From: hal@finney.org
Date: Tue Dec 21 1999 - 11:57:22 MST
Lee Crocker writes:
> Grand ideas are no more intrinsicly valuable than manual labor;
> the idea that either has value is the Marxist fallacy. Value comes
> from demand, not labor. Neither labor nor invention should be valued
> or rewarded until it produces something that people want to buy. If
> abolishing the patent system means that grand ideas will be less
> rewarded, I say that's a good thing.
The patent system does not reward ideas, in that no one gets paid when
they receive a patent. It's the other way around, you have to pay to
get one. Hence there is no presumption that ideas have value in the
patent system; patents are granted on worthless ideas with no significant
burden on society.
What the patent system allows is that you can get paid for your idea,
if there is demand for it. Without patents, idea creators can't get
paid (much) for their idea, no matter how much demand there is for it.
This is unlike labor; a great laborer, a skilled craftsman or artist
whose works are in great demand, can receive a corresponding reward.
Each of his works is unique and cannot be reproduced (assuming he is
producing physical objects).
But a great thinker, whose works are solely in the form of information,
faces the problem that his output can be freely duplicated without losing
value. The result is that, unlike the laborer, he cannot receive the
value of what he has produced.
Patents and copyrights are intended to rectify this inequality, by giving
the thinker the same ability to be rewarded for his works as the laborer.
Hal
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