boldrin-levine.html (6046B)
1 <!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" --> 2 <!-- Parent-Version: 1.96 --> 3 <!-- This page is derived from /server/standards/boilerplate.html --> 4 <!--#set var="TAGS" value="essays laws noip" --> 5 <!--#set var="DISABLE_TOP_ADDENDUM" value="yes" --> 6 <title>Review: Boldrin and Levine, “The case against 7 intellectual property” - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> 8 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/boldrin-levine.translist" --> 9 <!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" --> 10 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/ph-breadcrumb.html" --> 11 <!--GNUN: OUT-OF-DATE NOTICE--> 12 <!--#include virtual="/server/top-addendum.html" --> 13 <div class="article reduced-width"> 14 <h2>Review: Boldrin and Levine, “The case against intellectual property”</h2> 15 16 <address class="byline">by <a href="https://www.stallman.org/">Richard 17 Stallman</a></address> 18 19 <p> 20 <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4980956_The_Case_Against_Intellectual_Property"> 21 The Case Against Intellectual Property</a>, by Boldrin and Levine, 22 argues on economic grounds that authors can 23 make money by selling their work even in a world where everyone can copy.</p> 24 25 <p> 26 You've probably heard the superficial argument that “If the 27 program is free, you will only sell one copy.” The obvious 28 response is that today there are companies that sell thousands of 29 copies a month. But this paper provides another response: it shows 30 why people who are fully aware of the economic consequences of the 31 freedom to copy would pay a high price for “the first 32 copy.”</p> 33 34 <p> 35 <a href="/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty">The 36 term “intellectual property” is biased and spreads 37 confusion.</a> The bias is easy to see—by calling copyright and 38 patents and trademarks “property,” it leads people to 39 think that criticizing them is “opposing property rights.” 40 The confusion is less evident: by lumping copyright and patents and 41 trademarks together, it leads people to treat them as one thing, to 42 ignore their large differences and consider them as a single issue in 43 terms of their meager similarities.</p> 44 45 <p> 46 This usually means ignoring social and ethical aspects of copyrights, and 47 the different social and ethical aspects of patents, and considering both 48 copyrights and patents as a single issue in narrow economic terms. The 49 proponents of harshly restrictive copyrights and patents then present an 50 economic argument that is so simple that it gives an appearance of being 51 irrefutable.</p> 52 53 <p> 54 I normally respond by showing the aspects of the situation that have been 55 ignored by treating the issue as a purely economic one. Boldrin and 56 Levine's paper takes on that simple economic argument on its own terms, and 57 shows the gaps in it, gaps that the apparent simplicity tends to hide.</p> 58 59 <p> 60 I believe we should continue to reject the term “intellectual 61 property.” We need to call attention to the non-economic 62 aspects of copyrights and the different non-economic aspects of 63 patents. However, Boldrin and Levine's arguments will be useful for 64 responding to people who insist on narrowing their values to 65 economics.</p> 66 67 <p> 68 The paper is addressed to economists and somewhat mathematical. 69 Popularization of its ideas would be useful.</p> 70 </div> 71 72 </div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above --> 73 <!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" --> 74 <div id="footer" role="contentinfo"> 75 <div class="unprintable"> 76 77 <p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to 78 <a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. 79 There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> 80 the FSF. Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent 81 to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org"><webmasters@gnu.org></a>.</p> 82 83 <p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph, 84 replace it with the translation of these two: 85 86 We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality 87 translations. 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For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the 108 document was modified, or published. 109 110 If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too. 111 Either "2001, 2002, 2003" or "2001-2003" are ok for specifying 112 years, as long as each year in the range is in fact a copyrightable 113 year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including 114 being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system). 115 116 There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers 117 Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. --> 118 119 <p>Copyright © 2003, 2022 Richard Stallman</p> 120 121 <p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license" 122 href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative 123 Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p> 124 125 <!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" --> 126 127 <p class="unprintable">Updated: 128 <!-- timestamp start --> 129 $Date: 2022/04/12 13:27:51 $ 130 <!-- timestamp end --> 131 </p> 132 </div> 133 </div><!-- for class="inner", starts in the banner include --> 134 </body> 135 </html>