The Incentives Argument for Intellectual Property Protection

Abstract

The incentives argument for intellectual property contends that intellectual property protections must be given to creators in order to give them the incentive to create their works. The incentives argument for intellectual property differs from other incentives arguments because the intellectual property incentive works in a distinctive way, by offering a form of monopoly control as the incentive. In theory, that incentive operates to stimulate creation of some work by promising the power to prevent other, similar works from being produced or distributed. I will argue that by enabling creators to prevent the creation or dissemination of other, similar works, the incentives argument for intellectual property is prey to unique philosophical difficulties that do not arise for other incentive arguments, or at least not to the same degree.

This is an edited and footnoted transcript of remarks made on the ‘Philosophical Perspectives’ Panel of the Symposium on the Rule of Law in the Information Age at The Catholic University of America, 10 October 2002. A shorter version of some of the points appears in Shiffrin (2007, pp. 653–68). I am grateful to William Wagner, Susanna Fischer, C. Ed Baker, David Goldman, Lisa Lucas and Collin O’Neil for helpful comments.