Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Copyright: Copyright is a legal concept granting creators exclusive rights to their original works, such as writings, music, art, or software. It provides control over reproduction, distribution, adaptation, and public display of the work, protecting against unauthorized use. See also Authorship._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Murray N. Rothbard on Copyright - Dictionary of Arguments
Rothbard III 745 Patents/copyright/Rothbard: Almost all writers have bracketed patents and copyrights together. Most have considered both as grants of exclusive monopoly privilege by the State; a few have considered both as part and parcel of property right on the free market. But almost everyone has considered patents and copyrights as equivalent: the one as conferring an exclusive property right in the field of mechanical inventions, the other as conferring an exclusive right in the field ofliterary creations.(1) RothbardVs: Yet this bracketing of patents and copyrights is wholly fallacious; the two are completely different in relation to the free market. It is true that a patent and a copyright are both exclusive property rights and it is also true that they are both property rights in innovations. But there is a crucial difference in their legal enforcement. If an author or a composer believes his copyright is being infringed, and he takes legal action, he must "prove that the defendant had 'access' to the work allegedly infringed. If the defendant produces something identical with the plaintiff's work by mere chance, there is no infringement."(2) >Patents/Rothbard. Rothbard III 746 Books: (…) the author does not sell his property outright to the buyer; he sells it on condition that the buyer not reproduce it for sale. Since the buyer does not buy the property outright, but only on this condition, any infringement of the contract by him or a subsequent buyer is implicit theft and would be treated accordingly on the free market. The copyright is therefore a logical device of property right on the free market. >Free market/Rothbard. Patents: Part of the patent protection now obtained by an inventor could be achieved on the free market by a type of "copyright" protection. Thus, inventors must now mark their machines as being patented. Rothbard III 747 Inventions/copyright/patent/Rothbard: The application of patents to mechanical inventions and copyrights to literary works is peculiarly inappropriate. It would be more in keeping with the free market to be just the reverse. For literary creations are unique products of the individual; it is almost impossible for them to be independently duplicated by someone else. Rothbard III 748 Therefore, a patent, instead of a copyright, for literary productions would make little difference in practice. On the other hand, mechanical inventions are discoveries of natural law rather than individual creations, and hence similar independent inventions occur all the time.(3) The simultaneity of Inventions is a familiar historical fact. Hence, if it is desired to maintain a free market, it is particularly important to allow copyrights, but not patents, for mechanical inventions. >Inventions. 1. Irving Mandell, How to Protect and Patent Your Invention (New York: Oceana Publishers, 1951), p. 34. 2. This can be seen in the field of designs, which can be either copyrighted or patented. 3. For a legal hint on the proper distinction between copyright and monopoly, see F.E. Skone James, “Copyright” in Encyclopedia Britannica (14th ed.; London, 1929), VI, 415–16. For the views of nineteenth-century economists on patents, see Fritz Machlup and Edith T. Penrose, “The Patent Controversy in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Economic History, May, 1950, pp. 1–29. Also see Fritz Machlup, An Economic Review of the Patent System (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1958)._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Rothbard II Murray N. Rothbard Classical Economics. An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham 1995 Rothbard III Murray N. Rothbard Man, Economy and State with Power and Market. Study Edition Auburn, Alabama 1962, 1970, 2009 Rothbard IV Murray N. Rothbard The Essential von Mises Auburn, Alabama 1988 Rothbard V Murray N. Rothbard Power and Market: Government and the Economy Kansas City 1977 |
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