Episode 117: The Big Steal – How Weak IP Rights Undermine Innovation and Markets with Jonathan Barnett

ECIPE’s Fredrik Erixon talks to Professor Jonathan Barnett, from the University of Southern California, about his recent book The Big Steal: Ideology, Interest, and the Undoing of Intellectual Property.

Together, they discuss how policymakers have weakened IP protections in the last decades, partly because of shifting technologies and new ideas, and distorted innovation incentives. As a result, innovation and value generation have shifted between sectors and business models. The conversation also covers how strong IP rights contribute to long-term, high-value innovation, new entrepreneurship, and competition, drawing implications for Europe and global policy reform.

You can watch a video recording of this conversation here.

You can read a transcript of the chat here.

Order Professor Barnett’s book “The Big Steal: Ideology, Interest, and the Undoing of Intellectual Property” here.

Jonathan M. Barnett is the Torrey H. Webb Professor of Law at the University of Southern California, Gould School of Law, and director of the law school’s Media, Entertainment and Technology Law Program. He specialises in innovation law and policy, including antitrust, competition, corporate, and intellectual property law, with a focus on monetisation strategies and organisational structures in content and technology markets. He has published widely in scholarly and policy publications and comments regularly on innovation and competition policy in the press and at professional conferences. Prior to academia, he practised corporate law at a leading international law firm, specialising in mergers and acquisitions.