Reply to post: 1793 - too far behind the times for IP applied to digital artefacts to continue?

1793 - too far behind the times for IP applied to digital artefacts to continue?

In 1793 and thereafter until onset of the digital era matters IP were relatively simple to understand.

Slight correction: arrival of non-messy and cheap to use photocopiers together with home taping set the seal upon nightmares yet to come for IP rentiers. In retrospect, that worry was trivial.

Digitally represented information, regardless of whether conveying entertainment or used as 'recipe' in 3D printing, has turned the tables upon conventional thought about what may be deemed 'property' and how property rights may be protected. At present threat is greatest for digital artefacts covered by copyright. Eventually patents will be damaged and later go into abeyance too. Patents are prone to two kinds of attack.

First, a poor nation might sensibly decide no longer to abide by international conventions; pharmaceutical products being likely precipitating factor. Its leaders if neither 'bought' by IP interests nor within reach of US Marines may do their sums and conclude the national economy (including individual disposable incomes) would be bettered despite invalidation of IP owned by its citizens. Should a major nation, e.g. China or Russia, decide to scrap all IP law (replacing it with entitlement to attribution for creative people), it would be the 'nuclear' economic option; however, despite loud bleating by people whose livelihood depends upon distributing IP 'products', closure of law firms, and loss of sundry middlemen, the entire globe would end up the better for it.

Second, despite patents (including those involving digital artefacts) at present being far more easily enforced than for copyright digital materials, their vulnerability is immense. Automated manufacture is becoming both easier to organise and cheaper to implement; advances in 3D printing presage return to small scale local manufacture to meet local demand: cottage industries. Depending upon complexity of that to be printed and demand level for output of particular physical artefacts, we may expect 3D printing plant to spring up in towns, neighbourhoods, and family residences.

This ubiquity will extend to pharmaceuticals because technology is in the offing to brew drugs etc. in small amounts and bespoke for particular patients. Starting in hospitals this will spread to primary care services, perhaps beyond too.

The point is that 'recipes' can be shared just as at present is the digitised howling of a 'pop star'. Access to required ingredients is unlikely to be difficult; perhaps, spawning further cottage industries.

It's no good jumping up and down complaining about broken law and supposed 'property rights' denied. That which is not enforceable - prospectively or retrospectively - makes for bad law and becomes a matter of personal rather than societal morality.

Inception of the digital era exposed the fundamental flaw in the concept of IP. Hitherto, IP-related products, e.g. books, recorded music, and, latterly, A/V 'content', depended upon being 'inscribed' on a physical medium, e.g. paper and vinyl disk. The medium containing the 'content' could be sold according to traditional market-economics supplemented by legal monopoly protection.

Digitally expressed 'content' no matter upon what inscribed is separable from its physical substrate. Digital sequences cannot be corralled once arriving in public spaces. Sequences, are easily replicated with accuracy and readily distributed electronically with a variety of storage media available. Thus, they lack the "scarcity" necessary for market price-discovery; no amount of legal proscription and technological defences can force digital 'content' back into being ersatz physical property.

Truly creative people will still be able to make a living so long as they convince others to offer patronage for the construction of creative 'content'. Patronage differs from 'investment' because finished products, being digital, possess no intrinsic (scarcity derived) monetary value. The Internet offers global reach in seeking patronage e.g. by crowd funding. Reputation, derived from attribution, underlies a creative person's imagination and skills being marketable (not sale of end products).

Leonardo da Vinci made physical constructs and disseminated ideas. He attracted greater patronage as his reputation spread. Even should it have been feasible, da Vinci, and his ilk, would never have impertinence to demand every viewing of his works, and every 'derivation' from his ideas', attract royalty payment.