Recently in stuff Category

The demise of Scrabulous on Facebook this evening has raised in me the issue of intellectual property rights. In my opinion the debate has centred too much on what the authors deserve, not the purpose of this construct. This is wrong-headed. The debate ought to start with what is the purpose of copy rights, and then move onto how that purpose can be best met.

We agree to copy rights to create resources for the benefit of mankind (or, ourselves) by invention. It is a reward system. It takes time and other resources to create a medicine, a song, a piece of software. Without substantial reward many substantial inventions would not happen. We do not agree to copy rights to reward inventors any more than our employers agree to pay us to make sure we have a good living. Just like our employers pay us to induce us to work,  we agree to IP to induce authors to create.

Unlike our employers, we have let the debate on how much reward be centred on what's right. That was how employers operated in the 1970s, and the unions took advantage of that; to our cost. What should determine how much reward we give should be how little we can offer to induce invention.

So back to Scrabulous: Hasbro would have invented and sold Scrabble boards all those years ago if they only had 20 years copy right. Paul McCartney would have been a member of the Beetles and writting his songs if he only had 20 years copy right. Hasbro are making use of the overly generous terms of employment that we give them. McCartney pleaded for longer copy rights for artists, and was taken seriously in some quarters. He's part of the delusion that copy right is about the author. It's not: it's about the us, the consumer, and should be as little as possible to get him, Hasbro, Glaxo, to make us stuff that we like, and as little as possible is certainly less than the current copy right and patent rights give. We need to fine tune these instruments of ours to increase our yield.

This is an old favourite that I'd forgotten until recently: Take a freshly warmed ciabatta, add a of drizzle olive oil, some salad leaves, parma ham, emmental cheese, basil and slices of tomato. Season with salt and pepper. A simple, fresh and delicious summer sandwich!

More significant than that of the early 1990s. What I predict is this is the beginning of the end of the last 60 years of 4% growth per annum. Not that we won't have growth, but we will experience around 1% instead of 4% per annum. That's a significant change of pace when you consider it translated into pay. 1% pay rise is significantly different (psychologically) from a 4% one.

Here's my reasoning: the last 60 years growth have been based on the assumption of plentiful and cheap natural resources such as oil, metals, crops, fuel, fish - you name it, it's scarcer and in more demand and therefore more costly than before. Many of these resources are diminishing - we're almost certainly at or beyond peak oil, for instance - whilst demand from emerging economies such as India and China is adding to the acceleration in demand in emerged economies. Add to that the shrinking workforce and growing old age pensioners, which is already happening in some parts of Europe and will rapidly be happening here, and you have rising underlying costs. And they are rising irreversably for the next couple of decades, at least.

Now this doesn't mean anything should be done. In fact, it's pretty clear nothing can be done, other than to expect slower growth of our standard of living. Which, might, tenuously, lead into thoughts of what is our standard of living and how do we measure it beyond material wealth. Kids on sink estates in England feel they've got the shitty end of the stick, but materially they have massive advantage over their Malawian counterparts. And, providing it's not a drought year, generally, the kid in Malawi has a better standard of living, in my limited experience. They are happier, better adjusted, more pleasant, inquisitive and able to enjoy the moment.

Just as Aldous Huxley said that morality is dependent on some basic material wealth, beyond that absolute amount of material wealth there's a welter of ways in which our standard of living can and should be considered. As we enter an era where fast material gains become scarcer would could, as people - not states - consider, adjust, improve, perfect our non-material lives.