Just as posters of Mona Lisa does not drop the entries in the Louvre

The Hadopi, our national authority for the Suppression of the illegal downloading, now has an embodied existence. With the help of the Internet access providers, it is responsible for identifying addresses IP (computers) that are used by hackers, and then continue the pirates themselves. Very broadly, the debate on the high authority for the dissemination of works and the protection of the rights on the Internet focused on technical and legal aspects: it is not too easy to deceive the gendarmes of piracy What about users that the line is used by a third party How to suspend an Internet connection when it goes hand in hand with the telephone line of the individual On the economic legitimacy of reform, the consensus seems to broad. Perhaps too much.

Let's start with the argument for. Intellectual property encourages artists to create, and the property of the harvest encourages farmers to cultivate the land. Respect for property rights is Stinger economic activity, in the culture as in agriculture. Frédéric Mitterrand has summarized this logic: "A creation to the lure of free of charge, without rights to the authors, would immediately atrophied if not stifled." This is the doctrine that is formulated, eloquence, in economics textbooks. But they also recall the arguments against: give the artist a monopoly of exploitation of his works limited offer (like any monopoly, the artist ration application). DVDs of films are for example sold 15 to 20 euros, while their production costs almost nothing. In total, it faces a dilemma generally resolved by the public power in protecting the rights of copyright while limiting their lifespan.

In a recent book entitled "against intellectual monopoly" (available on Michele Boldrin and David Levine questioning the merits of this traditional balance.) Their thesis is a counterpoint useful to speech often heard and obviously biased majors music and film with superstars. The authors note that the activism of these actors to increase their pension is not yesterday. Already, in the 1880s, large publishing houses American, facing "unfair" competition from small publishers in the Midwest, had managed to obtain a change in legislation in their favour. There among the arguments of the large publishers sermons from Pastor Isaac Funk denouncing the "sin of literary piracy."

Examples in support, two California economists demonstrate that, in many cases, copyright harm consumers without really encourage artistic creation. The invention of copyright in England at the end of the 18th century, and then broadcast to the rest of Europe did not have measurable impact on the musical creation. Progressive elongation of the copyright in the 20th century has not increased the literary production in the United States. After all, become a musician by the tiny chance of becoming Bono and Mick Jagger Young people watch will "The Battleship Potemkin" of Eisenstein a free click instead of pay 10 euros for a DVD discourage the artistic creation of quality

Contrary to the logic of Hadopi, the success of the film "Avatar", which has won more than 1 billion dollars in three weeks, is the perfect illustration of the positive effects of the limits of intellectual property on innovation. To deal with piracy, the movie industry has understood to provide a different experience that can have before its iPhone screen: 3D. "Avatar" is becoming both more seen in the room and the most pirated film history film. The pirated version does not provide sensory experience 3D, which can be obtained in room; she almost has a trailer to the film. Just as posters of "Mona Lisa" does not drop the entries in the Louvre.