Kleinberg and Easley on Networks, Crowds, Markets, and Intellectual Property

Kleinberg (as in the Kleinberg algorithm) and Easley have posted online an amazing book Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World . The last chapter addresses the question of intellectual property, and gives the clearest, most concise summary of costs and benefits I've read in a while. The chapter concludes with the following observation:

[T]he investment in research and development needed to create many patentable commodities is very large relative to the investment needed to create most works of art. The pharmaceutical industry, for example, spends large sums on R&D and it seems likely that this would not occur without the ability to patent discoveries. So the case for restrictive and strongly enforced patent law is more compelling than that for copyright law.

Via Michael Nielsen.

Comments

[Tim Kastelle]

Wow! Thanks for the heads-up on this one!