Property rights: overrated?

A friend of mine posted on an interesting topic, and I thought it might be worth actually posting a response to theoncominghope's most recent post, "Piracy: Capitalism at work."

While I agree that piracy involves stealing and violating rights, remains a major concern amongst almost all sectors, and for the person whose product has been pirated the experience is far from pleasant, I'm not sure if one can make the leap from 'piracy' to the 'annihilation' of property rights.

For example, in the context of pharmaceuticals, I think you have to look at why piracy occurs to begin with - that is, the unavailability of certain pharmaceuticals. If everyone had access to most drugs when they needed it for a reasonable cost, I don't think you would have the same kind of problem of 'piracy' (or in this case, violation of intellectual property rights). On the one hand, such a situation would virtually nullify any incentive to reproduce a drug because it wouldn't make economic sense; if you can purchase it at a reasonable price/cost, then why spend the time, effort, and money to reproduce it? On the other hand, the same situation would also incentivise those who think they can reproduce the drug at a lower cost, supply it at the same price as the original, and make a profit.

In either of those scenarios, property rights aren't completely annihilated, because while pirated products do tend to find themselves distributed widely, the market for the original product continues to exist (albeit arguably in a less dominant manner than in previous generations). The products and processes used to create that product have been adapted. And for all intents and purposes, until a new form of technology comes along (which is probably more just a matter of time), or the downsides of a less-quality product are heartfelt by its consumers, the effects of one act of piracy are quite temporary.

This, of course, is not to say that the various consequences of these actions are any less significant, and I will get to this point shortly.

Either way, whether or not property rights are destroyed in either of the abovementioned scenarios is a mull point, because neither of those situations currently exist in the pharmaceutical sector. Certain pharmaceutical products are either unreadily available because the cost of production is too high for mass production, or are mass-produce-able but supply is limited, demand is uncontrolled and unsatiated, thus artificially pushing up prices, allowing companies to make a large profit. My humble opinion is that, given the political economy of pharmaceuticals, a little bit of piracy might actually do some good.

And to quickly address the profit-making incentive: government subsidies for R&D coming out of taxation, and removal of any taxes in the production of pharmaceuticals.

I suppose the problem is that from my macro perspective, piracy, or the infringement of (I)PR, or whatever you want to call it, is actually not such a 'big deal', for a lack of a better phrase. The reality is, much like financial services regulation, people will always find new ways to produce something for a lesser cost. Not even the prospect of the death penalty, or national deportation, will stop them; in fact, the higher you raise the stakes, the more profitable, and more criminal, of an industry it will become. If you really wanted to address 'piracy', you have to look at what incentives are, either by chance or purpose, in place that are driving certain people to forge a product.

The other issue I have with the violation of IPP/property rights in general from a more philosophical standpoint (wince!), is our continued obsession with the territoriality of material things. It's not that I've turned into a materialism-hating hippie overnight, but that the obsession itself is unsustainable. The reason why I take issue is because the world is changing. The best example is media. In about two or three decades, there will no longer be CD's - in fact, they will be super-expensive to produce and buy. Around the same time, broadsheets will disappear, as will consumer magazines, books, concert tickets, and flyers. My not-very-well-thought-out but gut-feeling is that the pulp and paper industry will actually turn into a consumer discretionary sector from the non-cyclical industrial sector it is now. This is to say that paper will become a luxury item, and there will only be a select few companies that will produce it. In fact, it's already starting. A Canadian newsprint company, AbitibiBowater, filed for bankruptcy in April this year, because newsprint consumption in the US fell off the cliff by 29%.

The music industry has already changed in this way. We went through a period where music became a hotly demanded commodity, and it was a ludicrous business on the production side to enter as long as you were at the right place at the right time with the right shit. On the consumer side, before MP3's became rampantly distributed, we all had to buy CD's or tapes, which we then developed the technology to copy at home and then re-distribute to our friends. But with the advent of MP3s and other alternative digital sound files that are easily distributable, CDs, tapes, and records became massively expensive to produce, and hugely inconvenient to purchase. The demand for music hardware (CDs) from consumers went down, pushing down supply (as well as the incentive to supply), while the production side of the music industry wanted to maintain the same level of income and profit. The business model is completely unsustainable. Something has to give.

