Economics was founded on the idea of incentives for everyone that leads to the collective good. Which is why intellectual property protection, in its current form, is so detrimental to the global economy. As IP protection grows in scope (and bias towards large corporations in the developed world), incentives are shifting from the collective to the individual. This can most notably be seen in the AIDS pandemic in Africa where the sick are forced to go without treatment because name-brand drugs are priced beyond their reach and generic drug companies are prevented from manufacturing affordable medicine by 50 year patents.
In a more tangible way, IP protection acts as an entry barrier to small businesses who are afraid to compete in a market dominated by big corporations protected by wide-cast nets of IP regulation. Fewer software startups are emerging, in part because of the fear that large players such as Microsoft will sick a 20 man bench of intellectual property attorneys on the fledgling company.
IP regulation work against market efficiencies by preventing spurred innovation through shared knowledge. As participants of a global economy, it’s important for us to demand IP protection reforms, narrowing their scope and shifting the protection from the already-dominant to the fledgling innovators. I believe it is possible to have intellectual property protection that fosters innovation, but significant changes need to be made to current policies in order to reach this goal.
To quote Thomas Jefferson:
“He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his candle at mine, receives light without darkening me.”
