IP is a legal fiction created and enforced to further explicit public policy objectives--specifically, to incentivize creativity and to create a safe protected space for innovation. If those public policy objectives are not being met, then continuing to implement IP in its original form is harmful to society as a whole.

In other words, a company that is relying on policies implemented to stimulate economic growth and development a century ago--and is using the power of its protected market position to interfere in the democratic process that might align policy with the economic realities of today--is certainly not any kind of "victim". If there are any victims, they are the people whose true economic potential is being suppressed by the continuing existence of outdated laws.

I'm not advocating for an elimination of IP, but I am saying that IP needs to be reformed in a way that will reduce the wealth of companies and individuals who do cling to a pre-internet business model, and it is right to attack them to the extent that a defense of their interests is preventing a modernization of the laws.

I guess the civil system (private lawsuits) is failing to protect intellectual property interests? Who holds those interests? The taxpayer? The government? Business entities?

Why not give the grants to businesses who are trying to protect their IP? Or to ones that are seeking to create IP and register it?

Supposedly, as the article states, this sort of capital allocation is supposed to forward the goal of promoting creativity.

But I'm not sure people will cease to be creative simply because others won't be prosecuted for alleged IP violations. But maybe they won't make as much money? Perhaps a clearer goal, instead of "protecting creativity", could be stated, such as "protecting revenue streams of businesses that produce and register IP (via fees paid to government)." As we've seen such businesses are not always the most creative. In many cases they are just the most prolific filers for IP registrations.

Creativity existed long before the legal fiction of intellectual property.

> it's a "blame the victim" justification.

I've always been a strong supporter of blaming the victim, precisely because "blaming the victim" is such a popular code phrase which acts to short circuit the process of logical reasoning and leads to a systemic under-blaming of alleged victims even where their alleged victimization is attributable primarily to their own actions.

If there are known strategies to avoid being victimized and particular victims consciously or incompetently forgo them, and the predictable consequence follows, are we really supposed to feel sympathy for those whose own decisions put them where they are?

This goes triple when the alleged "victims" are multibillion dollar international corporations. No industry with enough money and power to buy their own laws can legitimately feel victimized when non-Congressperson-owning individuals violate the laws that they bought.

I think the "blame the victim" thing comes from people blaming rape victims because they wore a short skirt or attractive clothing. I would defiantly not support the blame the victim mentality in that kind of case. It might be completely different in the IP realm,

I understand that's where it originates, but it's still bad logic. The fact that the accused is guilty or is a total dirtbag doesn't preclude the victim from having been malicious or idiotic, and the victim's failings don't necessitate that we feel more sympathetic for the accused -- but rather that we feel less sympathetic for the victim. And that goes on the scale like anything else. There is a reason that self-defense is a defense to murder. The victim's actions matter.

The reason that "blaming the victim" is so offensive in the rape case, and why that is always brought out as the poster child for "don't blame the victim," is that in the rape case it implies that wearing a revealing outfit is enough to excuse rape. Which is so clearly, unquestionably wrong that it makes a very emotionally powerful case for the logically unsupportable position that the victim's actions never matter for anything.

But "don't [ever] blame the victim" is bad reasoning. To make it correct you would have to qualify it with something like "don't blame the victim when the victim isn't to blame" -- and that's just a tautology that doesn't help you determine when the victim is to blame. The fact that we know for sure that the victim isn't to blame in certain cases (e.g. rape) doesn't help for other cases where it isn't so clear.

When your whole business model is based on government granted and government enforced monopolies, you have very little right to complain IMHO.

Name one (legitimate) business that doesn't rely on government enforcement at some point. If you think about it, you'll find that even subway buskers can operate with the confidence that their hat full of quarters and singles won't get stolen from under their noses. Stores everywhere allow prospective customers everywhere free, direct, and anonymous access to merchandise, confident that if any prove to be thieves, they can delivered into the hands of people with the legal right to inflict serious damage on their life prospects.

Given that not everyone is good, you'll find that "giving people (in general) a reason to buy" comes down to carrots for most and sticks for some. If you fail to get that balance right, your losses will drive you out of business.

Of course, society can't tolerate merchants who hunt down, attack, torture, maim, or kill transgressors. Nor can it tolerate the existence of crime syndicates that will handle this dirty work for a price (offered willingly or otherwise). So we've come to a pretty good arrangement where the labor involved in "giving people a reason to buy" gets divided between the private businessperson, who focuses on carrots like a more competitive product / service / price, and the State, which handles the stick.

Assuming that the State, in turn, remains generally accountable to the people, this arrangement works well. What doesn't work well is telling one group of producers "sorry bitches, but technology has changed and now you need to adapt" while glossing over the subtext that the "adaptation" you're referring to is the invention of a business model that's all carrots and no sticks. In a market where everyone else still gets the benefit of legal protection, this is both unique and unreasonable.

That doesn't mean IP businesses don't need to adapt at all, or that they should be given special consideration that retards the general progress of the arts and sciences. But how they do this depends largely on whether or not they receive legal support in situations where they are faced with jerks who refuse to pay.

>>Name one (legitimate) business that doesn't rely on government enforcement at some point.

That's not what he said. It's a matter of scale. Surely every company benefits from the government at some point. But some companies have their entire business model dependent on government aid. I'm not talking about having the government as a customer, mind you. I'm talking about companies that became monopolies only because their lobbyists convinced lawmakers to protect their businesses.

"I'm talking about companies that became monopolies only because their lobbyists convinced lawmakers to protect their businesses."

Don't be ridiculous. No American media company is, or is ever likely to become, a monopoly. What they depend on is a limited set of property rights in products they make or buy. That's very different from being a actual monopoly.

The concept of "property" (real or intellectual) is precisely a government-granted and government-enforced monopoly right of exclusion.

So ... you're saying none of us have the right to complain?

This is patently false, as "the concept of property" predates all governments.

Coming from an ex-communist country, comments like yours that assume property/life/liberty must be somehow graciously "granted" by the big brother make me sad.

The concept of "natural property" exists, it describes what you can personally secure, by any effective means (violence, intimidation, cunning, alliances...)

In the natural order, a predator who killed a prey loses it as soon as a bigger animal comes and takes it. Even before that, the prey who's been killed in the first place lost property on its carcass as soon as the first predator caught it. None of those had any "natural property right" on the carcass beyond its physical ability to secure it.

Property as we casually understand it (a right so effectively enforced that you can take it for granted, even if you don't have the personal means to defend it) is government-issued: it works because it's backed by the threat of government's violence, in the form of police then correction officers beating up most thieves into submission.

And there are ways to transfer property which are admitted as legitimate by the government; among those ways, some are bound to piss off some people. The definition of what kinds of transfers are legitimate is political, i.e. somewhat arbitrary.

So the concept of property not based on permanent mob violence does not predate governments.

I see what you mean. Only the size of the group that stands behind you when someone challenges your property is a matter of scale, not principle. Is it only you? Your immediate family? Pack? Your country? There's always someone with a bigger club...

I believe the GP simply meant that when you base your entire business on extortion (regardless of the group size perpetrating it, incl. governments), you shouldn't complain when another tentacle of the same machinery slaps you in the back.

How much of a 'victim' is Disney if I was to violate the copyright on Steamboat Willy? Is Warner Chappell a 'victim' if I do a public (or private) performance of the "Happy Birthday Song" without paying royalties? How much of a 'victim' is a group of lawyers that bought up a couple of overly-broad patents in a fire sale, if I infringe on their patent for 'A method of displaying pictures of food on a webpage using a computer' without paying any royalties?