Unfortunately, it will remain unsustainable until the music industry figures out a different way to fix the imbalance, or else the economy will do it on its own by scrapping the current music industry-model all together. Most likely - and this is where I stand with theoncominghope - not only will musicians have to be more creative in the way they produce and distribute their work, but their expectations for profit will also have to come down, especially given that the advertising industry will also undergo a massive change in the next few years. What the greater implications are of such changes - well, I'll leave it to your imagination to speculate.

Now, to address the more tangible issues arising from piracy: the micro perspective. Even though I basically say above in a more nuanced way, that property rights are somewhat overrated, the protection of individual rights to property ownership is quite important. In the far, tiny land of East Timor, one of the major obstacles to infrastructural development and peace, no less, is the lack of a legal framework about property rights. During its conflict with Indonesia, the Timorese underwent a series of uprooting from, and redistribution of, land the people formerly lived on. In post-conflict Timor-Leste, people continue to fight - physically and legally (in the latter case, as much as they could) - over ownership of certain pieces of land. It doesn't help that the country had been in conflict for so long that not only are 'official' records unavailble, the people themselves don't exactly have matching accounts of their ownership. The cases are also exacerbated by each party's familial (read: ancestral) attachment to the land and are wrapped up in many layers of tradition and practice with regards to conflict resolution. Many NGOs and IOs working on consultation programmes, therefore, have unilaterally pointed to the lack of property rights law as one of the most signficant obstacles to peace in Timor-Leste.

So at the micro-level, property rights are far from overrated. However, whether they are implicated in the music industry or in a small, undeveloped, post-conflict country, the importance of active regulation of property rights should be emphasised. But, that's not to say that you can just overburden them with regulation. The question to consider is the type of incentives, to place where, and when, and also recognising that even with adequate incentives, people will find ways to get around it. The fear is not underregulation, but overregulation. Some freedom - read: leniency and ability to change - will be key.
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Favorite commercial series in Japan

This is a Japanese commercial for a car insurance company. The three koalas rock it out to advertise; notice what become of their big noses.
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Empress. Empress?

Who knew that the punch-perm dictator (now suffering a major health problem?) on the Korean peninsula had a beloved, younger sister. I didn't.

On the evening news today was a face of a woman whom I have never seen in the media. The woman's name is Kim Kyong-hui - Jong-il's younger sister and one remaining 'family' (besides his three sons). Apparently she spent most of her life dearly loved and cared for by her brother. But the mere and sudden appearance of this woman was not what caught my attention. Rather, it was the headline, which read: "Empress of North Korea?"

As Jong-il's artery surgery last month indicates, the dictator is allegedly suffering from major health problems. It's understandable - at the very least, explicable - considering his obvious obesity, especially in contrast to the bodily form of the rest of his country's population. In the last few months the Asian media have concentrated on reports of Jong-il's oldest son living in Macau, of one of his sons being 'bred' as a possible successor, and most recently, of North Korea denying any negative effect of Japan's economic sanctions on its own economy and well-being. But of course, the key focus has revolved around speculations regarding Jong-il's successor. Tonight's evening news presented a suggestion very different from those of the past: that, Jong'il's sister has been seriously considered as the next ruler of North Korea.

After years of complicated political drama (basically Jong-il configuring and reconfiguring his most trusted arms), Jong-il's sister, Kyong-hui and her husband, Jang Song-taek now stand in positions closest to the current dictator. According to North Korean journalists and former politicians at the upper-echelons of North Korean governance (who abdicated and now reside in various first-world nations), Kyong-hui's words have recently come to carry the same weight and power as those of Jong-il's himself, for all intents and purposes. Her husband, Song-taek, is an economist by trade and can be found at the core of North Korea's fiscal policies as well as its administration. He stands close to his wife as her first and foremost advisor. The interviewee on the evening news - a former member of the so-called 'royal family' - commented on this newest suggestion, "This is no speculation."

