Intellectual property rights are supposed to give people incentives to innovate. That’s the cherished grand narrative. But what’s actually happening on the ground? A dispatch by Steve Lohr in today’s NYT suggests that the edifice of IP law may be killing basic research in the cradle:

The legal wrangling over intellectual property rights [...]

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I’m coming to think that the mainstream media just may be coming around. Instead of reflexively bashing any person who copies as a “pirate,” a few reporters at The New York Times are actually entertaining the idea that copying, emulation, adaptation, etc. may be essential to creativity and culture. This is progress.
Exhibit A [...]

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Everyone is utterly familiar with the market narrative for how “value” is created through property rights, contracts and money. But we have far fewer stories, let alone rigorous analyses, about how social communities create value – and how that value can be retained by those communities (GPL and CC licenses are two key tools, [...]

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