Boyle 2003

[1]

in the midst of a "second enclosure movement"

• human genome: commons or not?; has been partially enclosed through patents
• intellectual property

"The older strategy of intellectual property law was a "braided" one: Thread a thin layer of intellectual property rights around a commons of material from which future creators would draw. ... It may sound paradoxical, but in a very real sense protection of the commons was one of the fundamental goals of intellectual property law. In the new vision of intellectual property, however, property should be extended everywhere -- more is better." (39-40)

differences between land commons and intellectual commons:

• commons of the mind are "non-rival" (41); over-use not a problem as it is, with, say, fisheries/land/etc.
  • "assumption that the strength of intellectual property rights must vary inversely with the cost of copying" (42)

"Whether or not it is impossible in theory, it is surely a difficult problem in practice. In other words, even if enclosure of the arable commons always produced gains (itself a subject of debate), enclosure of the information commons clearly has the potential to harm innovation as well as to support it. More property rights, even though they supposedly offer greater incentives, do not necessarily make for more and better production and innovation -- sometimes just the opposite is true. It may be that intellectual property rights slow down innovation, by putting multiple roadblocks, multiple necessary licenses, in the way of subsequent innovation." (43-4)