LIBERTAD DE PRENSA EN EL ESTADO DE VIGILANCIA

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: HOUSE AND TRAGEDY OF THE ANTICOMMONS (II)

THE TRAGEDY OF THE ANTICOMMONS

By

Michael Heller

The anticommons is a paradox. While private ownership usually increases wealth, too much ownership has the opposite effect: it wrecks markets, stops innovation, and costs lives. We can reclaim the wealth lost in a tragedy of the anticommons. But it takes tools to end ownership gridlock. The following pages provide the basic analytic tools you need: a brief overview of the anticommons lexicon (Heller 2008; 2010).

THE TRILOGY OF OWNERSHIP

Traditionally, ownership has been categorized into three basic types: private, commons, and state property (Heller 2001). Let’s unpack those categories:

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Commons property refers to shared resources, resources for which there is no single decision maker. In turn, the commons can be divided into two distinct categories (Eggertsson 2002). The first is open access, a regime in which no one at all can be excluded, like on the high seas. Mistakenly, the legal and economics literatures long conflated the commons with open access, hence reinforcing the link between commons and tragedy. The second type of commons has many names, but for now let’s call it group access, a regime in which a limited number of commoners can exclude outsiders but not each other. If the ocean is open access, then a small pond surrounded by a handful of landowners may be group access. Group access is often overlooked even though it is the predominant form of commons ownership, and is often not tragic at all; it is the core concept that this volume celebrates.

Privatizing a commons may cure the tragedy of wasteful overuse, but it may inadvertently spark the opposite. English lacks a term to denote wasteful underuse. To describe this type of fragmentation, I coined the phrase tragedy of the anticommons (Heller 1998). The term covers any setting in which too many people can block each other from creating or using a valuable resource. Rightly understood, the opposite of overuse in a commons is underuse in an anticommons.

This concept makes visible the hidden half of our ownership spectrum, a world of social relations as complex and extensive as any we have previously known (Figure 2). Beyond normal private property lies anticommons ownership. As one commentator has noted, “To simplify a little, the tragedy of the commons tells us why things are likely to fall apart, and the tragedy of the anticommons helps explain why it is often so hard to get them back together” (Fennell 2004).

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THE SPREAD OF THE ANTICOMMONS IDEA

After I proposed the possibility of anticommons tragedy, Nobel laureate James Buchanan and his colleague Yong Yoon undertook to create a formal economic model. They wrote that the anticommons concept helps explain “how and why potential economic value may disappear into the ‘black hole’ of resource underutilization” (Buchanan and Yoon 2000).” In recent years, economic modeling of the anticommons has become quite sophisticated.

To date, the most debated application of anticommons theory has been in the area of drug patents and innovation (Heller and Eisenberg 1998). Since my 1998 Science article with Rebecca Eisenberg, there has been a flurry of follow-on papers and reports, many concluding that patents should be harder to obtain, in part to avoid potential anticommons tragedy effects. A recent book on the patent crisis concludes that, “the structure of the biotechnology industry seems likely to run high anticommons risks,” particularly when companies are attempting to bring products to market (Burk and Lemley 2009).

It’s not just biomedical research that’s susceptible to anticommons tragedy. The framework has been applied across the high tech frontier, ranging from broadcast spectrum ownership to technology patents. Also, cutting edge art and music are about mashing up and remixing many separately owned bits of culture. Even with land, the most socially important projects require assembling multiple parcels. Innovation has moved on, but we’re stuck with old-style ownership that’s easy to fragment and hard to put together.

Anticommons theory is now well established, but empirical studies have yet to catch up. How hard is it to negotiate around ownership fragmentation? How much does ownership fragmentation slow down technological innovation? Does the effect vary by industry? It is difficult to measure discoveries that should have been made but weren’t, solutions that could exist but don’t. We are just starting to examine these conundrums. A recent study reported experimental findings that reject the presumed symmetry of commons and anticommons and find instead that anticommons dilemmas “seem to elicit more individualistic behavior than commons dilemmas” and are “more prone to underuse than commons dilemmas are to overuse.” The researchers conclude that “if commons leads to ‘tragedy,’ anticommons may well lead to ‘disaster’” (Vanneste et al 2006).

TOWARD A NEW LEXICON

We have millennia of practice in spotting tragedies of overuse. When too many people fish, fisheries are depleted. When too many people pollute, we choke on dirty air. Then, we spring into action with market-based, cooperative, and legislative solutions. But underuse caused by multiple owners is unfamiliar. The affected resource is hard to spot. Our language is new. Even though a tragedy of the anticommons may be as costly to society as the more familiar forms of resource misuse, we have never noticed, debated, or learned how to fix underuse. As a first step, we need to name the phenomenon: the tragedy of the anticommons should join our lexicon.

Michael Heller (USA) is the Lawrence A. Wien Professor of Real Estate Law at Columbia Law School. He is the author of The Gridlock Society (2008) and Commons and Anticommons(2010).

