How to Unf★ck Intellectual Property

Dean Baker tells the dirty secret of the great billionaires of the modern age: they wouldn’t exist without intellectual property (IP), that is the copyright and patent monopolies guaranteed to private actors by the government.

IP laws have been expanded and strengthened in recent years, making patent & copyright monopolies longer and stronger and enabling the vast fortunes of billionaires in computers, software, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment etc. Baker diagnoses the role of intellectual property (IP) in the accumulation of wealth for pharmaceutical companies and how that translates to excessively high drug prices, and wasteful spending on marketing and lawsuits. IP laws were intended to subsidize innovation for social benefit, but they have been transformed into tools to accumulate and protect enormous private wealth. The modern protections of IP have become excessive and may not be the most fruitful producer of research and development beneficial for society.

What's the fix? Dean’s proposals include direct public funding of open research & development, rather than rely on IP alone, which will allow the development of generics. He proposes the introduction of a Copyright Tax Credit to support innovation and creative work as a temporary alternative to copyright. Meaning creators and artists could sign for a tax credit to fund their projects but forego copyright for a set number of years.

Learn more at http://unf-ckamerica.com

☆ How to Unf★ck America ☆

This series is all about solutions.

Over the last four decades, the US economy has done quite well for the top 1%, but it has been stagnant for most Americans. This was not an accident, nor the natural workings of the market and certainly not an inevitability. US policies have been deliberately structured since 1980 to redistribute income upwards. In other words, the system has been rigged.

Dean Baker shows us how public policy can be deployed to #UnfckAmerica. Over six episodes, Baker illustrates how even minor changes in public policy can help change our trajectory dramatically. It just takes the political will to recognize that the current situation is not insurmountable, and that change is achievable.

Credits: Dean Baker, Matthew Kulvicki, Nick Alpha, Gonçalo Fonseca, Kurt Semm