Surowiecki, famed author of 'The Wisdom of Crowds' (which is a great read btw), has published a column in The New Yorker which is well worth reading, as it covers the issues that arise from too much, too deep and too long patent and copyright legislation. Here are some high-lights, below.
A great example of why it does not always work to rely solely on market forces to work it out (yes... such as in music licenses for Radio, and now, the Media / Content Industries and the Internet - the still-prevailing mindset of economic egoism just does not make it possible to reach a win-win-win situation):
"In the second decade of the twentieth century, it was almost impossible to build an airplane in the United States. That was the result of a chaotic legal battle among the dozens of companies—including one owned by Orville Wright—that held patents on the various components that made a plane go. No one could manufacture aircraft without fear of being hauled into court. The First World War got the industry started again, because Congress realized that something needed to be done to get planes in the air. It created a “patent pool,” putting all the aircraft patents under the control of a new association and letting manufacturers license them for a fee. Had Congress not stepped in, we might still be flying around in blimps...."
"The commons leads to overuse and destruction; the anticommons leads to underuse and waste. In the cultural sphere, ever tighter restrictions on copyright and fair use limit artists’ abilities to sample and build on older works of art..." Comment: more on copyright & control here
"In theory, one should be able to break a gridlock by striking a deal that would leave all sides better off. Sometimes that happens. Just the other week, for instance, Nokia and Qualcomm settled a three-year-long patent battle, which could accelerate the spread of third-generation cell-phone technology here and in Europe. In a less contentious fashion, products like the DVD player quickly became mainstream and affordable because many companies worked together to form patent pools..."
Comment: this is where the real problem lies that bedevils the creation of the new, connected, web-native economy (in my view):
"Recent experimental work by the psychologist Sven Vanneste and the legal scholar Ben Depoorter helps explain why. When something you own is necessary to the success of a venture, even if its contribution is small, you’ll tend to ask for an amount close to the full value of the venture. And since everyone in your position also thinks he deserves a huge sum, the venture quickly becomes unviable. So the next time we start handing out new ownership rights—whether via patents or copyright or privatization schemes—we’d better try to weigh all the good things that won’t happen as a result. Otherwise, we won’t know what we’ve been missing..."
Comment: The key question is whether we can still afford to act like this. Do we still extract the maximum cash out of a deal just because we can, do we still exploit natural resources just because we (in theory) can, and do we still pound on copyright rules just because we (by virtue of some rather antiquated laws) can?
