Intellectual Property in an Unequal society

What People Say..

2006-02-05T19:27:00.000-08:00

Here is what people said when we posted our idea on the orkut communities.

Our intro was:
Now, lets put this down simply, Intellectual Property Rights is exploiting The Global Economy.
We are talking about knowledge that is not free and therefore, involves a cost of entry for those who require the Knowhow. So when countries cannot afford them, they lose competitiveness to the Market and if at all they can afford to pay the innovator, they have to forego a considerable part of their wealth, which is being accumulated by the innovators(persons, firms, countries). And only those able to commit good amount of resources are endowed with such capability, which forever leads to backwardness of the backward and also the accumulation of wealth among the very few who have the means to commit such resources...
As the saying goes, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

the responses we got:

"Well, dont u think that creating true knowledge is the most difficult think to do. And what do u expect !! They should just give up their efforts for free !!
Secondly, u making the knowledge public u r just taking the incentive away from the inventor(s). Without incentives no one would invent."

"narrow and essencial inventions 1/20/2006 2:08 PM
Shiraz and Jaleel, I partially agree with both of you. The Patent system certanlly helps to protect the investments in innovation, on the other hand, the pile of patents become a wall against new players (mainly from less developed countries).
It is certainly important to have a sort of Patent system, but I think that the current system is inefficient and unbearable on the long run because it accepts all kinds of claims (even very narrow ones) with out taking into account the counter-productive side of “protecting” a certain invention."
I’ve worked for 9 years in software development and just recently I knew that some very basic features of software (like the “mouse pointer” or “progression bar”) have patents on them. If I had to spend for the “right” to use those patents, or the penalty for breaking them, at this point I would probably have had negative salary in the end of the year.
What do you think?

"This is one of the reasons, why it is negated in Islamic System, i.e Khilafah.

Knowledge, is cannot be made copywrite, and people should have free access to it.

As for those who authors and people who devote time and skills in writting books, etc, the Islamic State, gives them assistance.

This is yet another, point, which shows how the Revival of an Islamic State, i.e Khilafah, will seek to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor.

If you do not reward those who put resources into research and development, how do you think that you can advance on a larger scale?"

"You are right. But to which extent the innovators are to be rewarded? If they get too much, this new knowledge will have low aggregate value as it's not available to a large base of people. It they get too little, they won't have the stimuli to keep innovating.

I see this question as a kind of normal curve whose maximizing point must be reached. Extremes never generate good results.

I think some kind of flexible system is required especially to that kind of property related to internationally-consumed goods, as different societies have different real wages and their curves are not equal."

"Unfortunately i would agreet with you. Yet, we can do something about it. Just evade all supposedly new inventions because they mostly are not even as good as they seem. Take for example all the computers in the world. Once you've bought one, you are seeking for another more up-to-date one because purchasing anything new always has an impact on your desire for the latest products on the market. Noone really can copy any intellectually copyrighted items without having violated his nation's laws, yet we could all stand up and simply reject ever spreading non-sense. By the way, what would you need anyone's innovations, if you can be innovative yourself. Some poor people have proven themselves to be competitive although they have started from the bottom with no funding at all. If you cannot compete, you simply have not tried enough yet. If you are at your wits' end, just keep away from innovations and live a simple life. It always helps!"

" i am shocked!

summarising Mr. Christoph - if you are incapable of building your own aircraft or ship, learn to swim across the indian ocean to reach australia. or better, dont even dream of it!

did homo sapiens graduate from cave men to civilization by rejecting the wheel to lead a simple life?

did we come out of the dark ages by rejecting the industrial revolution because everyone couldnt build the steam engine?

about intelectual property - human knowldge is the property of the world... but to acquire any property you have to make an investment. if you take something, you have to repay in some form."

"cf. my previous articles on why patents are a bad idea, but if we remove at least the most aburd IP laws, what was traditionally protected was not general knowledge, but the result of RESEARCH and DEVELOPMENT, which is something entirely different.

Theoretically, the owner of such knowledge is free to hide it and not make it accessible. that would be entirely legitimate.

The idea behind IP laws is - as they say - to incite the holders of useful information to make it accessible, while being protected against direct theft of the result of their labor.

There are many problems with that idea and in particular with the implementation, but morally speaking, to pretend that there is "free knowledge" is absurd. NOTHING is every "free". All knowledge required labor for its discovery and its communication."

Free Culture...

2006-01-04T10:09:00.000-08:00

Ok here is some oraganisation that is into what we are looking at... Free music, free arts, free knowledge...

