Yes, conundrums indeed.
And yes, the original intentions of copyright and patents was sound. But Congress keeps extending copyright protection — infamous Mary Bono’s extension so that she — who herself wrote no music — could continue to benefit from Sony Bono’s work after his death. And I recall once hearing an interview of someone in Congress who deferred to Mary Bono “because of her standing and expertise with regard to copyright law”. I almost threw up.
IMO, health care should not be driven by profit. Most of the cutting edge research in medicine is done by universities. Pharaceutical companies would never, ever seek a cure for cancer. It might be worth trillions, but long term expensive treatments — drugs that one would have to take every day, and that were patented — would be worth trillions times ten. Treatments have a much higher ROI than cures.
Health care should be delivered by non-profit entities, whose mission is to keep us healthy. Medical research should be done by non-profit entities or educational entities. And the partnerships between universities and corporations should be slowed down. Universities are supposed to have the mission of education — not creating IP. Creating IP and education are a conflict of interest.
Drugs should not be patentable, IMO. Processes for creating drugs, yes; but drugs themselves are chemical formulas. Patenting drugs makes as much sense as patenting human DNA, or patenting a mathematical equation. Was it Jefferson who said that ideas should be unpatentable?
Songs should not be copyrightable. A particular musical recording, yes — but anyone should be able to play any song. The melody should not be copyrightable. People have copied songs since the beginning of civilization, but nowadays one can’t use a portion of a melody from another song; yet all songs steal from songs that came before it. Music and art have always been mashups.
Ideas should not be copyrightable or patentable. The general design of something — like the shape of a smartphone — should not be patentable. So-called “design patents” are absurd. Perhaps someone should patent the square and the rectangle!
Congress keeps adding to the list of absurdities. The purpose of patents and copyright were not to ensure that people with ideas got rich: the purpose was to simulate the creation of ideas and inventions. But design patents do more to stifle the creation of products than they do to stimulate it. The same is true of so many other forms of patent, and for the lengthy copyright terms that exist today.
As you say Chris, it is a conundrum!
