Greenspan on property

[Erik Josefsson <erikjosefsson@telia.com>]

Market Economies and Rule of Law
http://www.federalreserve.gov/BoardDocs/speeches/2003/20030404/default.htm
April 4, 2003

Greenspan is unfortunatelly talking about "ownership of ideas" instead
of "ownership of implementations of ideas":

"Ownership of physical property is capable of being defended by police,
the militia, or private mercenaries. Ownership of ideas is far less
easily protected."

But he poses some good questions that we hopefully will get some good
answers to: 

"If our objective is to maximize economic growth, are we striking the
right balance in our protection of intellectual property rights? Are the
protections sufficiently broad to encourage innovation but not so broad
as to shut down follow-on innovation? Are such protections so vague that
they produce uncertainties that raise risk premiums and the cost of
capital? How appropriate is our current system--developed for a world in
which physical assets predominated--for an economy in which value
increasingly is embodied in ideas rather than tangible capital?"

//Erik