Its a student movement, though named international, still has to move on to actually become one... But the website is real good. they have all the info, a very active blog that is updated regularly and have a very detailed and well orgainsed "get involved" page, which could be useful for anyone interested in getting involved.. For more about them, read their manifesto..

go to their blog at http://www.freeculture.org/blog

go to their site at http://freeculture.org

Hows Inequality Relevant to the debate?

2006-01-01T08:16:00.000-08:00

Relating Inequality to the topic, it can be claimed that Intellectual Property Rights have a considerable role in spreading inequality in this World. Here we are looking at the specific advantages the innovator or artist enjoy, with which he /she is able to mint money out of the work.
When such an innovation or work of art is sold, a portion of the wealth of the buyer is transferred to the artist or innovator. This may seem a harmless transaction. Maybe when some prominent industrialist invests in art, it may be a harmless one. But, when we are looking at technology and products that are going to make a considerable difference to the masses, the transaction is far from harmless. Here, the buyers are to pay an undue premium to the innovator, by which, a portion of the wealth is changing hands.
Now, take the case of middle class or the poor, whose only access to such critical technology, is to pay the undue premiums and get them. In this case, a portion( here, a considerable one) of the wealth of the individual is transferred to the innovator. And in the macro perspective, where all those who are in need of such technology, are going to pay the innovator and access it, the wealth of the whole populace is getting accumulated in the hands of the innovator. This is called accumulation of wealth, and that is where the headache lies, since this causes the rise in inequality.
An example could be Pharma companies that sell AIDS drugs in Africa. It could be that this firm has protected the particular technology and is in the market as a monopoly player. People would have no other way but to access the technology by paying the premium, by which the firm is able to accumulate wealth from the hands of the already poverished and disadvantaged. Even if it is fully or partly sponsored by the Government, here, the wealth is being transferred from the Government to the shareholders of the firm. Here again we should realise that a poorer society is being robbed by an advantaged one, thereby causing a rise in inequality..
These are the fallacies of an ideology that considers knowledge as capital. And where only the innovator is allowed to use or sell the technology.
Also when there is more wealth and income in a economy, it is more likely to have better technology, because of the investment it can make in innovation. But in case of disadvantaged economies, they can barely afford to do so. In that case they have to buy it from the economy that innovates, whereby, the wealth of the disadvantaged society is being transferred to the innovating economy. Also, the wealthier economy, with their technology, is able to generate more and more wealth that widens the inequality gap. The same theory applies to micro units in the economy like households and firms..
And as the saying goes, "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer"

Eh.. Inequality? Whats that?

2005-12-29T08:47:00.000-08:00

According to UN Human Development Report, the combined wealth of 358 Global billionares equal the combined incomes (note the two different usages, 'wealth' and 'income') of 2.3 billion poorest people(45% of World Population).

As in the diagram, we can see that while there are just a handful of people in the upper level of society, they corner most of the World's wealth, while the poorest are left with an undue proportion. And in the middle lies people like you and me, among whom, the rest of the wealth is distributed. Here we are looking at a hypothetical situation, which is by and large the trend in almost all the economies of the World. While Socialism and Communism attempted to solve this problem of inequality by radical measures, inequality remained by ways of Political Leaders using influence to amass Wealth. This diagram clearly depicts the situation where the poor are too many but get too little and the rich are to little but get too many, with the Middle Class in between. Here again we see that the population is more than the proportion of Wealth and Income it commands.
Inequality can be among, both among countries and among people. It is quite obvious that the G8 controls most of the Wealth of the World, thereby influencing tremendous Influence, both political and economical. It can be argued that it was colonialism and the ensuing neo-colonialism that led to this massive accumulation of Wealth.However, that is not the subject of debate here.
Economic Inequality can be classified into:
1. Income Inequality
2. Inequality of Wealth
3. Inequality of Opportunity
4. Technological Inequality

1. Income Inequality: The primary inequality component, this means the inequality of income among people or households because of the differences in types and intensities of Work the worker is involved in. Though equality is impractical, we need to stress on equitablity of Income.

2. Inequality of Wealth: Also a primary component of inequality, this refers to the wealth holdings that each class of people have with them. Here wealth is either inherited or accumulated by other means in the hands of the owner. This means too little own too many and have the capacity to own a large gross of resources, while the poor, are deprieved of the essential, basic needs.

