Talk:Tragedy of the anticommons

Irrelevant reference?
Hickman, J. and Dolman, E.: "Resurrecting the Space Age: A State-Centered Commentary on the Outer Space Regime," Comparative Strategy, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2002. What has this got to do with the article? Mr. Jones 14:18, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A prescription of heirarchy?
...there is no hierarchy among owners such that the decision of one owner can dominate those of other owners, forcing them to use their resources in ways they would not, if they were permitted free will by the authority.

This should discuss the input of additional information, rather than just describe centralised control as if it were the only solution. Mr. Jones 14:18, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

examples, please
surely there are some juicy and enlightening examples? like the grazing cattle in Tragedy of the commons? and more familiar than Heller's empty russian shops? regards, High on a tree 01:48, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * How about the whole mess of copyrights and patents? There are certainly many juicy and enlightening examples of copyrights causing severe under-exploitation of information (i.e. many people who could put the information to productive use are unable to access it). -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 13:07, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't think copyrights are an example of this phenomenon, at least most of the time. Usually a copyright is held by one person or at least one decision-making entity (e.g., a literary agent acting on behalf of all of a given author's living descendants, or the manager of a corporation that owns copyright in works for hire).  If an author's estate is set up so all his descendants have veto rights on reprints of his work, that would be an example of this, but I don't know of any actual cases.    -- Jim Henry, 30 Nov 2004

Copyrights generate many example of this phenomenon when *derivative works* are involved. Television shows which use music, plays based on books, movies based on plays based on books, etc., provide dozens of examples; as does computer software, where code based on a previous programmer's work is very common. In addition, in music the overlapping rights to a *song* and to the *recording* (phonogram) of the song can cause trouble. 24.59.111.200 14:57, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

global view
Porbably examples could be:

- 80% of money belongs to 5% of people (though tey are used by many of as in business processes..) - food and similar resources are also unproportional in vestern countries vs 3-rd World countries.. - historicaly, for. ex. Endgland, lords had lot's of land/property, while peasants -- very scare..

I think this issue is regulated by property taxes. If You don't use the property, You still have to pay taxes, so You'd better rent/sell your property to others to use/make_business.

Isnt Wikipedia a 'juicy' example of this concept? Many people feel that they have the right to edit and shape a given wiki page as they please, and the conflict results in disputes about how to form the page. You could argue about whether this results in 'waste', but I would say that if these conflicts did not arise then wikipedia would be more useful and therefore better utilized.

takings, eminent domain
"This is the canonical justification for the takings clause in the US Constitution and eminent domain generally."

I would say this is incorrect and confusing the issues. Canonically, takings are to satisfy a public use, NOT to correct a market inefficiency. While much of the current backlash over eminent domain's use stems from its application in cases of market inefficiency (where properties are not reaching their highest and best use). Granted, many of Heller's arguments are critical of the use of takings in such instances. But to say that it is the basis of the takings clause is not supported by the law's text or long history.

This sentence is bad; the takings clause is a restriction on public domain, not a statement of the acceptability of public domain seizures. Removing the reference to the takings clause. 24.59.111.200 14:59, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

bad examples abound
Seems to me DVD players are a bad example. Considering the hundreds of brands of DVD players available worldwide, I'd say its hardly an under exploited market. The patents and copyrights parts also smell fishy. Its as though the author of these is attempting to grind an axe here.
 * DVD players were not used as an example, rather mentioned as something that possibly could have been affected. But the patent holders have choosen to cooperate regarding DVD players and create patent pools to make it easy to build correctly licensed DVD playes, something that is relatively rare. There are many examples of where the patent holders haven't made any agreement, effectively stopping all development of anything new. 109.58.27.42 (talk) 09:35, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

This article is nonsense
This articles refers to certain things being 'wasted'. But isn't 'waste' subjective? It is, since value itself is subjective. Isn't this argument just saying the some individuals disagree with how other individuals allocate their own resources? This whole concept is a fallacy. Perhaps this article is best listed in a page relating to fallacies.

"Oh, I don't like how many sheets of toilet paper you use to wipe your ass! So many externalities!"

