Intellectual Property (IP) laws vary from place to place. Regardless of where they are practiced and to what extent, IP laws are grants of positive rights over ideas, and restrict the use of those ideas by others. According to most proponents of IP law, they do this in order to encourage innovation. For example, the United Nations organization for protection of intellectual property, WIPO, describes their task as "... to promote innovation and creativity for the economic, social and cultural development of all countries, through a balanced and effective international intellectual property system."

But does IP law encourage innovation? This is a claim which is often assumed a priori, but should be challenged. Little or no empirical data on the effect of IP on innovation exists, and what little data there is can be hard to draw conclusions from because of the absence of any counterexample, and because the concepts of "invention" (creating new ideas) and "innovation" (putting new ideas to use) are frequently and mistakenly treated as synonyms.

IP laws on their own do not create anything, but by definition they do prevent new ideas from being used where they are most needed. By failing to differentiate between innovation and invention, most arguments that defend IP law seem to conclude that the value of bread is in the loaf, not on the dinner table. (Compare David Ricardo's Labor Theory of Value.) They encourage radical improvement over incremental improvement, but only by essentially outlawing the latter. And they confuse or invalidate real property rights over such physical property as is sometimes subjected to IP statute. (When you buy a music CD for example, what exactly do you own?)

For the fantasy football gaming community, the possibility of IP laws stifling innovation and conflicting with real property rights have hit very close to home. The operators of this site have elected to comply with international laws and agreements to avoid potential legal action, using their hardware to support only what content is deemed acceptable by certain outside parties, rather than what content would best provide for the improvement of the game and community. Of course, I respect that decision. And I love this site. But I would encourage those who have seen the ill effects of IP laws in person to reconsider their support for these laws in general. IP laws should be challenged to defend their very existence against this simple but heterodox position: ideas- like minds, like men, cannot be owned.