Against Intellectual Monopoly

table of
calculations, that would certainly make it difficult for you to make use of
the same. It is true that the tables were eventually made public together with
the template of how to build the clock. This, however, is a consequence of the
existence of the prize set by Parliament and administered by the Board of
Longitude. The tables were "sold to the public" in exchange for the 10,000
pound prize, or at least for the promise of it, as it took a while for the prize
to be awarded to Harrison. Absent the prize, Harrison would have most
likely sold the clocks to skippers or shipowners in the most common of all
private transactions: money for goods. To acquire usable knowledge, the
buyers would have had to learn enough about astronomical laws, algebra,
clock-making, and so on, to understand the tables and the template, and would have had to pay the requested price to the owner of the tables - the
owner, that is, of the embodied knowledge.

    To us, this story sounds like spending real resources to produce and
acquire copies of usable knowledge: where is the public good hiding? No
usable nonrival knowledge ever came into existence. The only two things
that came into existence after Harrison completed his R&D investment were
(1) the first copy of the new usable knowledge about marine chronometers,
embodied in his brain, his tables, his templates; and (2) a "copying" technology, which produced replicas of such usable knowledge at a unit cost much
lower than the one Harrison had to pay through his initial R&D investment.
The example fits perfectly the theoretical model of competitive innovation
we described in Chapter 6. Contrary to the quoted text's assertion, there is
absolutely no public good or economically usable nonrivalrous knowledge,
either here or elsewhere.
    What does this have to do with property? A lot: because the usable
knowledge is completely embodied in objects the inventor controls, and is
reproducible through a production process that he also controls, ordinary
property in embodied objects is enough to allow for appropriation of value
by the innovator via competitive rents. There is no obvious need for additional rights, in particular for monopolistic rights such as those afforded by
patents.
    Ordinary property such as land and cars can be sold with contracts that
place limitations such as easements or covenants on the new owner; it can
also be rented on a temporary basis with a variety of restrictions placed on
the user. How is this different from the owner of an abstract idea placing
restrictions on the users of that idea? As we said, there is good property (the
kind that enhances competition) and there is bad property (the kind that
leads to monopoly). The law generally distinguishes between the two when
it comes to writing contracts. If I sell you a portion of my land, and create
an easement whereby you allow my cattle to cross your land to get to the
nearby stream, the law recognizes this as a legitimate interest on my part,
and such a contract is easily enforced, as there is no sense in which it implies
an impediment to competition. If one car manufacturer sells another a part
and requires that any car produced with that part must be sold at a very high
price, that contract - promoting, as it does, monopoly and not competition -
not only would not be enforceable but also would be a violation of antitrust
law and would probably result in a substantial fine. The easement allowing
cattle to cross the land is good because it is instrumental to the creation of
additional economic value - raising the cattle. The prohibition on making
copies of a legally acquired book not only does not facilitate the creation of additional economic value but, in fact, prevents it. Property in copies of
ideas is good property, enhancing competition. Property in abstract copies
of ideas is bad property, leading to monopoly.

    There is a more sophisticated version of the argument that intellectual property is like any other kind of property, which is popular among
economists rather than lawyers and politicians. It asserts that without intellectual monopoly ideas are nonrivalrous so that, once the first copy of an
idea is produced, it becomes a public good. A good is nonrivalrous, or a
public good, if one person's consumption does not limit the ability of others
to consume it. For example, national defense is a public good. My enjoyment
of the benefits of my country being