What the Other Matt Said

Matthew Yglesias has a very good comment on the lunacy of fashion copyrights. (I've talked about a bit earlier and called Chuck Schumer names).

On a loosely related note, if you've been to a bookstore lately at all you'll notice there's a remarkable vibrancy in the cookbook section as the popularity of things like the Food Network, Top Chef, etc., seems to be driving more chef-types into the public consciousness. Cookbooks, of course, can be copyrighted. But the actual recipes they contain can't be. And one suspects that this non-copyrightable nature of the recipes is integral to the cookbook industry's vibrancy. Without it, the bulk of the market would already be locked-down by older cookbooks, and to publish anything new you'd have to be prepared to lawyer up and fight off a thousand lawsuits alleging that your recipes are too derivative.

This is true, and applies everywhere. IP is public interest law, and it is a restriction on individual freedoms (not having IP does not prevent one from creating) and as such, these laws should be limited in scope.

There should be restrictions placed on IP only to the degree that there is reasonable proof that the public is receiving benefits in excess of the restrictions placed upon.

I would note that under the current US IP Regime, the works of Shakespeare would be lost forever (the folio that was found would still have been under copyright, and would not have been reprinted or preserved), and most of us would never have read Moby Dick (a failure when first published, and it only became recognized as a classic after Melville's death, when it was reprinted because it had entered the public comain).