The internet makes it easy to redistribute unauthorized copies - SOPA is an effort to put an end to that, albeit at the price of getting rid of the internet. But the internet also makes it easy to reach audiences. From the point of view of the big distributors represented by the MPAA and the RIAA it's all bad. I'm pretty sure buggy-whip makers didn't much like automobiles either. But what about the artist? Chris Phelan points us to a recent article about Louis C.K. a successful but not superstar comedian. Rather than taking the $200K that the big distributors would have paid him, he put up $170K of his own money to produce the video of his show. Unlike the big distributors who hate their customers as much as their customers hate them - Louis C. K. has a good relationship with his customers. He put the video on-sale for a quarter of the price the big guys would have charged - $5 each copy. He did it without DRM, and simply asked politely that people buy it from him and not redistribute it. He took in $2 million, a net of about $1.8 million.

It's funny how old fashioned business sense - produce a product people like and treat them well - works as well on the internet as anywhere else. Unfortunately crony capitalism if you can afford the politicians is even better.

The conclusion seems to be that we can't have tablets or smart phones because every device violates someone's patent. See how the patent system encourage innovation?

Not just low prices, but less rent seeking.

Via Ed Lopez (somewhat tardily, sorry, Ed): Botas Picudas Mexicanas y Tribal

The blogosphere is rightfully abuzz over the recent paper by Bessen, Meurer and Ford. They are extremely careful researchers. They focus on litigation over software patents and measure losses to the victims of patent lawsuits and gains to the trolls who bring them by looking at changes in stock market valuations. They find the net loss to the economy from these lawsuits running at about $80 billion per year. They conclude

that the loss of billions of dollars of wealth associated with these lawsuits harms society. While the lawsuits increase incentives to acquire vague, over-reaching patents, they decrease incentives for real innovation overall

Patents: your government discouraging innovation.

Brian Kahin Senior Fellow of the Computer and Communications Industry Association (members of the lobbying organization include Microsoft and Google, but apparently not Apple) gets it. Best quote? Noting that governments now own patents they themselves issue:

Markets for government granted rights to stop commerce -- in which governments themselves are major players, using government-granted rights to stop others from using government-granted rights to stop commerce...

From Victor Zatsepsin in Russia:

Perhaps it would be interesting to know for you, that there is an initiative outspoken by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev recently, according to which Russia offers to create a worldwide internet database of intellectual property. The main principles of this undertaking remain unknown, but according to the Vedomosti article, this archive will provide ability to tag content as available for free, on royalty base or differently. Here's more of his vague statements:

Medvedev to make internet copyright proposals 'soon'

I believe that the Russia's case could be enlightening in many ways, since in fact there is no strong royalty-based economy, for instance, in books' or film industry.

He seems to want to water down copyright in the rest of the world in exchange for strengthening it in Russia. I am doubtful that the copyright monopolists are going to have anything of it.

Kevin Drum says: So then, a question for people who think that software patents are out of control: what should the rule be? No patents at all on software or business processes? Probably not. But if patents aren't flatly banned on business processes, is there some kind of rule that would raise the bar in a reasonable way on just how novel something has to be to deserve a patent? I hear a lot of complaints about software and business process patents, and I'm sympathetic to them. But exactly what kind of reform would improve things?

"No patents at all on software or business processes? Probably not." Interesting that he doesn't explain why not. In the case of software patents the case for getting rid of them entirely is clear. The work of James Bessen leaves no scope for doubt.

What collecting societies really do.

from kottke.org

"I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense." -- Henry Ford