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Against Monopoly

defending the right to innovate

Monopoly corrupts. Absolute monopoly corrupts absolutely.

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John Bennett

Michele Boldrin

Monopoly Buster

Daniel Dobkin

Paul Grootendorst

Alistair Kelman

Stephan Kinsella

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David K. Levine

Justin Levine

Andrea Moro

Meera Nair

Michael Perelman

Sheldon Richman

Marcus Salomonsson

Keith Sawyer

Stephen Spear

Bill Stepp

William Stepp

William Stepp

Christian Zimmermann





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Copyright Notice: We don't think much of copyright, so you can do what you want with the content on this blog. Of course we are hungry for publicity, so we would be pleased if you avoided plagiarism and gave us credit for what we have written. We encourage you not to impose copyright restrictions on your "derivative" works, but we won't try to stop you. For the legally or statist minded, you can consider yourself subject to a Creative Commons Attribution License.

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Intellectual Property Run Amok

An interesting set of facts from Mother Jones (hattip: Larry Lessig). They don't seem to understand the distinction between intellectual property which is about controlling ideas, and trademark which is about controlling your identity. While there are excesses in trademark law as enforced by the courts, the basic idea is sound, and any court system is bound to have imperfections.

[Posted at 03/19/2006 02:36 PM by David K. Levine on IP in the News comments(1)]

Ed Felten's Blog

Ed Felten examines how the law and technology such as DRM impact our freedom to tinker and improve software. Felten is a computer scientist and his blog is particularly good probing the technical details of how things work - or don't work.

[Posted at 03/17/2006 08:57 AM by David K. Levine on Blogroll comments(0)]

Larry Lessig's blog

Larry Lessig examines copyright issues and the current excesses of copyright length and digital rights management.

[Posted at 03/17/2006 08:42 AM by David K. Levine on Blogroll comments(0)]

Sony-BMG

The Sony-BMG fiasco has demolished one argument for obtaining music legally rather than illegally over P2P networks. The RIAA advises against using file sharing networks because "file-sharers' computers are vulnerable to the viruses infecting other machines on the P2P networks." Leaving aside just how great this vulnerability is - F-Secure reports that there are no viruses to infect MP3 audio files - Sony-BMG has handily demolished this argument by planting its own malware on users computers.

[Posted at 11/29/2005 05:46 PM by David K. Levine on DRM comments(0)]

Marketing and the 9/11 Report

Eric Rasmusen has a nice post about the role of marketing in generating profit to cover the fixed cost of innovation. The model works well, for example, explaining how W.W. Norton profited from the 9/11 Commission Report, even though there was no copyright.

[Posted at 10/11/2005 11:03 AM by David K. Levine on Was Napster Right? comments(0)]

The Microsoft Thought Police

In the war on thought thieves thought police must be the logical next step.

[Posted at 05/14/2005 10:57 AM by David K. Levine on IP in the News comments(0)]

Spanish Language Overview of Boldrin & Levine on IP

Courtesy of Juan Dubra and his students. The article is here.

[Posted at 02/14/2005 06:24 PM by David K. Levine on Against IM comments(0)]

Has Disney Bought the Courts Along with Congress

An essay on Mickey Mouse and the economics of retroactive copyright.

[Posted at 10/14/2004 10:47 AM by David K. Levine on Was Napster Right? comments(0)]

Winners and Losers from Piracy

If you have been to the movies lately, you have probably seen the MPAA anti-piracy video. The party line is that piracy hurts the ordinary working employee. Economics shows clearly that Southpark has it right: in fact the ordinary employee has little to fear - it is the highly paid employee who is at risk. For details, click here.

[Posted at 08/30/2004 03:20 PM by David K. Levine on Was Napster Right? comments(0)]

How Effective is DRM?

CNET News is reporting that the copy protected album Contraband by Velvet Revolver is topping the U.S. charts - the first DRM protected CD to do so. Bear in mind that this is the copy protection that can be disabled by holding down the shift key on your keyboard while inserting the disk. Has it had a big impact on piracy? I was able to download working MP3 copies of the songs on the album from gnutella in less time than it would take to drive to the store, buy the CD, and drive home. They have, apparently, managed to annoy some Apple customers with the DRM though.

[Posted at 06/18/2004 12:03 PM by David K. Levine on DRM comments(0)]

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Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
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Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
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Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
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Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
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Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
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Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
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Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
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Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
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Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
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Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
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Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
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Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
at 07/29/2026 04:57 AM by Anonymous

Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
at 07/29/2026 04:57 AM by Anonymous

Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
at 07/29/2026 04:57 AM by Anonymous

Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
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Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
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Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty test
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Pimps and Ferrets: Copyright and Culture in the United States, 1831-1891 test
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Pimps and Ferrets: Copyright and Culture in the United States, 1831-1891 test
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Pimps and Ferrets: Copyright and Culture in the United States, 1831-1891 test
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Boldrin and Levine Against Intellectual Monopoly

Stephan Kinsella Against Intellectual Property

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