Johnj's example of Tim Berners-Lee and the WWW is a worthwhile one, in that it did produce a fantastic benefit without any IP protection. But personally, I would have preferred it it he and his employers *had* taken out copyright, which would have funded basic physics indefinitely. I don't see that that would have slowed its adoption (if they'd charged reasonably) - I mean, Microsoft charged unreasonably for its stuff and it was still adopted. The WWW case is also special in that CERN was a stable and publicly-funded organisation able to play with projects like that (as were the military projects that created the computer itself, computer graphics and the internet). Since then, Open Source projects have produced some good things, like Linux and Firefox, but OpenOffice is still inadequate after all these years. I think I'm right in saying computer hardware developments are still all IP-driven? Naturally, since you can't create a new chip by some altruistic guy in a back room cutting code.

Jim, I think you make a good point particularly in relation to computer hardware development. IP protection is a form of monopoly, that, like any monopoly, should be strictly limited. Given tooling costs and the need to amortise the cost of development, I believe that current patent protection (20 years) represents a reasonable compromise for manufacturers and consumers. At the end of 20 years, innovations become part of the public domain and any person/organisation that hasn't managed to exploit an innovation will give way to someone who can.

British Telecom's dodgy hyperlink patent claims http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2000/06/37095 suggest that fairness (and reward for innovation) sometimes fall by the wayside. I particularly like the quote from the PR flack, who said BT were looking "to the places where the predominant revenues are flowing," I suppose I can't blame BT for wanting a slice of that revenue, but it looks more like opportunism than innovation. Or maybe that's just me?

I think that patent protection is less about fairness than it is about utility. It is not about "rewarding" innovators, but instead a protection against competition while they commercialise their ideas.

I'm not so sure about copyright protection. Why exactly do we need to grant exclusive rights (ie a monopoly) for a minimum of 70 years? Seems to me that it is all about copyright owners (mostly corporations) wanting to keep milking the cash cow. Is this really a model for social justice?

Well, yes, there's a utility issue and a fairness issue, and they're separate but related. There's an need for secure IP to make possible massive investments in development of e.g. computer hardware and pharmaceuticals. That needs some basic fairness in that the people protected must be the ones who actually put in the investment, but really it's more a utility issue.

But what about the fairness needed by an author of say a textbook? (Delaration of interest: I am one.) I need copyright to make it worth my while to put my considerable effort into doing that - for me, that's a large effort. It's true I don't need it for 70 years after I die, but in the short term, my protection is a matter of social justice.