One of the reasons that I am skeptical of patent systems and IP in general is that the evidence suggests that those whose innovations are supposed to be encouraged by IP - namely smaller less profitable innovations that might not exist without the extra protection - cannot easily afford to use the system. Here is another cautionary tale about how difficult it is to protect yourself under existing law. Via David McGowan it is about building tools for model railroad computer control.

Great review of Against Intellectual Monopoly by the powerhouse libertarian reviewer, David Gordon, in the recent issue of Mises Review.

Steve Silberstein writes in with some reading suggestions

James Bessen and Michael Meurer "Patent failure : how judges, bureaucrats and lawyers put innovaters at risk" - I've read this, and contains a lot of useful information and careful analysis. I saw the authors at a conference yesterday...I have given them a hard time about their conclusion. Roughly they document how thoroughly broken and useless the patent system is and then conclude that we should tweak it a little bit...

Three more books I haven't read: "Copyrights and Copywrongs" by Siva Raidyanathan "Not so patently obvious" by Eric Stasik "Copyrights Paradox" by Neil Weinstock Netanel

Opinions welcome; if you've read one why not post a comment?

from Danny Piccirillo

I created the Facebook group "I don't believe in imaginary property ". The group is hosting an upcoming "Pirate Pride Day" on the anniversay of Microsoft's global Anti-Piracy Day.

Enjoy!!

If you haven't seen the Stewart/Cramer showdown, you should link here

It has also drawn a lot of comment. Matt Yglesias does a good job drawing the moral with this:

"The big Stewart-Cramer faceoff was funny and it made good television. But what's striking about it is that basically Jim Cramer had nothing to say on his own behalf and then at the end of the day that's not going to make any difference. People talk about how sad it is that you need to turn to Comedy Central to get real journalism. And it really is sad because Comedy Central just can't do what journalism is supposed to do, and it can't do the things that make a difference. It's worth thinking a bit about the General Electric Corporations news media properties more generally. They hired Phil Donahue, and then fired him when he had the highest ratings on the network because they didn't like that he was against invading Iraq. They hired Keith Olbermann, expecting him to not be a liberal. But he turned out to be pretty progressive. And that turned out to be pretty popular. So they started featuring him more. Which prompted a huge freakout from their big news stars like Tom Brokaw about how it was injuring their credibility to appear on a network that's cobranded with a network that features a liberal. Meanwhile, at their other cobranded network, CNBC, they have on air a bunch of frauds. People show up and pretend to have sage investment advice. Larry Kudlow is put forward as someone who's knowledgeable about economic policy. And when someone points the fraud out, the whole GE circles the wagons to defend Jim Cramer and CNBC. Liberals? That wrecks their credibility. Liars and frauds? That's great. Go peacock! It's a deep rot, and John Stewart satirizing it doesn't really change anything. It would require the people working at NBC News to develop a conscience. link here"

Simon Johnson's appearance Friday evening on Bill Moyers Journal is generating considerable buzz in the econoblogosphere for pointing out that Too Big to Fail is simply too big. Johnson is a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, and continues in the interview by saying that the U.S. economy, with it's large, entrenched financial elites, reminds him more of the problems of oligarchy associated with developing economies that are frequent clients of the IMF.

I'm posting this here because one way to view the problems that our government (both under the prior admininstration, and, apparently, under the current one) is having with nationalizing the big, failed banks is precisely the inefficiency that David and Michele identify in their book: the entrenched elites, failures though they are in their own businesses, still have enough political clout and resources to lobby against direct federal take-overs of their failed institutions.

Johnson goes on to recommend increased antitrust scrutiny along the lines of Teddy Roosevelt's trust busting campaigns against the last century's robber barons. The interview is well worth watching.

Reading out loud is illegal? A great illustration of the negative impact of copyright on innovation - suppose you are a little guy, not Amazon...would you risk the lawsuit? The utter insanity of this is beyond belief: virtually every computer can do text-to-speech. Are all computers illegal now? Are we supposed to install special software to make sure text-to-speech doesn't read copyright materials? I hope there is a special place in hell reserved for the Author's Guild. They do their authors no good at great expense to everyone else. Look up "dog in the manger" on Wikepedia.

I previously pointed out that the ISPs like Verizon were dreaming if they thought they would charge Google for using their network - that if anybody paid anyone else, they would pay Google. Via Slashdot it seems I was right: see what ESPN is up to.

In Apple May Use ‘Nuclear Arsenal' to Delay Palm's IPhone Rival, Bloombert reports: "Apple Inc., usually on the defensive when it comes to intellectual-property lawsuits, is threatening to use its hoard of patents to quash iPhone competitors."

For shame, Apple, for shame. They appear to be suffering from the delusion pointed out by Boldrin & Levine, as noted by Tucker in Seen and Unseen Costs of Patents:

It is the most common thing in the world for a businessperson who use every market-oriented skill to get a product to market: a good product at a good price that becomes the market leader. At this point, and for some odd reason, the businessperson gets confused. He thinks that it his IP that is the key to his success and ends up fighting for it with all his might, even at his own expense.

Here is the statement by Boldrine and Levine: " "Being a monopolist" is, apparently, akin to going on drugs or joining some strange religious sect. It seems to lead to a complete loss of any sense of what profitable opportunities are and of how free markets function. Monopolists, apparently, can conceive of only one way of making money, that is bullying consumers and competitors to put up or shut up. Furthermore, it also appears to mean that past mistakes have to be repeated at a larger, and ever more egregious, scale."

(Cross-posted at Mises Blog.)

I added a booklist (below the comments). It has Michele's and my book, and Stephan's. Other suggestions? I want to keep it reasonably short (five?) so books like the various books like Seth Shulman's that focus on particular cases are probably not what we want, rather more general purpose books about IP or monopoly.