Against Intellectual Monopoly

published a useful account of industry data. Since it has become obsessed with
piracy, it no longer does so, apparently fearing that it might undercut its own propaganda. George Ziemann has decided he is not going to let the propaganda go
unchecked and properly debunked. At http://www.azoz.com, you can find abundant, and economically excellent, analysis of the RIAA sales, pricing, and revenue
figures, separating the 99 percent propaganda from the 1 percent of facts.

    23. And the cherry on top of the pie: the "patent epidemic" is quickly becoming also
a "copyright epidemic." Even verbally expressed opinions are apparently copyrightable these days. The Off-Off-Broadway production of Tam Lin discovered this,
in a rather costly way, during 2006, Green (2006) reports.

     

SIX
How Competition Works
    Property is a good thing. Ownership of houses, land, automobiles, potatoes,
and coffee contributes to our wealth and well-being. Property brings with
it rights: you cannot take my property without my permission, but I may, if
I wish, sell it to you. This provides incentives to produce, accumulate, and
trade. In countries such as Zimbabwe, where property can be arbitrarily
taken away by government action and theft, there is little reason to produce
or acquire valuable property, which results in widespread poverty and even
famine. I Without the ability to sell our property, there is little reason to specialize in the production of goods and services, and no mutually beneficial
trades are possible.
    If property is good for automobiles and potatoes, should it not also
be true, as Michael Novak argues, of ideas as well? Intellectual monopoly
supporters such as Novak have found it convenient to assert that there
is a connection between "intellectual property" as enshrined in copyright
and patent law and property rights in the ordinary sense.2 Property in the
ordinary sense is a good thing - and this is as true of ideas as of automobiles
and potatoes. Ordinary property of a piece of land enables the owner to
improve and sell it for a profit. Owning a piece of land is not equivalent
to controlling all pieces of land: plenty other people also own land, which
carries the right to improve it without asking for permission. Ordinary
property involves the same set of rights when applied to copies of an idea:
you may do whatever you like with your copy of an idea without preventing
others from doing what they like with their copies of the same idea or with
its derivatives. This is what property in the ordinary sense allows one to do
both on pieces of land and with copies of an idea, which is quite different
from what intellectual property allows one to do with copies of an idea.
Intellectual property is the "right" to monopolize an idea by telling other
people how they may, or more often may not, use the copies they own. In all of the innovative industries we looked at in previous chapters, it was the
right to buy, sell, and improve on copies of ideas, not the prohibition against
using them, that lead to innovation and prosperity.

    Competition is a good thing. That is why the National Basketball Association and the Tour de France are so popular, and why we give our all at the
annual interdepartmental basketball game. Competition is not just fun; it
is also useful. History, practical experience, common sense, and economic
theory all agree: economic competition is probably one of the greatest ideas
humans ever came up with. When a bunch of people compete to achieve the
same goal, great things seem to happen that otherwise would not. Things
get done faster, cheaper, and better; new methods for lifting a weight or
quenching a thirst are invented; the average guy ends up with more of the
stuff he likes at a lower price than before. That is why, in the end, socialism
collapsed like a rotten wall: it did not allow its people to compete, and as
a result, it not only made their economic life miserable but also strangled
their hearts and souls.
    Most economists argue that property and competition are good in general, but only a few among them, such as George Stigler, have argued that
if competition is good for the production of cellular phones and bananas,
it should be equally good for the production of ideas and of their copies.3
We agree with the few in the latter group: indeed, it is. In this chapter, we
explain how competition works in the market for ideas and why it is beneficial. We will try to