Dichotomy

Georges Méliès was a pioneer of filmmaking. He revolutionized the use of the nascent technology, which until his time had been primarily seen as a recording medium. Méliès introduced imagination and special effects into films. He was the first to use a number of techniques, including dissolves, double exposures, stop-motion photography to animate objects, and actors playing opposite themselves using a split screen. He is credited as having created the first science fiction movie, Le Voyage dans la Lune, in 1902. The famous image of the Man in the Moon struck in the face by a rocket comes from this movie. Méliès wanted to show this movie in America, where it should have made him a fortune. However, the movie was pirated by Thomas Edison, and Méliès never got any money from its showings in America. The theatre that he owned, where he first learned his craft, was demolished, and he was discovered years later selling candy and toys in a train station booth.

I generally think that IP is not the right way to achieve progress, and yet I think it might have prevented the crime that Edison did to Méliès. IP law could have protected Melies, and rightly should have. Why is IP bad on one hand, yet good on the other? What's the difference? Méliès deserved protection because he was doing Good for the arts, in my own opinion. Why is my opinion important? It seems that I make judgment calls on what is and is not progress, based on my own expertise.

I think that the progress of the arts and sciences should be measured by those who have expertise in such progress -- artists and scientists. Since they deal with the state-of-the-art, as it were, on a regular basis, they are in the best position to determine whether progress is really being made. They are also best suited to determine the methodologies that would best promote that progress. They are, in legal parlance, the 'cheapest cost avoiders' in determining progress.