The Public Domain Chapter 8

Assumptions of IP? Largely an economic argument – Economic motivation – Ability to trade rights in a market How accurate is this? – Looking at the world today …

Back to the Private Commons Creative Commons – Created in 2002 – Licenses that can be read by humans and computers – IP policy agnostic Supported by many parties because it does not reduce possible rights A second best solution – Best would be requiring authors to request copyright

Assumptions and the Commons Quotes from Clay Shirky – “We get our support from a community” – “Now we can do big things for love.” – At about 2 minutes GPL: the viral license – Who would use such stuff? – Why would anyone contribute?

Open Source Software Created by many, used by more “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow” Viewed as valid competitor to commercial software – Governments – Companies Richard Epstein said it would end in failure – Equated to a worker’s commune – What are his assumptions?

The Gift Economy? Is this due to love, as Shirky implied? – Clearly people do a lot that they do not get paid for (volunteer work, etc.) What about other human motivations – Greed and love are only two of many Fame Sense of community Sense of accomplishment Enjoyment

Why Would Businesses Get Involved? Competing against the defacto standard – Second best position Increase network effects Do not have to pay for all the effort Can monetize services – Tech support Can reduce product costs – Embedded systems

What Can We Learn? Economic rationale is not the only motivation for authors Intellectual property policy needs to balance incentives Power of the Long Tail – Only a small percentage of a lot of people can do a lot – Wikipedia Assume a random distribution of skills and motivations – Lots of things become possible

Copyright Incentives For creation – Different people have different reserve costs – Still need copyright to motivate some For distribution – Initially because distribution required substantial resources – The Internet changes this for information

Internet Threat vs. Internet Catalyst Vision of Internet Threat – Focuses on effects of copying copyrighted content Vision of Internet Catalyst – Focuses on effects of connecting large population with variety of skills and motivations Need policies that facilitate both

Monotonically Increasing IP Rights No examples of decreasing IP rights – Although individual court decisions limit their interpretation 20/20 negative vision Danger to existing organizations and business models Easy to slip into natural view of property

Boyle’s Rules for Creating IP Policy Do not equate physical and intellectual property Focus on both the inputs and outputs of the creative process Look at the role of the public domain and the need to provide incentives More rights will not produce more innovation Confine rights narrowly to achieve desired result. Look at empirical evidence before and after increasing protection Notice benefits and costs of new technologies

Revisiting Patents Vision of the invention Conversion by an attorney Back-and-forth with the USPTO What (if anything) gets patented Looking for infringement Avoiding invalidity