3. Inequality of Opportunity: This means that every individual may not be blessed with the same opportunities as the other. This would mean that while those with opportunity tap it, and move up the Social and Economic Ladder, while the ones with inadequate opportunity may lag behind. We find that it is generally Income Inequality and Inequality of Wealth that largely results in this phenomenon. The rich have better access to Social Infrastructure like Education and Social Networks with which they develop their competency, and thereby their Wealth creating capacity. Governments and Social structure also influence this phenomenon, where those who get the support are endowed with better opportunity and the ability to swap it, unlike the others who are unable to do so. Also market bias can cause such inequality. For example, there is great demand for Good X in Country A. Farmers in country B and country C have the opportunity to supply the demand. However, there is a free trade agreement between country A and country C, which gives farmers in country C, an edge over country B. In that case, there is an unequal proposition. Here, this Inequality, leads to inequality of Income and Wealth among countries B and C.

4. Technological Inequality: This is a state at which newer and more sopisticated means of doing things are reachable to only a hand full of countries, corporations and people, while the rest are left in the dark. This is a secondary point that should inevitably be addressed in this era of fast paced technological growth. While the richer parties develop new technologies and processes, and multiply their Wealth and wellbeing, the poor are left at the mercy of such parties. In the words of Z. Eisenstein(1), ' The phrase 'World Wide Web' images the World about as accurately as the baseball phrase 'The World Series'. In the latter case, only US baseball teams compete. In the former case, only about 40 percent of the World's population even has daily access to electricity.'
While the poor have no means to even basic necessities, let alone technology, they are left, generally with little option, but to access essential technology, paying high premium to the innovators. In such a transaction, a portion of the meagre wealth of the poor is transferred to the wealthy. A typical example would be Life saving drugs. The suffering poor in Africa are left with no choice but to access essential drugs at high costs. Here, apart from the actual costs of the medicines, they are charged huge, undue premiums for the technology. Here, a part of the meagre wealth of the poor, is being snatched away by the rich, which in turn is accumulated in the hands of the shareholders of the Company concerned. If part or whole of the transaction is paid up by the respective government, then again, the Wealth of the system is being transferred to the shareholders of the pharma co concerned.

(1)Z.Eisenstein: Global Obscenities:Patriarchy, Capitalism and the Lure of Cyberfantasy, New York University Press, 1998

Read more about Economic Inequality @ Wikipedia

Our Objective...

2005-12-28T04:04:00.000-08:00

This initiative of ours is a study we are bringing out for a paper which we are working on, that explains the role of Intellectual Property Rights, in the spread of poverty. We are studying the effect of the capitalist idea of treating knowledge as Capital. This paper is to be presented in the National Symposium, conducted by the Department of Economics, of our college. The theme of the symposium is, "Poverty in the Era of Globalization". So, we will focus on the effects of Intellectual Property Rights in a Globalized system, where a considerable part of our populace is in poverty and forever subjected to it. Of course there are many reasons for the massive inequality between the haves and have nots. But here we study the role and part of IPR, specifically in subjecting the poor to further poverty while the rich get richer.

Intellectual property in an Unequal Society

2005-12-18T07:29:00.000-08:00

Now, lets put this down simply, Intellectual Property Rights is exploiting The Global Economy.
We are talking about knowledge that is not free and therefore, involves a cost of entry for those who require the Knowhow. So when countries cannot afford them, they lose competitiveness to the Market and if at all they can afford to pay the innovator, they have to forego a considerable part of their wealth, which is being accumulated by the innovators(persons, firms, countries). And only those able to commit good amount of resources are endowed with such capability, which forever leads to backwardness of the backward and also the accumulation of wealth among the very few who have the means to commit such resources...
As the saying goes, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

Who We Are

2005-12-17T08:17:00.000-08:00

Now, first of all, a little about us, all three of us, Alex, Nivesh and Jaleel are classmates, in our 2nd Year of our B.A. in Economics. We study in Loyola College, Chennai, India. Three of us, rather coincidentally happen to be Mallus. However it is appropriate to identify ourselves with the the cities we belong to. Alex is from Dubai, Jaleel from Trivandrum and Nivesh from Hyderabad. A little specifics about ourselves:

Alex: An Extremely brilliant chap from Dubai, quite contemporary and is in some way involved in one thing or the other. He is the person to watch out for, he is a silent killer. Always upto some idea or the other, he is still in a dilema whether he should go on to B-School or do a Masters in Economics.

Nivesh: A very easy going chap, dont ask him where the road leads to; he does not care. Seems he has a pretty huge range of Nike and Reebok shoes and Tees. He is our typical one minute manager, its amazing how he delivers the results with so little foresight. He plans to go on to B-School after graduation.

Jaleel: A chap with a little too much of foresight, he is one of the types who would have very neat plans for the future, but has hardly any idea what he is going to do today. One person you wouldnt want to talk to about God, Girls, Movies etcetra. He says he plans to do an MSc in Applied Economics. Wonder where he got that fancy name from....