Fuente

La Directiva de Copyright aprobada por el Parlamento Europeo facilitaría los efectos descritos como tragedia de los anticomunes y lo hace, además, en un ámbito directamente afectado por la libertad de expresión en el mundo actual: reduciendo su cantidad

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: HOUSE AND TRAGEDY OF THE ANTICOMMONS (I)

How the political groups voted on #uploadfilters and the #linktax:
• @eppgroup overwhelmingly in favour
• @theprogressives & @aldegroup significantly in favour
• @GreensEP & @GUENGL overwhelmingly opposed#SaveYourInternet pic.twitter.com/x12Rp4q1Lm

— Julia Reda (@Senficon) 26 de marzo de 2019

MACAULAY (HOUSE OF COMMONS, 1841)-PARLAMENTO EUROPEO

Macaulay se dirigía a los Comunes, en Febrero de 1841, con ocasión de una extensión rechazada en la duración de los derechos de propiedad intelectual en estos términos, que no han perdido actualidad, a la vista de la decisión del Parlamento Europeo de hoy:

"Copyright is monopoly, and produces all the effects which the general voice of mankind attributes to monopoly. My honourable and learned friend talks very contemptuously of those who are led away by the theory that monopoly makes things dear. That monopoly makes things dear is certainly a theory, as all the great truths which have been established by the experience of all ages and nations, and which are taken for granted in all reasonings, may be said to be theories. It is a theory in the same sense in which it is a theory that day and night follow each other, that lead is heavier than water, that bread nourishes, that arsenic poisons, that alcohol intoxicates. If, as my honourable and learned friend seems to think, the whole world is in the wrong on this point, if the real effect of monopoly is to make articles good and cheap, why does he stop short in his career of change? Why does he limit the operation of so salutary a principle to sixty years? Why does he consent to anything short of a perpetuity? He told us that in consenting to anything short of a perpetuity he was making a compromise between extreme right and expediency. But if his opinion about monopoly be correct, extreme right and expediency would coincide. Or rather, why should we not restore the monopoly of the East India trade to the East India Company? (...)

The question of copyright, Sir, like most questions of civil prudence, is neither black nor white, but grey.The system of copyright has great advantages and great disadvantages; and it is our business to ascertain what these are, and then to make an arrangement under which the advantages may be as far as possible secured, and the disadvantages as far as possible excluded. The charge which I bring against my honourable and learned friend's bill is this, that it leaves the advantages nearly what they are at present, and increases the disadvantages at least fourfold. 

(...)

Now, I will not affirm that the existing law is perfect, that it exactly hits the point at which the monopoly ought to cease; but this I confidently say, that the existing law is very much nearer that point than the law proposed by my honourable and learned friend. For consider this; the evil effects of the monopoly are proportioned to the length of its duration. But the good effects for the sake of which we bear with the evil effects are by no means proportioned to the length of its duration. A monopoly of sixty years produces twice as much evil as a monopoly of thirty years, and thrice as much evil as a monopoly of twenty years. But it is by no means the fact that a posthumous monopoly of sixty years gives to an author thrice as much pleasure and thrice as strong a motive as a posthumous monopoly of twenty years. On the contrary, the difference is so small as to be hardly perceptible.”

Preguntas para nuestros ilustres europarlamentarios y para el defensor del proyecto Herr Voss:

¿Quién cobra y explota por el derecho sobre el protocolo de internet que hace posible su existencia y difusión y la de todos los contenidos disponibles en la misma?

¿Cuántos "layers" adicionales de derechos sin cobro y explotación hacen posible su existencia y difusión y la de todos los contenidos disponibles en la red?

¿Cómo es posible que el protocolo de internet y todas las innovaciones necesarias para su ejecución se hayan desarrollado sin los incentivos y modificaciones que la actual reforma dice introducir en beneficio de los autores?

¿Qué es lo que dicen los estudios empíricos del pasado con copyright sobre la retribución de los autores?

¿En qué modo debe estar garantizada la libertad constitucional -y garantizada por la Carta de los Derechos Fundamentales de la Unión Europea- de expresión en internet y hasta qué punto puede limitarse en la forma establecida?

¿Se ha tenido en cuenta el artículo 100 de la Directiva 2018/1972 (Salvaguardias de derechos fundamentales)?:

“1. Las medidas nacionales relativas al acceso o al uso por parte de los usuarios finales de los servicios y las aplicaciones a través de redes de comunicaciones electrónicas respetarán la Carta de los Derechos Fundamentales de la Unión Europea (en lo sucesivo, «Carta») y los principios generales del Derecho de la Unión.

