I reported previously on attempts to break the copyright over Oregon laws. It looks like the same thing is happening in California. And the person leading the charge is no other than Carl Malamud, who forced the SEC to put all filings online. Check out his public.resource.org site.

Via Matt Yglesias, the following poster was what greeted delegates to the Republican convention at the Minneapolis airport this week:

Today's Wall Street Journal has a front page article, "Glut of Flilms Hits Hollywood", about why so many money losing movies have been made lately. Donald Starr, chairman of Grosvenor Park, a film financing company, says: "The amount of sales that these films generate is just too small to be worth it. In any other business, if something doesn't make back its price, you stop making it. But for some reason in the film industry we keep making more of these movies."

The reason Mr. Starr is searching for was identified by the economist Arnold Plant in a classic 1934 article on "The Economic Aspects of Copyright in Books." He pointed out that the copyright regime has the perverse consequence of over stimulating the production of books people don't want to read. Publishers use the monopoly profits earned from successful books to fund the production of their duds. The same thing is true for any other part of the copyright industry, including films. An excess of small indie films get made, which don't earn their opportunity cost of capital. The other side of the ledger is that a small number of films (e.g., Titanic) and film stars (hello Leonardo Di Caprio), and books (e.g., the Harry Potter series) and authors (hello J.K. Rowling) earn far more than they would in a free market.

Julio Cole wrote an article on copyright discussing Plant's work "Controversy: Would the Absence of Copyright Laws Significantly Affect the Quality and Quantity of Literary Output?"

The solution is to abolish the copyright raj. Hey, maybe that would play in Bollywood.

I noted previously that my Against Intellectual Property and Boldrin & Levine's Against Intellectual Monopoly are both selling just fine, even though both books are available for free online. Now it's no surprise the Mises Institute publishes works in free, online versions whenever possible; it doesn't hurt sales and anyway, their mission is to spread the freedom philosophy and sound economics.

But I was a bit surprised that Boldrin & Levine's publisher, Cambridge University Press, would allow them to put a free version of the book online; my experience with Oxford University Press (1, 2, 3, 4) would have led me to suspect publishers would be reluctant to permit this.

But as explained in the commments here, although they were not able to prevent the work from being protected by traditional copyright, the authors were able to persuade Cambridge to permit a free online version. Heroic! (The carping of some that they were "hypocritical" because the book has a copyright is ridiculous.)

When I inquired of Levine how they were able to manage this feat, he told me they simply bargained for it. The clause they got is as follows: Clause 3(a) grants to Cambridge "sole and exclusive right and license to produce and publish and itself further to license..." with some exceptions. Clause 3(b) reads: "(b) Notwithstanding clause 3(a) above, on first publication of the Work, the Author shall have the non-exclusive right to post the files of the published Work on his/her own and/or his/her institutional website subject to the inclusion of the copyright notice, full acknowledgement to Cambridge University Press and an appropriate hyperlink to the Cambridge catalogue."

In response to my surprise they were able to negotiate this, Levine told me that "academic journals give that as a matter of course - maybe for an academic publisher it isn't such a big deal? They didn't fuss about it, and it didn't sound like it was the first time they did it."

Could it be that some publishers are starting to get it?

Replying to IP practitioner Russ Krajek's post McCain vs Obama on IP Issues: There is No Contest:

Russ,

A few comments.

You write: "All the participants agreed on the same underlying principle: intellectual property rights are important and should be protected. In general, both sides agreed on the general goal of more rigorous patent examination that would, in theory, result in stronger patents. ... the general recognition of the importance in IP protection and its role in the economy was emphasized. ... The ‘problem' is that patents being issued today do not generate the confidence and respect in the public that, as a matter of public policy, one would expect."

Why would one "expect" this from the government? The state can't do anything well except destroy and damage. Why would anyone expect it to do anything constructive well?

"The bad press and attacks on patents in general have eroded confidence in all patents."

Why is this a bad thing? If patents are a net harm on society, why shouldn't people be skeptical of them? Why isn't it better that patents are weak?

"An inventor who obtains a patent cannot enjoy as much of the benefits of the patent as public policy would dictate."

