Jay

“It is certainly true that imitation is everywhere, from sport to business, from dancing to dressing, from driving to singing. In fact, imitation is at the heart of competitive behavior and of almost any kind of social interaction. Like the fixed cost cum marginal cost argument that, as we pointed out earlier, is so powerful an argument that it can be applied to any and every thing, imitation is so widespread that, when taken literally, it is also everywhere. By this token one should see unpriced externalities in every market where producers imitate each other, thereby concluding that all kinds of economic activities should be allowed some form of monopoly power. Restaurants imitate each other, as coffee shops, athletes, real estate agents, car salesmen, and even bricklayers do, but we would certainly find it foolhardy to grant to a firm in each of these businesses monopoly power over one technique or another. This suggests that equating imitation with unpriced externalities leads us into a dark night in which all cows are gray.”
― Michele Boldrin, Against Intellectual Monopoly

“While there are certainly informational spillovers as ideas move from person to person, it is hard to see why in most instances they are not priced. Although it is possible to imagine examples such as the wheelbarrow where an idea cannot be used without revealing the secret, relatively few ideas are of this type. For copyrightable creations such as books, music, plays, movies and art, unpriced spillovers obviously play little role. A book, a CD or a work of art must be purchased before it can be used, and the creator is free to make use of his creation in the privacy of his home without revealing the secret to the public at large. Similarly with movies or plays. In all cases, the creation must effectively be purchased before the “secret” is revealed.”
― Michele Boldrin, Against Intellectual Monopoly

“Although the view that, once discovered, ideas can be imitated for free by anybody is pervasive, it is far from the truth. While it may occasionally be the case that an idea is acquired at no cost—ideas are generally difficult to communicate, and the resources for doing so are limited. It is rather ironic that a group of economists, who are also college professors and earn a substantial living teaching old ideas because their transmission is neither simple nor cheap, would argue otherwise in their scientific work. Most of the times imitation requires effort and, what is more important, imitation requires purchasing either some products or some teaching services from the original innovator, meaning that most spillovers are priced.”
― Michele Boldrin, Against Intellectual Monopoly

“I find economics increasingly satisfactory, and I think I am rather good at it. I want to manage a railroad or organise a Trust or at least swindle the investing public”
― John Maynard Keynes