Sinabro

On Newswise.com:

Patent and copyright law are stifling innovation and threatening the global economy according to two economists at Washington University in St. Louis in a new book, Against Intellectual Monopoly. Professors Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine call for abolishing the current patent and copyright system in order to unleash innovations necessary to reverse the current recession and rescue the economy. The professors discuss their stand against intellectual property protections in a video and news release linked here.

A good proposal, with one fatal mistake:

“They call on Congress to reverse the burden of the proof on patent seekers by granting patents only to those capable of proving that …”

The government should not be able to grant exemptions, at all. A system in which “intellectual property” has been abolished save by specific exceptions as deemed fit by the government has the worsts of looters’ government (as depicted in Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”, for one), with none of the benefits of the current system.

We need to abolish, or drastically reduce the scope of, copyright and patents uniformly and fairly. And the only way to do this fairly is by not involving the dirty, greedy hand of the government in the process of creating and maintaining a marketplace of ideas.

If those fancy pants don’t have enough courage to abolish copyright and patent monopoly altogether (again, with no exceptions, save by acts of God), then let us simply reduce their scope and power, say, to pre-1900 level.