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Open Economies - Re: [OpenEconomies] The role of software in bridging the Digital Divide

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Re: [OpenEconomies] The role of software in bridging the Digital Divide

  • To: openeconomies(at)cyber.law.harvard.edu
  • Subject: Re: [OpenEconomies] The role of software in bridging the Digital Divide
  • From: "Karim R. Lakhani" <lakhani(at)MIT.EDU>
  • Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 00:45:14 -0500
  • Organization: MIT Centre for Ontological Paradoxes
  • References: <20020113024338.13500.qmail@web9507.mail.yahoo.com>
Hello,
Some thoughts:

> As an economist, I find it hard to say that
> intellectual property should be given away for free.
> However, it must be noted that the economics of
> digital assets is very different since cost of
> replication is virtually zero. The standard argument
> in economics is that if IP is not protected, very few
> people would be filling to incur the expense for its
> creation. I think that some economic theory needs to
> be rewritten to come to grips with this issue. Perhaps
> when I do my PhD ;-)

I think the open source movement is showing just the opposite. People
will infact give IP away for free.  They engage in the creation of the
IP for many reasons, the cost to produce and distribute is very low to
almost zero. Traditional IP protections, theory and law were designed to
both spur discloure of the 'useful arts' and as an incentive to
innovate. People need to start think about the current IP 'protection'
regimes the same way as we now think about trade protection.  Giving 18
year monopolies on 1-click patents or 90 year copyrights on mickey mouse
does not promote Amazon to innovate (they would have done it any way)
and Disney is not adding to our culture by having monopoly on mickey for
so long.

You are right economic theory and legal discourse requires some
significant re-thinking. good luck to you! :-)


For those interested in the free/open source movement, i run this site
http://opensource.mit.edu , we have about 30 working papers from various
disciplines that are examining the open source movement.  

Also for those interested in development, some students at the MIT media
lab are running http://www.thinkcycle.org/ - which is trying to apply
'open source' principle for design challenges in the developing world.

Best,


Karim Lakhani
 
 
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