So, the country whose human rights standards are far below reasonable, whose majority of its population is dying of starvation, whose economy is barely riding on trickling aid, and whose response to multilateral negotiations in this past year has been abhorrent, skips all stages of any 'standard' developmental path and is now thinking of installing an empress? I mean, not to say that a country has to follow some sort of predetermined path of development and political advancement in order to have a female leader, but France just failed to install its first female prime minister, Japan freaks out at the thought of having a female 'empress' (despite the empty figurehead she would become anyway), the United States might have its first female president in the next election (but is still quite doubtful), and the best thing Canada could come up with is a female politician who decided to switch parties (all the way across the political spectrum) before a major election (besides PM Kim Campbell in 1993). European countries are probably faring a bit better in that department, and a lot of South Asian countries are faring a lot better, but the world has still a far ways to go in 'normalizing' female global leaders. And North Korea to spearhead that? Hmm.
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"An encyclopedia should be radical."

> Mr. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikimedia Foundation.

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia and Wikia, started his presenation in the new theatre with the statement, "An encyclopedia should be radical." This statement was indeed the founding statement of the free encyclopedia that more than a billion users all across the globe have access to today.

He spoke about how the Wiki Foundation works, the functions of the Wikipedia, and how much it has grown over the past few years. What interested me most about his presentation was the growing and expanding connection between languages, cultures, and the global(izing) network. Wales suspects--and on many levels, I agree--that in the next decade we will be witnesses to a radical, "cultural shift," where an additional billion people will come online to join the internet community. These people are the people in current developing countries who do not have adequate internet access to make use of what Wikipedia (or what the internet as a whole) has to offer. In the next decade, 'these people', whom we only hear about in CNN and BBC when a catastrophe occurs, are exactly those people we will hear directly from--in their words, of their thoughts, of their lives.

> Wikipedia as a radical encyclopedia

Wikipedia today boasts 1,000 articles in 128 languages, and its aim is to have 250,000 articles in over 300 languages worldwide. I didn't even know 300+ languages existed, but hell, Wales dreams big. He dreams of free access to knowledge on the truest standards, where people are free to copy, modify, and redistribute information commericially or non-commericially. This is "free" in every sense of the word, and it is great, but it also brings to the forefront those who question Wikipedia's contents for its accuracy. Even here, I often hear teachers placing an unofficial, but definitely outspoken, ban on the use of Wikipedia, and in fact, the school's IP address has been blocked by the Wiki administrators for our students' perpetual, adolscent vandalism.

"Vandalism of articles don't last long on the Wikipedia," Wales laughed. His adminstrators are constantly monitoring changes of all types--the useful, harmful, humourous, and the scandalous. To show how accurate Wikipedia could be--and in fact, how inaccurate other well-accepted sources could be--Wales gave a telling example of a project that British magazine of scientific prestige, Nature published on 29 March 2006. The article (access to subscribers only) titled "Britannica attacks (...and we respond)" concluded that, according to 50 experts of various scientific fields who surveyed 50 articles of similar length from both Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia, Britannica articles contained an average of 3 errors per article, while Wikipedia articles contained an average of 4 errors per article. Statistic shmatistics, but that should still say a lot. Viva free knowledge! I say.

The Wiki Foundation, indeed, runs on a sort of motto that questions how information today is distributed by whom, and it is now seeking to manifest this political statement by launching "Wikiasari," a wiki-search engine, this year. Labeled by Fast Company in its most recent issue as Google's Worst Nightmare, Wales challenges the editorial statement made by modern search engines that 'hide' how their searches were produced. He, in turn, seeks to bring some transparency in the searching process itself. As The New York Times recently stated,

The Wikia search engine would allow users to see how the results were generated and modify those rankings using their own knowledge of the Internet. Any changes could be reversed by a different user, and, as in Wikipedia, long discussions could ensue over the decisions.

Today, he revealed his initial forecast: "It's going to suck, at least for the first little while." But I think the demand is definitely there, considering the cult-like following he had in the theatre today.

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Is it worth the investment?

Investment of time, resources, and perhaps more importantly, faith.

In my recent effort to write a letter of intent for my postgraduate applications, I strongly insisted that the world is in need of people who are not only multilingual, but multicultural, to stand as representative members of a growing international community. I argued that they must be, first and foremost, endowed with a sense of global responsibility. I cannot help but feel that Roh Moo-hyun, the current South Korean president, was one such person.

His 'sunshine policy' programme was began in an effort to reengage a population that had been separated quite cleanly in two by a physical border and a war. According to my mother's extended family members, such a political separation has not led them to believe that they are specifically 'Northern' or 'Southern'; they are, they insist, Korean. The successful completion of Roh's 'sunshine policy', therefore, would have helped bring together two populations that were originally one.

