Against Intellectual Monopoly

"Monopoly corrupts, absolute monopoly corrupts absolutely."

[final online version January 2, 2008; the print version is available from Cambridge University Press, Amazon and hopefully your local bookstore.]
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Coming soon: The Paperback

Reviews:
Stephen Spear November 2007 review in the Focus
Konstantin Sonin July 2008 review in Vedomosti a translation of sorts here
Crosbie Fitch July 2008 review in Digital Productions
Alex Tabarrok August 2008 review in Marginal Revolution
at The Cato Institute November 2008
Jeffrey Tucker January 2009 review on the Mises Blog
Alistair Kelman June 2009 review on www.alikelman.com
George Leef October 2009 review at Cato
Richard Gilbert June 2011 Journal of Economic Literature
David Gordon June 2011 Mises Daily

It is common to argue that intellectual property in the form of copyright and patent is necessary for the innovation and creation of ideas and inventions such as machines, drugs, computer software, books, music, literature and movies. In fact intellectual property is a government grant of a costly and dangerous private monopoly over ideas. We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is not necessary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty.

Credits (pdf)
Chapter 1: Introduction (pdf)
An overview of the central theme: intellectual property is in fact intellectual monopoly and hinders rather than helps innovation and creation.
Chapter 2: Creation Under Competition (pdf)
Would the world be devoid of great or lesser works of art without copyright?
Chapter 3: Innovation Under Competition (pdf)
What would happen to innovation without patents?
Chapter 4: The Evil of Intellectual Monopoly (pdf)
Why are patents so bad anyway?
Chapter 5: The Devil in Disney (pdf)
What is the big deal with copyright?
Chapter 6: How Competition Works (pdf)
How would artists and innovators get paid without copyrights and patents?
Chapter 7: Defenses of Intellectual Monopoly (pdf)
What is the conventional wisdom and why it is wrong.
Chapter 8: Does Intellectual Monopoly Increase Innovation? (pdf)
This is the heart of the matter: there is no evidence that intellectual monopoly serves the purpose that both the U.S. Constitution and economic logic dictates. There is no evidence it "works" to increase creation and innovation.
Chapter 9: The Pharmaceutical Industry (pdf)
But what about life-saving drugs?
Chapter 10: The Bad, the Good, and the Ugly (pdf)
A look at various policy options.
References (pdf)

entire book as a single file (pdf)

Previous Version

Errata for First Hardback Edition:

From Stephen Hines: page 3 of chapter 10 refers to the patenting of story lines having been allowed by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), in awarding a patent to Mr. Andrew Knight. This appears to be a copy of the USPTO's response. It clearly reject the application in its entirety, and indeed contains a cogent analysis of why it is a bad idea. (David: I particularly like the bit about the rabbit in the white hat in Huckleberry Finn.)
from Matt Fredenburg: rent seek appears also as rentseek and rent-seek
also from Matt:

Pg. 77 "relative to a word' should be "relative to a world"

Pg. 80 "Microsoft is adding at least 1,000 a months" should be "a month"

Pg. 81 "We have 10,000 patents - it's and awful lot of patents" should be "an awful lot"

Pg. 114 "this kind of proposals" should be "these kind."

Pg. 115 "power of internet" should be "power of the Internet"

Pg. 129 "Tape recorders and DVD players single purpose devices designed to play media content." should be "are single purpose devices"

Pg. 139 "without preventing other from" should be "without preventing others from."

Pg. 142 "how much would have a publisher be willing to pay us" should be "how much would a publisher have to be willing to pay us"

Pg. 143 "Hence, when private property will sell now and in the future." is not a sentence

Pg. 169 "is a socially valuable institutions." should be "institution"

Pg. 196 "would increase the size of the market of about fifty percent" should be "market about fifty percent."

Pg. 198 "Precious few examples of what the externalities might be that involve ideas" would be more clearly stated as "Precious few examples exist of externalities that involve ideas"

Pg. 221 "It is interesting to looks at the residual" should be "look at the residual"

Pg. 246 "risk the chance of loosing everything to a more powerful" should be "losing" not "loosing"

Pg. 255 "has been rising of only 6%" should be "has risen only 6%"

Pg. 287 "how can tell if I just reverse-engineered" should be "how could you tell if I just reverse-engineered"

Pg. 287 "or I discovered by myself?" would be better as "or whether I had discovered it myself"

Pg. 295 "Subsides for Innovation and Creation" should be "Subsidies"
from Patrick Harazin: Chapter 9, p. 265 cites a paper by Hughes, Moore, and Snyder as being by Hugh [sic], Moore, and Snyder (http://www.nber.org/papers/w9229). This error also appears in the footnotes, but not the list of references.
PAGE 20, THIRD PARAGRAPH

- first line, delete “luminaries”
- second to fourth line, delete text from “armed with …” to “…how it works,”
PAGE 61, TITLE OF SUBSECTION
It should be “hortalizas” and not “hortalezas”.
PAGE 79-80

- Third TO last line of page 79 to sixth line of page 80: delete text from “The word …” to “ … we stop here.”
PAGE 81, PARAGRAPH BEFORE LAST QUOTED TEXT

- Delete the words “astounding” and “of American intellectual imperialism”
PAGE 82, SECOND PARAGRAPH

- Delete text from “The federal judges …” to “ the lowest courts.”
PAGE 83, FIRST PARAGRAPH

- Delete text from “Why bother with …” to “contributed to create?”
PAGE 86, FIRST LINE AFTER FIRST QUOTATION

- “Exand” should be “expand”
- Last quotation is missing the closing of “ ”
PAGE 88, THIRD PARAGRAPH

- Delete text from “because after all …” to “that dumb;”
PAGE 89, THIRD PARAGRAPH

- Delete text from “”Being a monopolist” …” to “more ridiculous, scale.”
PAGE 90, LAST PARAGRAPH

- Delete text from “The private sector…” to “… dumbness.”
PAGE 105, FOOTNOTE 21

- The fourth line says “rulings were”, it should say “rulings, which were”
PAGE 123, SECOND PARAGRAPH

- Delete footnote 2. This is footnote 2 of Chapter 6.
PAGE 151, SECOND PARAGRAPH

- Delete text from “needs not be …” to “… like. It”