Research would be feudal in nature, like the few research scientists left would have to find patrons to sponsor their research strictly out of personal interests.

whoever damn well would write the books



copyright laws are still fairly new to civilization, for most of our history there were no copyright laws. And for a for a long time most authors wouldn't bother with copyrighting their work anyway



for example, Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, The Crisis, Rights Of Man, and Age Of Reason

Yeah--Thomas Paine really had to worry about digital mass production of his work. Try to think before you post this nonsense. We all get it. You are part of the greedy, entitled new generation that thinks books, software, and songs grow on trees, and you should never have to pay for any of it. Grow up.

Only real problem I have with IP is inflation of medicine prices, especially to third-world countries.

Clearly it could use some reform, but without it we wouldn't have any drugs.

funny you say that, because even to this day Paine's books are still being sold, despite the fact that you could easily read everything he ever wrote on the internet


many books from the Mises institute openly put their books online as well


here's a good one for you

http://mises.org/books/against.pdf


Now mind you, these books have not vanished, and they are still bringing in a profit for their authors. It's also funny you would use the word greed considering that intellectual property is not a natural right, but a government privileged monopoly for a particular piece of information (information, unlike physical objects, or what grows on tees is non-scarce)

This post was edited by TCassa89 on May 7 2013 05:07pm

I have that book, it's mostly pipe-dream speculation

Mmmmm....you say that...but most (85% IIRC) drugs are initially developed in the public sector with public money.

After they are developed as new molecular entities (NMEs) they are patented. The big drug companies then buy these patents and develop the drugs, putting them through clinical trials, etc.

There's a good argument to be made to completely do away with private drug companies altogether and have a purely state run/arms length heavily regulated (think crown corporation) department that would fund, develop, research and test new drugs.

This would cut drug prices drastically and prevent abuse of patents by drug companies (think ever-greening).

When drug companies actually spend very, very little money doing actual early stage research (they spend 3-4x more on advertising alone), what makes you think that eliminating patents would all of a sudden completely wipe out all drug R&D?

A good read on the subject: http://www.commercialalert.org/relmanangell.pdf

It'd be tough for journals to survive -- peer review is something they pay for by funds generated by being able to restrict access to them and sell to companies and academic institutions.