The Acceptable Face of Intervention

This is a review article of Landes and Posner's "The Economic Structure of Intellectual Property Law" (2003). It argues that their defence of intellectual property is not reconcilable with the stance they have elsewhere taken towards government intervention. IP rights are government interventions in market allocations, and their justification is in terms of optimising the social welfare function. As such they should be subject to many of the criticisms L&P have levelled at other interventions, but they are not. Reflection on this paradox leads to interesting insights into the nature of Posnerian â efficiencyâ and â welfare maximisationâ . More broadly, it once again illustrates the way in which Posnerian law and economics is an interaction of mutually reinforcing economic and legal formalisms. A truly critical approach to both the law and the economics of IP could contribute to a fundamental re-evaluation of the social consequences of IP law, especially as it has developed in the recent past, and to some radical proposals for change. But L&P merely apply a hackneyed formula to yet another body of law, and so provide no more than a few ideas for tinkering with details of IP; despite being, as we will see, conscious that the entire edifice rests on the weakest of foundations

Economics · Epistemology · Face (sociological concept · Intellectual property · Intervention (counseling · Law and economics · Political science · Property (philosophy · Social science · Sociology · Copyright and Intellectual Property · Innovation Policy and RD · Intellectual Property and Patents · Law · Philosophy · Psychology

• Regulation

  Open Access•Sol Picciotto•Social & Legal Studies•2017

  Incluir item

• The Success of Open Source

  Open Access•Steve Weber, Steven Weber•Success of Open Source•2004

  Incluir item

• The General Welfare in Relation to Problems of Taxation and of Railway and Utility Rates

  Harold Hotelling•Econometrica•1938

  Incluir item

• The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes

  Open Access•Imre Lakatos, John Worrall et al.•Methodology of Scientific…•1978

  Incluir item

• Ayres versus Coase

  David Campbell•Journal of Law and Society•1994

  Incluir item

• Communities in Cyberspace

  Rebecca G Adams, Marc A Smith et al.•Contemporary Sociology A Journal…•1999

  Incluir item

• The Marginal Cost Controversy

  R H Coase•Economica•1946

  Incluir item