Chris Berg wrote that the current debate on furniture design and intellectual property rights is a symptom of the broader problem we face, when vested interests dominate and the law begins to have its own life.
Law often has its own life.
We have been watching this all the time.
First, Parliament has introduced a law that addresses public policy issues. Decades pass. Things change.
Perhaps the problem may no longer be considered a problem.
Technological change.
Change of opinion.
But it is easier to pass a bill than to repeal it.
Special interest groups depend on the status quo.
Governments, therefore, often reimagine why the law was first introduced to defend the status quo.
The most obvious thing about this model is the rent of particular interest --
We call it intellectual property law.
The UK has decided to increase intellectual property protection for design-
Art including furniture, jewelry and architecture
From the creator\'s life plus 25 years of registered design work to the creator\'s life plus 75 years.
Extended for 50 years.
In practice, this means that the design work will be protected in the same length as other artistic creations.
Furniture, architecture and jewellery design will be treated as songs and movies in copyright law.
Once their protection expires, other manufacturers are free to copy the design as long as they describe their product as a \"replica\" or \"replica\" of the original design \"(
Avoid violation of trademark law).
In Australia, furniture designers want to make the same changes.
The design protection here lasts only 10 years.
An Australian manufacturer told BRW in January that there was insufficient design protection in Australia.
A spokesman for furniture maker Herman Miller told ferfax\'s domain name last week that the company selling replica-designed furniture was \"cheating consumers and undervaluing the original design \".
It\'s a lot of money.
If you buy an authentic chair made by Herman Miller, the iconic Ames recliner will cost you about $8,000.
But the chair was designed in 1956, and there was no design protection for a long time.
So you can get a replica of the Ames recliner from any number of retailers for a tenth of the price.
The more general, older version of the Eames plastic molded side chair will cost most of $1000.
Or you can buy a replica for about $80.
Part of the reason for this price difference is due to quality.
The other is the price of the brand.
The manufacturer is able to charge an extra fee for customers who want to actually trade instead of the unreal product.
However, there is no price difference because the designer has to recover the cost of the original design.
It has been a long time since Herman Miller took back the design cost on the recliner.
This is the most important thing.
Baroness Neville, minister of intellectual property, defended changes in the UK
Rolf believes that this will correct the \"unfair\" imbalance between artificial design and other works of art.
But what does fairness have to do with it?
Intellectual property law is unfair to furniture designers.
Intellectual property rights are purposeful.
Standard economic theory that the market will
Because creative products are easy to copy, creative products are provided.
To solve this problem, intellectual property provides a monopoly on the work of creative producers.
But this monopoly will only appear for a period of time, because we, the consumers of creative works, are interested in acquiring and re-utilizing the background catalogue of human creativity.
All these warnings mean that intellectual property is not real property, as I said before in the drum --
This is a hypothetical regulatory workaround for market failures.
It is only valuable if the fault is solved.
Introducing consumers into the high-end market is not there.
The price is real.
Furniture design is an example of the creative market, which is still thriving despite the lack of intellectual property protection enjoyed by other creative works.
In fact, Herman Miller can still charge a huge fee for the design for a tenth of the price, which shows that the cheap and expensive wings of the market can be sharedexist.
Availability of copy mid
Century design means that more people can enjoy better aesthetics at home.
It\'s hard to see what the public interest is to limit these designs to people who can buy a chair for $800 --
As the British government is doingwould provide.
Of course, from the scale of national politics, how long the design monopoly on Ames chairs should last is a small thing.
But it is informative.
If the government establishes privileges for a group, others will want the same privileges.
The content of intellectual property law has almost never been considered from the first principle --
That is to say, what we fundamentally want our intellectual property system to achieve.
Instead, it is a scruples about political power that has long been disconnected from the textbook needs of market failure theory and informed regulatory intervention.
Over the past few years, the coalition government has been working to combat copyright violations.
If policy makers are concerned about the purpose of copyright protection, they will only do so if such a blow clearly leads to the creation of more new creations.
Of course, there is no evidence that it will do so.
But the holders of film and music rights believe that pirates are depriving them of their income.
The government listened because they had forgotten why copyright protection was introduced in the first place.
In other words, intellectual property has become its own reason.
Put down the textbook.
This is how the law works in the real world.
Chris Berg is a senior fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs and author of freedom, equality and democracy and the Great Charter: The tax uprising that gives us freedom.
Follow him on twitter.
Theme: government-Chinaand-
Federal politics
Government, copyright, informationand-
