The predominant justification for most intellectual property rights is the incentive theory or utilitarian rationale. Behind this justification lies the Western idea of progress and its derivatives, liberalism, capitalism and consumerism. This article shows that the progress ideology rests on...

2014 was the 25th birthday of the World Wide Web (WWW) and as of 30 June 2014, 3,035,749,340 (ie around 3 billion and 35 million) people were connected to the Internet so a bit more than half the population of the planet. There were around 1.70 billion active smart phones in the world at the end...

This paper contributes to the question whether technology does increase subjective well-being in a society. Intellectual property rights (IPRs) document the inventiveness of a society and are a legal byproduct of innovations. The impact of these IPRs on subjective well-being are analyzed...

The dominant justification for intellectual property rights at least in the West and international treaties is utilitarian, and more precisely based on the Chicago School of Law and Economics (first section). However, this school of thought is both flawed and ideological (second section). Basing...

The Chicago School of the law and economics movement, on which the predominant justification for independent property rights is based in most countries, is flawed mainly because it takes economic wealth as the sole proxy for well-being. We suggest replacing it with a well-being approach, which,...

Intellectual property rights are exclusive rights the law gives to authors and inventors to stimulate creativity and innovation. Intellectual property laws’ justification assumes that the more creations and inventions there are, the better off the population is. Therefore, the law promotes...