For economists, intellectual property is protected for only one reason: to provide a return to those who create it and, thereby, provide an incentive for its creation.

This protection has a cost: others cannot freely use the property. Normally, as with hamburgers, this is no problem: only one person can eat the hamburger. But ideas are what economists call public goods: when I use an idea it is not "used up", it is still available for you to use it. (Radio waves have the same property: my listening to a radio station in no way prevents you from doing so too.)

So, you want to extend the protection only to the point where he benefit, at the margin, equals the cost. Where this is, of course, nobody (certainly not economists) really knows.

For non-economists, the problem is made (artificially) complex by the legalistic, political, and moral associations of the word "property".

"So, you want to extend the protection only to the point where he benefit, at the margin, equals the cost. Where this is, of course, nobody (certainly not economists) really knows."

So if nobody knows, doesn't it make sense to lean in the direction of overprotection of creators of IP? In my experience, those folks are hardly overcompensated. (I'm not talking about people who have sold their copyright to a big corporation.)

--Dumb non-economics major.