2.Cualquier medida relativa al acceso o al uso por parte de los usuarios finales de los servicios y las aplicaciones a través de redes de comunicaciones electrónicas, que sea susceptible de limitar el ejercicio de los derechos y libertades reconocidos en la Carta solo podrá imponerse si está prevista por ley y respeta tales derechos o libertades, es proporcionada, necesaria, y responde efectivamente a objetivos de interés general reconocidos por el Derecho de la Unión o a la necesidad de protección de los derechos y libertades de los demás en línea con el artículo 52, apartado 1, de la Carta y con los principios generales del Derecho de la Unión, que incluyen el derecho a la tutela judicial efectiva y a un juicio justo. Por lo tanto, dichas medidas solo podrán ser adoptadas respetando debidamente el principio de presunción de inocencia y el derecho a la intimidad. Se garantizará un procedimiento previo, justo e imparcial, que incluirá el derecho de los interesados a ser oídos, sin perjuicio de que concurran las condiciones y los arreglos procesales adecuados en los casos de urgencia debidamente justificados, de conformidad con la Carta.”

No Sr. De Grandes, no es cierto lo que afirma:

"Los derechos de autor son un derecho de propiedad como cualquier otro derecho de propiedad, sea este material o no. Y existe para que los artistas puedan vivir de sus obras, por eso nuestro deber es protegerlo, sin los derechos de autor muchas obras, sean musicales, cinematográficas o de otro tipo, no existirían", afirmó De Grandes

Macaulay lo dijo ya hace 188 años. Lo recordamos de nuevo debidamente traducido:

El copyright es un monopolio y produce todos los efectos que el consenso general de la humanidad atribuye a los monopolios (…) El sistema de copyright tiene grandes ventajas y grandes desventajas, y es nuestro cometido determinar unas y otras y adoptar una decisión que asegure, todo lo posible, las ventajas y excluya, todo lo posible, las desventajas. La acusación que traigo contra el proyecto legislativo de mi honorable e instruido amigo es que deja las ventajas tal y como son en la actualidad e incrementa las desventajas al menos cuatro veces.

(Macaulay, alocución en The House of Commons, 1841)

Eso –debidamente actualizado teniendo en cuenta el nacimiento y desarrollo de internet- es lo que en esencia han dicho la inmensa mayoría de los expertos y no expertos en Europa y fuera de Europa en contra de la reforma aprobada hoy por los europarlamentarios.

Lo mismo indicó Mancur Olson ya en 1982:

Las coaliciones de distribución retardan la capacidad de una sociedad para adoptar nuevas tecnologías y para reasignar recursos en respuesta a las condiciones cambiantes, reduciendo así la tasa de crecimiento económico.

NOTA PARA ESPAÑA:

Los eurodiputados de PP, PSOE, Ciudadanos, PDeCAT y PNV votaron a favor del texto este martes en Estrasburgo. En contra se pronunciaron Podemos, ERC, ICV y EQUO.

(26/03/2019) EL PARLAMENTO EUROPEO Y EL COPYRIGHT

EL PARLAMENTO EUROPEO Y EL COPYRIGHT

(26-03-2019) APROBADA LA DIRECTIVA MÁS CONTESTADA DE LA HISTORIA DE LA UE

The European Parliament has adopted the copyright directive 348-274. The EU will get #uploadfilters and a counterproductive right for press publishers. #Article13 #Article11 #SaveYourInternet pic.twitter.com/Cu9eyI2Xqo

— Creative Commons (@creativecommons) 26 de marzo de 2019

LA UNIÓN EUROPEA ELIMINARÁ EL DERECHO A MEZCLAR

Lawrence Lessig: The EU will kill the right to remix in #Rome #Italy lessig-kill-remix-john-cabot-university/296559769 pic.twitter.com/TdaRHoi1BX

— Aaron Swartz Day (@aaronswartzIT) 21 de marzo de 2019

EL PARLAMENTO EUROPEO Y LA DIRECTIVA DE COPYRIGHT (26-03-2019)

LA DIRECTIVA MÁS CONTROVERTIDA DE LA HISTORIA DE LA UE

EL ASESINATO "TECNOLÓGICO" Y SU PRUEBA

DE SENECTUTE POLITICA

EUNOMIA, ISONOMÍA, ISEGORÍA, PARRESÍA

EL CRECIMIENTO, LA CAPITALIZACIÓN Y LA DEUDA

The post-2009 rally is the most expensive of all time. Debt has risen by almost $60tn since GFC, meaning that econ rebound of past decade, which brought global GDP increase of $20tn and a rise in mkt cap of $52tn, has been bought at high price. https://t.co/Vid1z4kBfD via @welt pic.twitter.com/XCPPi89zdd

— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) 14 de marzo de 2019

EN GUERRA CON EL PASADO

HOMENAJE A ROLAND BARTHES

CIRCULAR 2/2019 FISCALÍA GENERAL DEL ESTADO INTERCEPTACIÓN C. TELEFÓNICAS

CIRCULAR 5/2019 FISCALÍA GENERAL DEL ESTADO REGISTRO EQUIPOS INFORMÁTICOS

CIRCULARES 1 A 5/2019 DE LA FISCALÍA GENERAL DEL ESTADO

LA DISMINUCIÓN DE LA PARTICIPACIÓN DEL TRABAJO EN EL PIB

L

EL IMPUESTO SOBRE EL PATRIMONIO EN ESTADOS UNIDOS

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