The Big Steal with Prof. Jonathan Barnett

Why It Matters

Eroding IP rights concentrates power in platform aggregators, undermining incentives for creators, stifling innovation, and jeopardizing the democratic role of independent news media.

Key Takeaways

• IP rights have been systematically weakened since mid‑2000s.
• Digital platforms and “information‑free” ideology drove policy changes.
• Weaker IP shifts wealth from creators to aggregators and distributors.
• Concentration increases, harming startups and specialized innovators alike.
• Declining news revenues threaten democratic watchdog function in society.

Summary

The interview centers on Professor Jonathan Barnett’s book *The Big Steal*, which argues that U.S. intellectual‑property law has undergone a sweeping transformation since the mid‑2000s, resulting in a massive transfer of wealth from inventors and creators to the platforms that aggregate and distribute their work.

Barnett identifies two converging forces: the rise of digital‑platform business models that profit from maximizing free content, and an “information‑wants‑to‑be‑free” ideology rooted in academia and parts of the software community. Together they have pressured courts, legislatures, and antitrust agencies to erode patent and copyright protections, as illustrated by the Viacom v. YouTube decision, Google Maps’ free service model, and the broader weakening of copyright exemptions.

A striking quote from the book—“Ideology, Interest, and the Undoing of Intellectual Property”—captures this accidental alliance. Barnett also points to the SOPA‑PIPA episode, where platform companies mobilized public opinion against stronger enforcement, and highlights the news industry’s collapse as a democratic casualty of the weakened IP regime.

The implications are profound: stronger platform dominance, reduced entry for specialized innovators, and a threatened democratic watchdog function as news outlets lose revenue. Policymakers face a choice between preserving incentives for creation and embracing a free‑content model that may ultimately stifle the very innovation it seeks to promote.

Original Description

Please join CSIS on Thursday, March 26 for a conversation with Prof. Jonathan Barnett on his latest book, The Big Steal: Ideology, Interest, and the Undoing of Intellectual Property. In this work, Prof. Barnett tells the story of how intellectual property rights were steadily hollowed out just as the digital economy took off. Under the rallying cry, “information wants to be free,” courts, Congress, regulators, the academy, and much of the tech industry embraced utopian policies that made it harder to enforce property rights over inventions and creative works. This change in the "rules of the game" produced a skewed ecosystem that favors platform-based business models over the "idea factories"—universities, "Little Tech," and content creators —that drive critical sectors of the U.S. innovation economy.

This event is made possible through general support to CSIS.

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