Intellectual Property and Its Alternatives: Incentives, Innovation and Ideology

This dissertation examines the ability of intellectual property (IP) and its alternatives to both facilitate and impede innovation. Over the past 30 years there has been both an expansionary IP policy regime marked by significant increases in IP protection and a flourishing of alternatives to IP as digital technologies empower end users to create and disseminate intellectual works. However, it remains unclear as to whether alternatives to IP can mitigate the problems of exclusionary IP rights while also encouraging innovation. This dissertation provides a theoretical framework for analyzing alternatives to IP focusing on the incentives structures utilized, ability to produce innovative outcomes, and the kind of innovation engendered with the aim of identifying which alternatives are substantive alternatives to IP.