DrDimension 08:22, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The concept includes the idea that things are being wasted. Wikipedia is only reporting on the concept, not passing judgment on whether it is true.  Ken Arromdee 14:47, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * If you think that the "waste" as used here is subjective, then you probably think that all economics and probably all forms of logic is subjective. Patents are a good example, just consider all the patent law suit threats against Linux, as example. Patents on memory management, file systems, user interface, etc, could possibly stop all development of free operating systems that everybody otherwise would benefit from (even the patent holder). If all patent holders would attempt to maximize their income by demanding high license fees, they would loose as well because too few would pay and rather stop using it, development would slow down or stop and patentees' costs of managing licenses would be high.
 * So it is a waste, and it's not subjective at all. In particular, since the economic efficency is maximized when everybody contribute a little and nobody tries to block it or demand royalties, then blocking it or demanding royalties will of course be economically inefficient, "a waste". 109.58.27.42 (talk) 09:30, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Nail house
The Chinese nail houses are not really an example of this. Yes, the economic use is being hampered by a single owner who refuses to sell, but a shopping center could be build without removing the house. The real issues with nail houses are access and utility rights, as it appears there is no such thing in China. In the United States, the developer is legally obligated to provide access and utilities to the holdout property.

71.212.22.51 (talk) 14:21, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * A caption reads: 'Chongqing "nail house" refused to leave it, thwarting plans for a shopping mall. ' I don't like commenting on China as I am not a Chinese speaker.  Apparently the nail house was removed and the project went forward.   If so the caption using the term "thwart" is incorrect as thwart implied prevention.  So negotiations while unsightly delayed but did not thwart the project.  In the end a legal remedy like eminent domain was not necessary. Geo8rge (talk) 20:52, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Use of patented technology in research
The assertion that:

In fact, a patent holder can often say that mere research is an infringing use, and demand a license fee even though the chance of developing a marketable product is slim.

is incorrect.

While it may claim infringement, the patent holder is not the arbiter in cases of patent dispute: that is the job of the courts. Demand of a license fee by the patent holder does not equate to automatic acceptance of payment by the alleged infringer, especially in drug discovery. 35 U.S.C. §271(e)(1) specifically states:

It shall not be an act of infringement to make, use, offer to sell, or sell within the United States or import into the United States a patented invention (other than a new animal drug or veterinary biological product (as those terms are used in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the Act of March 4, 1913) ...) solely for uses reasonably related to the development and submission of information under a Federal law which regulates the manufacture, use, or sale of drugs

This "FDA safe harbour" usage has been established in pharmaceutical research in a US Supreme Court case from 2005, Merck KGaA, Petitioner v. Integra Lifesciences I, Ltd., et al, which overturned a Federal Court upholding of a District Court decision to award damages, from which the decision was that:

The Court held that the use of patented compounds in preclinical studies is protected under [35 U.S.C.] §271(e)(1) at least as long as there is a reasonable basis to believe that the compound tested could be the subject of an FDA submission and the experiments will produce the types of information relevant to an IND or NDA. Daen (talk) 14:59, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

European Union and UNO security counsel
Doesn't every project previewing Veto rights suffer from this very effect? In the European Union 27 member states have to agree on every major decision. This is one reason, the EU is still seated in three different cities, which causes extra costs. Every time they try to quit one place, the affected country would oppose. So everyone suffers by trying to get out the best for themselves.--Joschi (talk) 16:14, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Marked dubious statements
I've marked 2 sentences in article lead as {dubious}. Per WP:BURDEN, burden of evidence lies on the editor who adds or restores challenged material, so if no references are provided within reasonable time (usually 1 month is considered enough, but I'm certainly not in a hurry), I may proceed with re-removing them. As a side note: while I strongly suspect big portions of WP:OR/WP:SYN there, without references it is difficult to argue, so let's wait for references and discuss if it is WP:OR/WP:SYN then. Ipsign (talk) 10:46, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

