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.

link to the live blog here

I'm going to add a few comments of my own about copyright. There are basically four areas covered by copyright.

Entertainment: This is the tail that wags the dog. Not that entertainment isn't important; it is just that only a small subpart of the entertainment industry is covered by copyright. Let's call that the "professional entertainment" industry - popular fiction and non-fiction; movies; tv; professional music. The problem is that this industry is minuscule - smaller than just the IBM Corporation alone. Absent copyright, we'd lose some marginal contributions, and the very rich people at the top would be less rich. However, "professional entertainment" is tiny compared to "entertainment" which would include everything from home videos, to playing games, to talking on the phone with your friends. This industry is an order of magnitude bigger than "professional entertainment." And the main use of copyright in the "professional entertainment" industry is to limit competition from the "amateur entertainment" industry. Whatever we would lose from the professionals (not much, since copyright is de facto gone anyway) would be more than made up for by the amateurs.

Textbooks: Few people are educated by reading textbooks. If fewer text books are written without copyright (let's hope so since they are all the same) then the people who teach classes will have to do a better job; write more lecture notes; or create open source textbook - else we won't collect our pay as teachers. This industry is a sick joke: copyright is used so that teachers who are too lazy to develop their own material and don't pay for the texts themselves will assign bland overpriced texts to their captive students.

Scientific Research: Getting rid of copyright here would just accelerate the move towards open access scientific publications. If not for the fact that commercial publishers own the reputations of existing journals, they would be gone already. Scientific information is spread through the internet in preprints and working papers; publishing plays no role.

Software: This is an important industry. And one that can thrive without copyright as the example of open source/free software shows. Nor would the proprietary sector be driven out of existence - technical means of protection would still be available without copyright.

Jeffrey Tucker is back at it.

On tonight's FreeTalkLive (from about 1:06:55 to 1:38:22, again from 1:51:52 and following) the hosts discuss and read Jeff Tucker's entire article Does Innovation Require Property in Ideas? on the air (Tucker's article discusses Boldrin & Levine's Against Intellectual Monopoly). A very lively discussion ensues including--surprise!--a patent lawyer who calls in to meekly support patent law (and also some kind of limits on how much money doctors can spend on marketing... hunh?). (HT to Manuel Lora.)

(Cross-posted on Mises Blog.)

Interesting blog musings on IP by Vincent McAffrey, in "Newton's Fig."

I cannot tell whether he is anti-IP or not, but he seems to be leaning that way.

From Joe Schembrie to Jeffrey Tucker to me, a quote from the autobiography of Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer and designer of the Apple I and II computers.

"It's funny, I think back on it now -- the Apple II would turn out to be one of the most successful products of all time. But we had no copyrights or patents at all back then. No secrets. We were just showing it to everybody." (p.195)

Do we want people to make products or engage in legal shenanigans? Although who knows...maybe the legal minds invested in patent law would be out running Ponzi games if they weren't so busy figuring out how to steal other people's inventions.

In Patent Law: Global Economic Slowdown Edition, one patent practitioner comments:

"International patent filings under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) grew by 2.4% in 2008, to nearly 164,000 1 applications. While the rate of growth was modest, as compared to an average 9.3% rate of growth in the previous three years, the total number of applications for 2008 represents the highest number of applications received under the PCT in a single year. Continued use of the PCT, a cornerstone of the international patent system, indicates that companies recognize the importance of sustained investment in research, development and innovation to remain competitive even within challenging economic conditions."

Interesting patent-lawyer spin, in the bolded words--i.e., PATENTING = INNOVATING.

Steven Pearlstein writes to oppose a proposed merger between drug giants Pfizer and Wyeth link here. His grounds are that the industry has been merging to stay profitable through the establishment of product monopolies rather than competing to produce new and better products. The whole point of drug patents is to foster innovation, so Pearlstein is dead right, though as he implies, rather late in the day after the growth of conglomerates has already sharply reduced competition.

Eric Pfanner devotes a column to the war between downloaders and the music companies link here. He has apparently reported frequently on the subject and here reviews the field after calling our attention to the Isle of Man which proposes on grounds of "tax efficiency" to put a small tax on the fee its citizens pay their internet service providers. The pot would be divided up according to the number of downloads and given to the copyright holder. Similar ideas have been proposed before. The companies are opposed so far.

Short of getting rid of copyright on music, this compromise might not be bad, if the fee charged remains low. In fact the island's government could push the issue by imposing it and not preventing non-islanders from down-loading, creating a sort of national Pirate Bay. How long could the companies hold out?