Against Intellectual Monopoly

Two professors from the Econ dept here have a new book, Against Intellectual Monopoly, in which they challenged the conventional wisdom that patents and copy rights are crucial in providing necessary incentives to the inventors. Instead, they argue that copyrights and patents are used by the politically powerful to maintain monopoly profits and that the incentive effects that have been used to justify copyright and patents are exaggerated -- there were few examples from history suggesting that the temporary and not-so-temporary monopoly power from copyright and patents were necessary to induce innovation.

Here is a podcast from Econtalk.