Chomsky on Intellectual Property

To his point, in the last 30 years, we've slashed taxes for the rich and really slashed welfare. Shouldn't the poor be picking themselves up by their bootstraps by now? Or is something a little more robust than "I don't even need to know the details, the problem is SOCIALISM and the solution is FREEDOM" required?

And meanwhile, none of this has anything to do with the very real problem of FDA regulatory reform. You haven't laid out the first reason why I wouldn't be poisoned by a bottle of cough syrup from duane reade or why it should be on me vs the drug company to prove that their cough syrup is safe.

I suppose we could always have a company that was in charge of rating drugs, and the drug companies could pay them for ratings, like AAA and BBB. I mean, it works for the financial industry, right?

Because private companies would be willing to throw money into the wind to fund research. The concept's been proven, the risky part is over; although not necessarily the difficult part.

That's the early Google, Facebook etc. for you. Of course most of such ventures fail, but sometimes they get it done and gain traction.

I guess his argument is based on the premise it takes organization on scale of a state (country) to be able to organize broad-sweeping long-term research in areas that don't look promising at first. Without the sight of immediately sellable product or service. Businesses seem to be more oriented towards research that improves incrementally something that's already somewhat known.

I was going to write Bell Labs were one of notable exceptions, but then I realized they got much state funding for research related to military.

> artists earn money by performing

What you're saying, in economic terms, is that musicians have rivalrous, excludable goods they can produce: the concert experience.

That's not bad, although it would have the IMO negative effect of leaving the Brian Wilson (much more oriented towards studio work than touring) types between a rock and a hard place.

Authors don't really have that: they could sign books, but that would reduce their income drastically, as most copies would be freely had.

> Open source developers earn money by utilizing their knowledge and skill in paid-for projects.

As for the open source developers, but WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM in those paid-for projects? Scarcity is where it comes from, and often, they're getting paid to work on open source by someone who deals in the artificial scarcity of intellectual property.

In the state of Tennessee, where I live, there is currently a debate about repealing some laws that regulate the sale of wine, which would allow grocery stores to sell it. Polls put 70% of consumers favoring the measure. Arguments are being made mostly by liquor & wine store owners and employees that they have spent decades building their businesses based on the current legal environment, and that it is unfair to expose them to this competition. They're also arguing that service quality will be lowered, because the mass market grocery stores do not have the kind of expertise the current stores have in their product. They argue that local jobs will be lost. Church leaders are arguing that it will expose alcoholics to temptation they will not be able to resist. To these people, it is just unfathomable to change what exists now because it seems to work best for them. They have already resigned themselves that there is no possible way it could be any better any other way and they will fight it irrationally until the bitter end. My girlfriend and her father work at the largest liquor store in Tennessee. Toting the short-sighted company line, most of the employees are against the repeal.

Most liquor & wine stores ONLY exist because of these protection laws, and many of them are expensive and poorly ran. Very few of them can actually make the argument that their expertise or service sets them aside. Other burdensome regulations such as required distance from churches, schools, and other liquor stores are anti-urban and basically make certain locations extremely lucrative for the owners as they operate somewhat of a local monopoly and are grandfathered in. These people will go out of business. Successful stores can't even create multiple locations, so the best businesses in this arena are unable to scale.

There is a strong correlation between availability of wine and increased consumption. When overall consumption increases, the distributors stand to increase their revenues substantially, and overall the better liquor & wine stores that have increased selection and service will continue to stay where they are for the most part, if not see increases, even in the face of stiff competition from grocery stores. Grocery stores will likely focus on low margin, commodity wines that make the liquor & wine stores little money. Liquor & wine stores, of course, are viewed as "dirty" establishments and this deters many more conservative consumers from trying a product they may genuinely (and responsibly) enjoy. Just as any argument that protect jobs, their argument for "saving local jobs" is just arguing for robbing Peter to pay Paul. The money to pay these people comes directly from consumers, which means it's diverted from other jobs.

There is also some innovation to be had that will save consumers billions and unleash the potential of specialized stores that sell specialized and/or paired food and wine products. The current distribution model is poor and extremely inefficient. The last 30 years of innovation in supply chain management are missing from the distribution chain. A very small minority of retail stores even use UPC codes to perform computerized inventory & point-of-sale pricing. Even at the largest stores, ordering is done by entirely by hand. Management understands it's inefficient, but there is so much money rolling in, and usually a territory they monopolize, so there's very little incentive to change. Most stores are stocked entirely by the sales staff at distribution companies, based on what creates the most margin for them, not what consumers demand. Grocery stores are simply incompatible with the model that exists now, so the distributors will be forced to modernize to be able to get their product on those shelves.

This is the price we pay for unpopular, overreaching protectionist laws that hold together obsolete business models and rob real innovation and creativity, diverting gigantic sums of capital in unproductive ways and strongly inhibiting consumer choice. The current state of consumer-impacting copyright law holds these media companies together, and just like the wine & liquor stores in Tennessee, they are "fire and brim-stoning" us claiming that all of this high quality music & movies we enjoy will go away. The media companies want us to believe their business model is legitimate, that the choices they make for us are what we actually desire, that copying music and movies that we would otherwise not purchase IS theft and therefore morally wrong, and that the criminal punishment for copyright infringement should continue to massively exceed the act of actual theft from a store.