The software industry is more and more resembling the
Prisoner's Dilemma problem, and having all the attendant
issues.
For those unfamiliar with the game, 2 people arrested for a
crime they in fact committed, and questioned separately.
The choice is to rat out your friend, or keep your mouth
shut. The best option for both is keep your mouth shut -
the police have weak evidence, so you'll both get off with a
light sentence. If you both rat out the other, you'll both
get a harsher sentence. But the best case is if you rat on
your friend, but he keeps his mouth shut - you get off scot
free, and he goes away for a long time.
The problem here is there's a "best" outcome with the lowest
total prison time - keep your mouth shut. However, for each
player, you can improve your payoff by ratting. If he keeps
his mouth shut and you rat him out, you get off completely.
And if he's ratting you out, you're in serious trouble if
you keep your mouth shut. So, even though "society as a
whole" is better off if everyone keeps their mouth shut,
both players will rat each other out, leading to a costlier,
less optimal situation.
The analogy to IP law is pretty direct. Given everyone has
a patent portfolio that it's likely the other party
infringes, everyone's better off with "don't sue." However,
if someone else is litigious and you're not, you're screwed.
So everyone gets litigious. This will lead to a worse
social outcome (huge amounts wasted on legal cases,
injunctions, uncertainty with customers), and it's not even
terribly likely anyone will "win" enough to be worth it.
Personally, I find the current situation similar in concept
to airline price wars (where carriers trying to undercut
each other wind up losing a bunch of money without actually
changing the competetive balance). Airlines have (mostly)
learned over time to avoid these costly wars, leaving an
uneasy peace. I'm curious if the current IP scorched earth
in tech will eventually burn itself out similarly, or how
long it will take...[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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