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How Intellectual Property Protectionism Will Create A Trade War The US Will Lose
from the don't-fight-the-tide dept
Thomas Goetz from Wired Magazine submits his own article (and leaves me to do the writeup!) from their latest issue, and it’s a worthwhile read. Goetz points to the history of the US cargo shipping business that was in trouble due to foreign competition – and convinced the US government to put in place protectionist policies. Of course, now, cargo gets shipped on boats flying Panamanian and Liberian flags. While most people looking at these issues are focused on offshoring, Goetz points to a much larger issue: now that the US is trying to force our overly cumbersome intellectual property rules on developing nations, they’re simply going to go around the system and create their own open alternatives – and completely destroy US companies on the open market. Yet another example of companies in established industries not realizing how economics works. The factors that contribute to competition and globalization are the direction the market is moving in. It’s their job to change with that market – but instead, they’re trying to pretend these changes aren’t happening. All protectionist policies do is put blinders on companies so they don’t realize their market is being taken away from them. Goetz is rightfully worried that if we continue to enforce these backwards intellectual property rules, we’re at risk of destroying the very industries our government (and industry insiders) claim they’re trying to protect.
Comments on “How Intellectual Property Protectionism Will Create A Trade War The US Will Lose”
What if there are protected industries that do wel
Due to legislation passed in the late 1940s, foreign airlines are not allowed to compete for domestic routes in the USA. But far from being a disaster for the USA, our airlines act rather like scrappy competitors: the ticket costs are lower than airlines of other industrialized countries, IT implementation of flight reservation systems are more advanced — about the only drawback is lower quality service by flight attendants.
Re: Wow. Are you ever a bright guy!
What a useful comparison! I’m sure your astute observation has taken into account the fuel cost difference (because the US government does not take tax dollars on fuel like other countries) and the free-ride airports get WRT local propert taxes.
And I’m sure the $0 cost of replicating Open Source software like BSD, GNU/Linux and all the applications that run on BSD, GNU/Linux as opposed to the costs of an airline was taken into account before you made your brief summary.
Your summary of the situation must of considered how most airline routes are within the borders of the US and have nothing to do with the stated purpose of the article OR with the point you tried to make. How the airlines in the US developed the system to compete with other US airlines for that business. Then you chose to disreguard the above data to make your short little summary!
I look forward to your future observations becasue you are just SO bright.
No Subject Given
-> now that the US is trying to force our overly cumbersome intellectual property rules on developing nations, they’re simply going to go around the system and create their own open alternatives – and completely destroy US companies on the open market. –
The U.S. Government may rest assured that at least one country will be supporting its IP laws – Singapore.
The Singapore Government is expected to adopt many facets of U.S. intellectual property laws as part of the USSFTA (US Singapore Free Trade Agreement).
This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise really – the backboneless Singapore Government has been steering the country towards colony status. Besides legislation, it adheres to American wishes militarily, economically and culturally.
Majulah Singapura! LOL!