Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggleton
patent trolls are just like copyright holders yes?
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Not at all. Patent trolls are as close to the definition of evil as you can get on the business world. They impose
huge costs on society as a whole - destroying billions of dollars in value (the Boston University paper I just linked estimates something on the order of
$80 billion dollars per year!) with lawsuits over vague concepts.
Copyright, on the other hand, is a much trickier issue - especially when it comes to fiction. I just can't call an author evil because he wants to make money out of his work. And the fact that Stephen King holds the copyright to his novels doesn't prevent anyone else from writing another novel (now, if you could patent "a process of creating a written work of fiction using pen and paper" - now
that would halt progress).
Of course, copyright laws have been abused, and its
extensions are highly objectionable. But this doesn't put them on the same level as patent trolls.
If I'd the choice, I'd probably get rid of patents altogether (or, severely limit them), but keep copyright (in a more limited form, too). See also the excellent
Launching the Innovation Renaissance, for a [moderate] libertarian perspective on the issue of innovation.