WIPO: Informal Economy Innovates In The Absence Of Intellectual Monopolies

One of the problems with the debates around copyright and patents is that they too often assume that intellectual monopolies are necessary in order to promote innovation or even basic economic activity. But that overlooks all kinds of domains where that's not true. In the field of technology, free software and the other open movements based on sharing are familiar examples of this kind of thing. Less well known so are the so-called "informal economies" found in many parts of the world. 

On Techdirt.