But what do you do, as a man of politics, when your neighbor blows up a nuke, against international objection? Here is a government you've decided to invest in, hoping--and that is truly the appropriate word: hoping--that they would begin to cooperate and see things in a different light. Despite the result (i.e. nuke), Roh should be commended for his effort and his ultimate faith in the good heart of human kind. Yes, they may be (are?) developing 'weapons of mass destruction', but their people are starving, and today, they would be half my people if it were not for the War and the physical border. The government that rules over their former people must be pressured to meet recent international standards of peace and security, but being so close and sharing so much history, they must not be completely alienated. As the direct neighbor and thus the most threatened, South Korea's approach to the recent North Korean crisis has been summarized in the recent issue of the Economist as the following:

South Korea's predominant political consensus, says Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul, is to seek gradual change north of the border in ways that might eventually narrow the vast income gap between the two sides. Tightening the screws too far risks goading Mr Kim to strike back. A collapse of the regime, followed by reunification, would impose unbearable costs on the South. Even the opposition GNP, says Park Jin, a member of the party, believes in maintaining dialogue with the North, while adding some pressure.

How does one with a sense of so-called 'global responsibility' tackle such a situation?
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A Successful Test?

International Herald Tribune announced, along with all of Japanese, South Korean, and U.S. media, the successful--question mark--execution of a nuclear bomb test in North Korea. North Korea gave the following statement regarding this shiver-inducing 'accomplishment':

The field of scientific research in the DPRK successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions on October 9, 2006, at a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great, prosperous, powerful socialist nation.

It has been confirmed that there was no such danger as radioactive emission in the course of the nuclear test as it was carried out under scientific consideration and careful calculation.

The nuclear test was conducted with indigenous wisdom and technology 100 percent. It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the KPA and people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defense capability.

It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it.

Whether North Korea actually blew up a nuke underground remains to be confirmed. Personally, the successful completion of a nuclear bomb test seems highly unlikely for a country that, not only failed to launch 7 missiles in July 2006, but is also facing international reprimand, including those from fellow neighbors China and South Korea; an entire starved nation; and limited funds/resources. Do they have all necessary components of a nuclear bomb, and have they been able to develop sufficient technology? Not so sure.

If North Korea actually blew up a nuke, it will be interesting to see what the UN and its participating countries will do in response...if any. The U.S. have, in the past, repeatedly articulated their contempt for any nuclear test, as has the UN, China, Japan, and South Korea. Furthermore, a successful execution of a nuclear test is a metaphorical equivalent to a political slap in the face for China and Russia. For years they have stressed that they will contain North Korea and its potentially disastrous activities. A successful test will, essentially, prove them wrong.

So far, tangible confirmation has been limited to a 4.3 Richter scale earthshake, artificially created, in an area of North Korea that U.S. intelligence has estimated to be the locale of nuclear testing.

To be perfectly blunt, the U.S. has nothing to gain from North Korea other than, in its defeat, keeping their reputation as the world's police force debatably committed to extermintating all Evil. Unless North Korea actually bombs someplace beyond their national borders, the U.S. will do nothing.

Now, as for Japan and other East Asian countries developing nuclear arms, which many Western nations seem to fear. As the only country ever levelled by an atomic bomb, the feeling that we will never be the ones to nuke another nation remains strong, even half a century after the War. Abe, our new PM, may be more nationalistic than Koizumi, but it is doubtful that he will go against an entire nation's opinion.
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I don't like YOU.

There are some incredible things people get away with in this world. Actually, it's not that incredible--I bet it's one of those things that happens very often but no one ever hears about it. Imagine if, like every other time in your life, you happened to lose your wallet, or even get it stolen. You cancel all your credit cards, notify the bank, get a new driver's license, and a social insurance card. You get a new wallet, and you think the matter is settled. Then, one day, you get a phone call from a ski rental place to tell you that a snowboard you rented was damaged. You've never been snowboarding in your life.

