Comments on: Tim Lee on Reverse Engineering and Innovation http://madisonian.net/2006/06/21/tim-lee-on-reverse-engineering-and-innovation/ a blog about law, tech, culture, and related things Sat, 11 Feb 2012 02:59:42 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Frank Pasquale http://madisonian.net/2006/06/21/tim-lee-on-reverse-engineering-and-innovation/comment-page-1/#comment-45468 Frank Pasquale Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:34:45 +0000 http://madisonian.net/?p=689#comment-45468 This reminds me of debate over the scope of derivative markets in copyright law. For example, do we want the owners of the Seinfeld copyright to be able to license (or block) unforeseen projects like the Seinfeld Aptitude Test, or do we want a more open policy on derivative works? I might quibble with Lee's point 3; I think companies would be willing to invest more in fields where they knew that they could control all the applications that interoperated with their core application. But I also think that, as a matter of industrial policy, there's no good reason to spur investment in such fields by setting rules that permit or encourage the capture of whole markets. I also think that policy might sensibly take as a desiderata a diversity of interoperating firms (as the French seem to think, too; see http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-France-iTunes-Law.html?_r=1&oref=login This reminds me of debate over the scope of derivative markets in copyright law. For example, do we want the owners of the Seinfeld copyright to be able to license (or block) unforeseen projects like the Seinfeld Aptitude Test, or do we want a more open policy on derivative works?

I might quibble with Lee’s point 3; I think companies would be willing to invest more in fields where they knew that they could control all the applications that interoperated with their core application. But I also think that, as a matter of industrial policy, there’s no good reason to spur investment in such fields by setting rules that permit or encourage the capture of whole markets.

I also think that policy might sensibly take as a desiderata a diversity of interoperating firms (as the French seem to think, too; see
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-France-iTunes-Law.html?_r=1&oref=login

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