From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Thu Dec 30 1999 - 08:26:00 MST
On 24 Dec 1999, Hal Finney wrote:
> > The key problem is: who if anyone can be trusted to make the needed
> > judgement calls about what sorts of patents to allow where and when?
>
>Rather than focusing on the role of governments and courts in enforcement,
>I would pull back and look at it as a social issue. Does society want
>to create property rights in intellectual space?
I think it is the same question. There are costs and benefits to
creating property rights, and the main cost driver is defining and
enforcing the desired property rights.
>But the same question and the same mechanism applies to property rights
>in physical space as well. ... distrust of governments
>should not cause us to reject the notion of property rights a priori.
Yes, any difference between physical and intellectual property
is in the details, not in the general idea of property.
>patents ... are like intellectual homesteading. ...
>This sounds simple, but obviously there would be many ambiguities
>possible. What constitutes use of the land, how much land can one person
>reasonably claim, where are the boundaries? ... in today's competitive
>world, if there comes a time when physical homesteading becomes a
>significant phenomenon (say, to colonize other planets), I believe we
>will see a much more difficult and troublesome set of questions arise.
US frontier homesteading was very competitive, and there were great
problems in enforcing the laws that were written then.
>Especially with the aid of automated systems, robots, nanotech and the
>like, physical homesteading is going to be in many ways just as full of
>ambiguities and difficulties as intellectual homesteading.
There will be more ambiguities, but I don't think they would be anywhere
near as difficult as with patents today.
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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