Topic: Intellectual Property

Quotes

F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit (1988)

• I doubt whether there exists a single great work of literature which we would not possess had the author been unable to obtain an exclusive copyright for it; it seems to me that the case for copyright must rest almost entirely on the circumstance that such exceedingly useful works as encyclopaedias, dictionaries, textbooks and other works of reference could not be produced if, once they existed, they could freely be reproduced.#

Bruno Leoni, Freedom and the Law (1961)

• A purported analogy between scarce things like arable land and abundant things like moonlight has always been a good reason in the eyes of many people for maintaining that the “have-nots” have been “constrained” by the “haves”, that the latter have illicitly deprived the former of certain things originally “common” to all men.#

Elinor Ostrom & Charlotte Hess, “Ideas, Artifacts, and Facilities: Information as Common Pool Resource” (2003)

• One of the essential elements of copyright—the right to control reproduction—works as expected in the world of traditional media, where there is an obvious distinction between access and reproduction and where the copyright owner’s control of reproduction provides just that. But in the digital world, where no access is possible except by copying, complete control of copying would mean control of access as well.#