Economists: Abolish Copyright & Patents to Save the Economy

(hope this is the right area, but I do beleive copyright is a political issue!)

Written by Ben Jones on March 10, 2009
Two economists from Washington University have looked at current copyright and patent laws and concluded that they’re not good. The pair see current Intellectual property laws as similar to ‘medieval trade monopolies’ which were bad for the economy as a whole, and are calling for the system to be reformed.

More information on:torrentfreak

With these petty monopoly-inducing laws out of our way, we could finally save the economy! All that high-tech that big oil, and auto mfgs are sitting on would become FOS! Surely this would pave the way to a better future!

[edit on 2009.3.10 by Carlthulhu]

We can only hope.

Second line

Hrmm, I would agree with somethings not being able to be patented like medicine.

I don't see what the point of abolishing copyrights would be though.

I have a problem with doing away with copywrights and patents altogether. A person has a right to control his/her intellectual property and profit from it just as a carpenter has a right to trade his hours for dollars. Or not.
I refuse to download songs from the internet on peer to peer sharing sites because I am taking money out of the hands of the people who worked to write the song, record the song, as well as money from the studio people who worked on the project.
I do believe the patent laws should be reformed, especially in the area of Big Pharma, because of the shennigans they play with drugs. When their patent is about to expire, they wll make minor changes in the medication, in order to extend the patent, or to put out a "new" drug, which mainly a reworking of the old drug.
Writers, Actors, Artists, these folks struggle for years at their craft, sometimes getting lucky, most times not. But their intellectual property should remain their own.

I don’t agree. I have an invention that I intend to patent this summer (if possible) and if I could not protect the invention I would certainly loose my opportunity to capitalize on it due to competition from big corps or investors.

That being the case I would not release the idea and would not work on any of the other 15 my brother and I plan to create. I'd still use it for my house!

After all it was my idea, research, time, materials and experimentation that made it work and I would not have spent so much time and $ doing so if some big corp could use the idea, have it made in china and sold cheaper than I could have it produced for.

What motive would there be for some one as myself to try new ideas, spend $ I don’t really have to spend and time I really cant afford? Answer- None.

Creativity would decline. Knowing how hard it has been to sacrifice what I have so far, to accomplish what little has been accomplished, I assure you if I knew some one else could exponentially profit from my labor while I live paycheck to paycheck, I would not have begun.

Exactly my point budro. But once you put the product on the market, and the patent is about to expire, you don't plan to make some minor change that doesn't even affect the way the product works, and apply for a patent extension or a whole new patent are you?
The area of patent law that needs reform is in the Big Pharma and Monsanto(a company I personally believe is killing us all.)
What you create is yours. How you decide to use it, or market it is your business. (Unless Obama gets ahold of it. Then he'll make you give everybody a peice of the pie, while you go hungry.)

No I dont plan on revising and reapplying once the patent is near expiration. I can see how some would think that the regulations need to be revised but I bet the problem is more about corruption and lobying.

You can pick any patented idea, change a key component which might affect the way in wich the item works but does not change the end result and apply or a patent. If your change to the idea allows for cheaper production or less harm to the enviroment or fewer ill effects, what ever, as long as your change is substantiated you can be given a patent on it.

I bet this is where big pharma steps in and twists the arm of gov to prevent competition.

I dont know all of the law regarding patents but I imagine like most things there are already more than enough laws and regulations that are simply not applied to big corps or gov and no matter how many more we add or remove that fact will simply not change.