Inventors and Pirates: Creative Activity and Intellectual Property Rights / Herschel I. Grossman.

By:

Grossman, Herschel I

Contributor(s):

National Bureau of Economic Research

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w7898.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2000.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

Online resources:

Available additional physical forms:

Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers

Abstract: This paper analyzes how both the value of ideas created as well as the security of intellectual property rights result from the choices of potentially creative people either to engage in creative activity or to be pirates, and from decisions of people who are engaged in creative activity to allocate time and effort to the guarding of ideas from pirating. An important result is that, although the existence of a small number of geniuses causes a larger fraction of potentially creative people to choose to be pirates and, consequently, makes intellectual property rights less secure, the existence of a small number of geniuses, holding fixed the average level of talent, can result in a larger value of ideas being created. The paper also recognizes the difference between the private value and the social value of the security of intellectual property rights.

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Holdings
Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w7898 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

Total holds: 0

September 2000.

This paper analyzes how both the value of ideas created as well as the security of intellectual property rights result from the choices of potentially creative people either to engage in creative activity or to be pirates, and from decisions of people who are engaged in creative activity to allocate time and effort to the guarding of ideas from pirating. An important result is that, although the existence of a small number of geniuses causes a larger fraction of potentially creative people to choose to be pirates and, consequently, makes intellectual property rights less secure, the existence of a small number of geniuses, holding fixed the average level of talent, can result in a larger value of ideas being created. The paper also recognizes the difference between the private value and the social value of the security of intellectual property rights.