“You have no fundamental right to enjoy the innovations produced by others without compensating them.” So says Robin Hanson.  In the first place, this shows the sorts of misguided thinking that arises when you frame pragmatic policy issues in terms of “fundamental rights” when there aren’t any fundamental rights clearly at stake on either side of a debate. Amazon doesn’t have a “fundamental right” to receive payments from other online stores that use one-click shopping, just a legal one.  In any event, as Timothy Lee writes, “[P]atents deprive people of the ‘fundamental right to enjoy’ their *own* innovations if someone made a similar discovery first.” 

That aside, does Hanson have any idea as to when people are allowed to freely use such innovations as cooking and shoes? Land ownership doesn’t expire the way patents do. Does anyone ever acquire a “right” to use a technology he didn’t invent all by himself?