If protectionism for football players is what gets Mr. Dickovick started, for me it has certainly been patent, especially in regards to software - although as Stiglitz has shown, the same issues are relevant for almost any patent, not the least in medicine and other research.
I know, throwing stones at Microsoft for their less-than legal and more-than disgusting market policies has already gotten old, but they certainly deserve every single one. No everyone may realize that just having a shiny brand on it (Microsoft, Adobe etc.) does not automatically make the product better. As a proud user of open-source technologies - from text editors and Internet browsers to video, sound, graphics processing and on to the more obscure areas - I can assure you that the free alternatives are as good as, if not superior to their pricey counterparts. The biggest irony is that while "open source" can be claimed to stop innovation (in the same way as the argument against free-flow of knowledge in scientific research that Stiglitz mentions), it does just the opposite, making things easier to use, for free. To give you a few striking examples - Open Office can work with about twice as many formats as Microsoft Office, including easy conversion from .doc to .pdf. On the other hand the M. Office, if it did anything "innovative" at all, is it sacrificed pragmatism for form, and used an ingenious mechanism to ensure that the customers will HAVE to buy their new, and in many people's opinion inferior product (some pretty monopolistic behaviour there, too). Another fun one is that Microsoft got the idea for tabbed browsing for its new IE7 and 8 from Netscape or Opera, where it has existed for years - and had they patented it, they could've made a hefty sum. So much for "protected innovation".
I am also positive that the people who grew up in the 80s (and in some countries even 90s) would be sad if Sony Corp v. Universal City Studios were decided the other way. And I am sure, had the Supreme Court ruled the VHS recorder as infringing on copyright, the DVD players and recorders, iPods and many other 'no-brainer' everyday entertainment technologies would have been a lot more difficult to get hands on, if they ever were invented in the first place.
Of course, a VHS player is not as critical to the word development as malaria drugs, but perhaps such examples are necessary to get the people in the developed countries understand the problem. If you don't allow free flow of water, it stagnates; knowledge and information are much the same. And now, as I proudly close my Opera browser, I will let you think whether (and how) we need to pick up our verbal flamethrowers to take those nasty 'thickets' down.
P.S. When I saw that phrase in Stiglitz, I literally went "Aha!" in my head. Way to feed my blog more opportunities for obscure metaphors.
Nice post. Now tell us how you really feel. (Just kidding.)
ReplyDeleteOne bit of food for thought: is open-source most successful when some proprietary (patented) knowledge/product/service comes first, establishing a commercial standard upon which "open-source" or "generics" can build?
This is not so much about pure innovation, where I would agree in many instances open-source is better (tabbed browsing being just one example). Rather, perhaps it's partly about innovation finance and partly about marketing.
On the former point (innovation finance), an example would be a drug company producing a patented medicine which can later be reverse-engineered as a generic. We may find ourselves "glad" the drug got developed, which may have been impossible without the profit motive, but also glad the generic followed.
On the latter point (marketing), what intrigues me is that the Mozillas, UNIXs, etc. of the world seem to rely heavily on word-of-mouth, offering an "as-good-as-or-better-than-MS" product often to relatively tech-savvy users. For instance, I am not that tech-savvy, but am sort of halfway there: I use Mozilla and freeware for my antivirus, e.g., but have not moved to Linux because of the learning curve, lack of tech support, etc. In other words, I am not the most sophisticated user, but maybe average. The question arises whether open-source would have the "marketing" success to rapidly expand a useful market without some propietary model against which to offset itself. The fact that some open-source products actually predated MS products in terms of innovation, but never "took off" until after MS "popularized" them, only seems to further motivate the question.
By the way, have you read "Free: the Future of a Radical Price"? (Ironically, it's about 20 bucks on Amazon.)
That is actually sort of how I really feel. Otherwise the post would've been a lot more boring ;)
ReplyDeleteOn the "innovation finance" point, I more or less agree with Stiglitz that, while necessary to progress in many cases (scientists may pursue knowledge for noble causes, but they are also people who need to feed their families), the current patent system slows progress as much as it helps it, if not more. Plus, it definitely hurts the consumer - in the case of medicine, killing him. The software case is a bit trickier, since piracy is always a viable "third option" between the monopolistic high prices and the open-source programs. Surely that's illegal, but people in CEE or China probably couldn't care less. Stiglitz's idea of one-time reimbursement instead of patents is interesting, but hardly practical, since the value of the research in relation to the sum paid is highly debatable, to say the least. Perhaps, another viable alternative is nationalized science institutions - those do come with their share of problems, and can stall innovation, but if properly managed can progress it as well, without all the hassle of "mini-monopolies".
Also, I can't but agree with you that some branches of science - say, medicine - will require the patenting, particularly due to high research and research materials costs (although again, solvable by Stiglitz's alternative). Open-source software is a special case, because the research costs are very low (ignoring possible opportunity costs), so that more or less anyone can do it. Marketing is also cheap and easy on the Internet. The big corporations definitely have had their role in "popularizing" some inventions, but they needn't stall the future ones by basically crowding out all competitors. Although in the end, it's not Microsoft who is to be blamed, but rather the government forces whose responsibility would be to maintain healthy competition.
Uhh, sorry, that was a bit chaotic. As for the book, looks interesting, I may eventually take a look at it if I, uh, find it for "free =))