[kiba]

I think we're finding out the absurdity of copyright and patents by forcing these kind of concepts to face the redutio ad absurdum of the day, which are technologies like 3D printing.

On the other hand, the past is full of interesting example of PATENT FAIL like Whitney's failure to enforce the cotton gin, but he got rich with producing munition for the US army, while at the same time inventing the concept of interchangeable parts.

We saws that American writers hating their competitors from England because of the massive piracy of British literature leading domination in the American literacy market. Some English writers managed to make more money from the American than he could collect via some amount of royalty years. It was only when large publishing house finally change their tune that the American finally recognize British copyright.

We also saw James Watt's partner using the parliament to extend patents for Watt's steam engine invention. This waste to tremedous wasteful effort from Watt suing various people for violating his patents. In reality, Watt was just one of the many steam engine inventors, who hampered other steam engine inventors' ability to make a living and build on top of his work. He also ironically got hampered by some other guy's patent, forcing him to use inferior design for his steam engine.

[steveklabnik]

There's a great book about all of this, "Against Intellectual Monopoly." [1]

There's an interesting bit about the English/American writer thing you mention, specifically Dickens. From chapter two:

    The amount of revenues British authors received up front 
    from American publishers often exceeded the amount they 
    were able to collect over a number of years from 
    royalties in the UK. Notice that, at the time, the US 
    market was comparable in size to the UK market.

    More broadly, the lack of copyright protection, which 
    permitted the United States publishers’ “pirating” of 
    English writers, was a good economic policy of great 
    social value for the people of United States, and of no 
    detriment, as the Commission report and other evidence 
    confirm, for English authors. Not only did it enable the 
    establishment and rapid growth of a large and successful 
    publishing business in the United States; also, and more 
    importantly, it increased literacy and benefited the 
    cultural development of the American people by flooding 
    the market with cheap copies of great books. As an 
    example: Dickens’ A Christmas Carol sold for six cents 
    in the US, while it was priced at roughly two dollars 
    and fifty cents in England. This dramatic increase in 
    literacy was probably instrumental for the emergence of 
    a great number of United States writers and scientists 
    toward the end of the nineteenth century.

Arguments about intellectual property now seem to always focus on the ability of the author to make money, and not about the basic reason that the concept of IP was created: it was a gift from society to creators to both help them and encourage the enrichment of society at large. The dramatic rise in UGC demonstrates that 'creators gonna create' anyway, so the deal makes less and less sense for society to keep up.

There's also a part in the book about the steam engine stuff, too, but this is already getting long...

1: http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.h...

[alanh]

UGC is one thing, but without financial backing largely enabled by IP, it’s hard to imagine the most epic and polished movies & games would still be made.

[steveklabnik]

A great recent counterexample to this is Avatar, right? Super expensive, all financed by Cameron, right? Made tons of cash.

There will probably be less made, you're right. But they'll still get made.

[jimbojohn]

But he recouped the money through charging people to see the movie. Not a counter-example at all.

[steveklabnik]

He did. It was also available to download for free on the Internet.

"No IP" does not mean "You can't charge for things." Enough people would rather go to a movie theater than get on Bittorrent that he made his money back.

Side note: I was one of those people. I wear Pirate Bay tshirts around, I'd throw out all IP law if I was in charge... but I did pay money to go to the theater to see Avatar. Going to the theater and getting that crazy huge screen, great sound system, and (maybe) the 3D was totally worth it.

[teamonkey]

The fact that it worked for one movie does not mean that it would work any other movie.

The hook with Avatar was that it was a spectacle deliberately designed to be seen in 3D on the biggest screen possible, to the extent that there's very little point not seeing it in a movie theatre.

It's a unique example and its impact (and profitability) would be lessened by a) competition by similar movies and b) greater adoption of home 3D hardware.

[Yzupnick]

>Enough people would rather go to a movie theater then get on Bittorrent

True, but i guarantee that Movie theaters would rather get on Bittorrent rather than pay millions of dollars in fees to James Cameron. The only thing stopping them is IP laws.

[alanh]

Fascinating his wife’s movie, released the same year, actively litigated those who shared the movie online.