A front-page article on the Vancouver Sun this weekend recounted in detail exactly such an occurance. It is the most frustrating, and allegedly unsolvable, crime ever: identity theft. An 18 year-old woman had her purse stolen one night, and for the past two years she's been fighting someone who has been claiming to be her. This 'someone' has all her legitimate government ID, so for every car crash and every counterfeit cheque transaction, the finger points to her...except, she has committed none of it. And the reason why it's unsolvable by the police?

Sgt. Ken Athans, head of the Vancouver police Identity Theft Task Force, was not familiar with McAteer's file. That's because his new and highly successful task force targets large groups of people who work together across the Lower Mainland to pull off organized and very lucrative identity theft. [...] He has sympathy for McAteer and others in her situation, adding that in an ideal world there would be enough manpower and cooperation between police and outside agencies to solve a case like her's. [...] "We probably have people pointing fingers at each other saying it's your jurisdiction ... It's a huge problem. Resources are always going to be a problem. And we need to find a way to empower somebody to do something about that. That's sort of the shadow that identity criminals are able to operate in," he said. "It's really tough for her to go to the top of the pile ... There are a lot of people with stories like her's, and we hate to hear them."

First of all, in an ideal world, there wouldn't be such dishonest people. Secondly, in an ideal world, there would be no need for criminal justice systems or laws, for that matter. And thirdly, if not even that, there wouldn't be such an incompetent 'Theft Task Force' whose head-hancho stands and publicly claims that there are people "pointing fingers at each other saying it's your jurisdiction" and does just that. (Well, at least he is being honest.)

But, the true reprimand shouldn't be aimed at the police for their incompetence, but this bitch who goes around thinking she can get away with identity theft, although she clearly has and is. Whoever you are, wherever you are, you do NOT deserve to live in civil society, to reap the benefits of a safe, peaceful community. People like you who don't have common decency should never be amongst those of us who actually do. Go f%^k yourself.
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get over it, it's unfortunate

So I was chewing on some Genoa salami, after not having been able to decide if I should print out another copy for my dissertation tomorrow morning. It's nearly 90 pages, and my computer can't even handle opening the files, and my printer is broken. I'd have to go to Kinko's on broadway to get this thing printed. And that's a pain. Or go all the way to UBC again, and feel guilty as I use the student office's printer. Hm.

Anyway, so out of sheer boredom I was reading an article on the IHT website. Something about Korea and Japan feuding over a couple islands worth millions for its natural resources, and carrying much sentimental value for Koreans who suffered under Japanese colonialism.

This reminded me of that movie coming out in a few days, weeks, not sure--the one about 9/11.

How so? Well, if you can only tell from the title of this blog. That's right, people, get over it.

I know, it's kinda harsh if you consider all those families who lost their loved ones, the familial ancestors who suffered so much pain under colonial rule, the atrocities, the violence, etc.

But -- no apology is going to make that kind of pain go away. No public apology by any government or organization will ever heal the wounds of that magnitude.

So now--you've got half the world full of people who hate the other half because of the things a handful of them did. Soon, they will retaliate. And then, neither side will accept a simple word of apology. Then what? An entire world full of hating people. Completely blinded by their grief, their hatred, their irrationality over the death of a loved one --which, by the way, was an unfortunate consequence of a long history of hatred.

So why don't you share that island? Why don't you, if you've lost someone you've loved, think about that mother or wife in another part of the world, grieving for the exact same reason? Why make a movie about an event that idolize those who vanished with the airplane, that heroicize the unfortunate victims and demonize the equally-unfortunate hijackers. Why equally-unfortunate? Because they were as blinded by hatred as you hating people are now. They weren't born to be hijackers. They were born to be people, but born in an unfortunate situation, and made unfortunate choices--probably sometimes out of self-initiative, other times out of threat, left with no other option--throughout their lives. Not everyone's born into a family and get to eat everyday and receive an education that informs them about what's going on in the rest of the world.

Which is why they were blinded by hatred in the first place. If you had no idea that there's half a world of people going through the same grievances, the same agonies of life, if you didn't know any better and believed that the world was set up against you, then yes, it kind of does make sense that they would be blinded by hatred, doesn't it?

This isn't to justify the wrongdoings that have been committed. It doesn't make anything right to say that well, they were born into shitty situations and unfortunately made the wrong decisions. But it doesn't make your hatred a right either.

So come on people, get a rational head on your necks and think, for once!
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