Perhaps true; but why would anyone think the level of benefits that public policy "would dictate" are justifiable?

"Patents should be issued for inventions which are new, useful, and fully disclosed. Inventions that do not meet all three requirements should not be issued. Seems pretty simple, but the execution of the solution is down and dirty and decidedly not glamorous."

It doesn't seem simple to me. These requirements are purely arbitrary, unscientific, non-objective, legislated criteria, administered by a federal bureaucracy and federal courts--i.e., by a bunch of government employees. Why would anyone think this could ever be simple or just?

"I was glad to know that advisors to both candidates had a firm grasp of the issues and fundamentally agreed that strong Intellectual Property rights would be good for the country as a matter of policy."

Why do you assume that strong IP rights are "good for the country"? I mean, how do you know this? Why do IP practitioners always assume this--just because it is in their interest for the patent system to stay in place does not mean it is good for the country. No one can deny that the patent system imposes costs on the economy. How do its proponents know that the benefits are greater than the costs? Russ, what are the net benefits, in dollar terms? What are its benefits? Its costs? If you don't know, how do you know the net is positive?

Steve Lohr writes that trademarking is being steadily expanded to the web link here. "For the empirical proof, look at the filings with the government for new trademarks that, put simply, are brand names," he writes. "It lies beyond putting trademarks on new businesses, Web site addresses and online logos. Now, companies want to slap a brand on still vaguely defined products and services in the uncharted ephemera of cyberspace the computing cloud, as it has come to be known."

Lohr provides several examples. Dell tried to trademark Cloud Computing and now Microsoft is trying something with the phrase Live together with another word, like Mesh, as if Live somehow made the phrase unique.

This attempt to extend the reach of trademark has not gone unopposed, since it is clearly an attempt to extend monopoly into new areas.

Sam Diaz brings us news that Mac clone maker, Psystar, is suing Apple right back link here. He quotes the president of Psystar, "It's not that people don't want to use Mac OS X, but they're not open to spending an exorbitant amount of money for something that's essentially generic hardware."

Its case rests on the charge that the EULA (end user license agreement) the buyer of the software "agrees to" when he opens the package, requires that he use it on a Mac. That is obviously a restraint of trade, but courts have allowed it in the past.

So this is an important case and probably will be long fought by lots of companies which have a stake in the result.

As noted in Patent Reform Touches DNC in Denver,

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., told a crowd in Denver on Tuesday that it is crucial for Congress to pass legislation to update the U.S. patent system next year ... A proposal that would curb judicial "venue-shopping" for favorable courts is critical as is language to address patent abuses, she said. "How do you legally set a framework that prevents abuses and allows for a vigorous system that protects intellectual property?" Lofgren asked aloud. "It's not easy to come up with solutions."

Right. Call me crazy, but it almost seems like it's impossible to avoid "abuse" if one sets up a state-granted innovation-monopoly system! Hmm, I wonder how we could avoid that abuse... I wonder....

A rather disturbing development -

A man accused of posting nine previously unreleased songs by the rock band Guns N' Roses on a website where they could be accessed by the public was arrested at his home early today on suspicion of violating federal copyright laws, authorities said.

Kevin Cogill, 27, is accused of posting the songs, which were being prepared for commercial release, on the Internet blog Antiquiet in June, according to an arrest affidavit. The site received so much traffic after the songs were posted that it crashed, the affidavit states.

More info here.

The ephemeral line between civil and criminal penalties in copyright is yet another bothersome abuse of the intersection between business interests and state power. Why are some accused of copyright violations merely sued by businesses while others are arrested by the state? What truly distinguishes one case from the other, and how do authorities make such a determination? On the surface, it seems that the only difference is how much political clout a particular business has with authorities.

I am of the belief that IP violations should never be considered as a criminal offense unless there are other criminal activities associated with the use of the IP itself (i.e., selling 'pirated' goods or fake knock-offs of trademarked products to help fund terrorist groups, organized crime, etc.).

via Svetoslav Trochev

Here is prime example that shows how the patents are 'promoting' the progress.

I guess the new BMW will have new option. "Paper map for North America"! :))