The challenge of copyrights

page 74, Intellectual property and open source By Van Lindberg

The “individual” economic benefits of copyright discussed in Chapter 1 are build on controlling expression, while the "aggregate economic" social and cultural benefits of copyright are based upon shared expression.


This problem of control puts copyright into a difficult economic position, comparable to the original market failure that prompted the development of copyright. Of course this is an issue with patents too, but the much shorter term of patent protection mitigates the problem. In the copyright world, the combination of strong controls, long term, and widespread incentives to share sets up a persistent unstable dynamic.


To clarify I added "comments" to the quote.
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Shared information grows quickly. Where as controlled and restricted information is forgotten. Information is not a traditional resource which is reduced by consumption. Rather information grows through is consumption and reuse.

As the IT industry long discovered with IBM as good example, information in the form of software is difficult to sell. However the service of creating, refining and applying the information is highly profitable. The success of GNU software is much due to that shared expression creates a much aggregate economic benefit and as result faster growth. To maximum profits many companies have chosen to take a smaller piece of the fast growing shared information rather than taking slowly growing proprietor pie.

The economic model that relies on controlled expression is further complicated by the fact that no one owns all the information upon which their improvements/refinements are based.

Copyright is an important tool to insure due credit is given to the contributors and to insure open access required for future contributions. Copyrights perform other roles as well, but these are probably the two most important roles.

Timothy Webster
Green Party Candidate for Richmond Delta