Comment: Intellectual property itself

In post: Mises Institute: How Intellectual Property Hampers Capitalism

Intellectual property itself

Submitted by BobW on Tue, 06/26/2012 - 16:28. Permalink

Intellectual property itself is not a bad thing. The Constitution allows congress to grant copyrights and patents, for a limited time. This gives an incentive for the creation of new works and inventions.

The problem is that big corporations lobby to extend the scope of copyright and patents to areas where they shouldn't apply, and to extend the duration to absurd lengths. Under pressure from major media corporations congress keeps extending the duration of copyright (now long after the death of the author). The result is that nothing ever goes out of copyright anymore.