The key thing everyone forgets is that a patent or copyright is entirely useless without the MONEY needed to protect it from infringement. In fact many a company has explored patented inventions only to copy them wilfully and knowingly as in the intermittent wiper case (and film). They can do this because the cost of litigation is so high that it pushes any small player out. Has this decimated the economy? No it prompts people to keep inventing rather than rest on their laurels (or IP) as many companies often do, after all Apple didn’t think of the iPod first. The world the Crimson speaks of is right here and now, and the ideas for many of the products you see around you may have been stolen. Imagine if that wasn’t the case and any person could simply patent anything and have it enforced, we may never have seen many of the products we use to today because the applicant lacked cash or business acumen; unfortunately patent application abuse isn’t limited to individuals though and that is dangerous. What the MPAA wants is for the whole economy to like it does for domain names, and so we have bookstores called Amazon, auction sites called eBay, and magazines called TechDirt. We work around it as much as we can, although name issues aren’t as broad as whole product issues. In the end all the obvious names people bought became worthless, and courts simply took others away. Innovation kills stringent patent and copyright enforcement, it has to, and there are many examples of that.

As for copyright I think it’s absurd that someone can have one hit single and live a modest life never having to work again. Are these items priced correctly? How are we promoting innovation there? Should we compile a list of one hit wonders?