At RealClearMarkets John Tamny argues that we shouldn’t take action to prevent the Chinese from stealing the intellectual property of U. S. companies on the grounds that their theft has done the companies no harm:
In dynamic economies like ours, good ideas in 2016 will mostly be revealed as bad in 2017. At Amazon, founder Jeff Bezos treasures his company’s successful ventures simply because the successes will fund countless experiments that fail. Venture capitalist Peter Thiel freely acknowledges that most of the ideas he backs with venture money die very quickly. So if the Chinese are in fact “stealing” American intellectual property as so many confidently assert, everyone should relax given the historical truth that they’re stealing what is mostly worthless.
Further evidence supporting the above claim is the price of U.S. equities. If the Chinese were truly crippling U.S. companies with thievery, this would show up in crashing U.S. share prices alongside the collapse of the biggest export market for Chinese producers. Yet we’re seeing neither. As for the supposed theft of intellectual bandwidth behind what is already established in the marketplace, readers need only consider all the former assistants for New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, along with all the former writers for television hit Seinfeld. Having done this, readers need to check the wins/loss track record of Belichick’s past minions as head coaches alongside the hits versus bomb ratio of former Seinfeld writers. Success is hard won, and can rarely be duplicated, or taken.
I have never read John Tamny’s making a broadside argument against intellectual property before but that’s what this post is. If intellectual property isn’t worth defending against the Chinese why is it worth defending against Americans? If the value of intellectual property is determined solely post hoc, as Mr. Tamny argues, that applies to domestic fair use as well as deliberate Chinese theft.
