although the length of copyright is excessively long, the scope of coverage
historically has been narrow: in principle, only the expression of ideas is
covered, not the ideas themselves. Again, in principle, this is less harmful to
the downstream production of new ideas and the expression of ideas than
is the much broader protection offered by patents. Certainly, in practice, if
I want to write a Harry Potter-like book about child sorcerers I am free to
do so. On the other hand, over time, copyright has grown in scope: I am not
free to write a sequel in the Harry Potter series. In some respects, copyright
increases competition, encouraging the production of similar but different
works. From a social perspective, however, it may well be better to improve
existing works rather than to create redundant similar works.
    Despite the fact that copyright may seem to lack economic importance, in
a classic case of the tail wagging the dog, the copyright industry manages to
threaten our freedom and our culture. Copyrights are at least as