There are two elements to these marked sentences: (a) discussion of possible 'solutions'; this is quite possibly WP:SYN and should be sourced/removed, and (b) a 'broadening' of the article to include all cases in which too much private property leads to sub-optimal results. While (a) has a burden of proof, I don't see that (b) does, since the real problem is the strange name of the article; it actually must cover all such cases, just as "tragedy of the commons" would include all cases in which a lack of property rights leads to sub-optimality. I think that the confusion starts over whether this article should be discussing the term or the concept. If the article is discussing the terrible neologism "Tragedy of the anticommons" then there will hopefully be no citations found to include the general issue of sub-optimal outcomes under divided private property rights referencing this name. But this article should not be so restricted. That's because: --Wragge (talk) 15:12, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
 * (1) The info box at the bottom of these pages assigns to "tragedy of the anticommons" the discussion of all situations in which "Bad outcome/tragedy" & "too many private rights" intersect. By our definition "patent thicket" falls inside that class. There's no WP:BURDEN to show that spoon is a type of cutlery - the categorization is true by definition; all that must be shown in that the category cutlery is notable in and of itself (otherwise we have a WP:SYN problem). In this case, the existence of the "tragedy of the anticommons" as a notable phenomenon should be separately established as a general case... but... we are already asserting that notability has been established by including it in the "Bad outcome/Good outcome" box at the foot of four separate pages. If there is a question that this category: "Bad outcome/tragedy" is not independently notable then it cannot be addressed just by removing other examples of the "Bad outcome/tragedy" from this article (what we would need to do is to label the neologism "Tragedy of the anticommons" as an example of a phenomenon from a non-notable category - we would then mention the logical existence of the category "Bad outcome/tragedy" while also contending that it wasn't notable enough to warrant its own article as in: List_of_twins).
 * (2) If this article actually were only on the neologism it would have questionable independent notability, and would probably need to be deleted or merged into the actual article that should be here covering the general private-property-bad-outcome case. Also, there is the general wp:notdic point that articles should be about ideas not words. Maybe the article should be renamed? Or perhaps the article should not start by saying " The tragedy of the anticommons is a neologism coined by Michael Heller", but should instead lead: "The tragedy of the anticommons is a coordination breakdown... ". I think very relevant here is the policy Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary: "In a few cases, there will be notable topics which are well-documented in reliable sources, but for which no accepted short-hand term exists. It can be tempting to employ a neologism in such a case. Instead, it is preferable to use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English if possible, even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title."
 * As WP:CHALLENGE says: "Anything challenged or likely to be challenged" requires a reliable source, and {citation needed} is one widely accepted way to challenge, so it is challenged now, and therefore requires WP:RS. On your (1): this argument doesn't fly at all (in part because Wikipedia itself is not WP:RS: it is the table you're referring to which can be in error, especially as it is itself unsourced). On your argument (2): sure, the article may not be about neologism, but should be about concept. But Wikipedia may not invent the concept and may not interpret it (per WP:V and WP:NOR); if the concept Tragedy of the anticommons really exists outside of Wikipedia, it should have been described somewhere (ideally - in peer-reviewed materials), and therefore references should be available. In particular, it must not be Wikipedians who decide what exactly is included under this term/concept (for example, whether it is really related to submarine patents) - doing this would be an obviously unverifiable claim in violation of WP:V (and will be WP:OR//WP:SYN too); for example, to justify inclusion of submarine patents into the challenged sentence, there should be an article/book which explicitly mentions submarine patents as one of the issues under the concept of Tragedy of anticommons. Therefore, my objection still stands: both these sentences are staying challenged, and unless citations are provided, will be removed as unverifiable (please note that I do not need to discuss whether these sentences are wrong - they may be right, but as long as they're not verifiable - they don't belong to Wikipedia regardless). Oh and BTW, please make sure not to remove {citation needed} tags until references are provided. Ipsign (talk) 05:33, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Inadequate definition of "tragedy of the commons"
This article begins
 * The tragedy of the anticommons is a coordination breakdown where the existence of numerous rightsholders frustrates achieving a socially desirable outcome. It mirrors the older tragedy of the commons used to describe coordination breakdowns arising from insufficient rightsholders .  [underlining added -- Thnidu (talk)] 

That second definition is just plain wrong. The article Tragedy of the commons begins
 * In economics, the tragedy of the commons is the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, despite their understanding that depleting the common resource is contrary to the group's long-term best interests.

Such a situation involves plenty of rightsholders, perhaps too many, each valuing their own short-term self-interest above the community's long-term interests.

The article attributes the phrase to Michael Heller in his 1998 article. The abstract of that article is accessible directly from the reference. There he says  [list formatting added to bring out the parallel structures in Heller's text] 
 * Anticommons property can be understood as the mirror image of commons property. By definition,
 * in a commons,
 * multiple owners are each endowed with the privilege to use a given resource,
 * and no one has the right to exclude another.
 * When too many owners have such privileges of use, the resource is prone to overuse -- a tragedy of the commons.
 * In an anticommons, by my definition,
 * multiple owners are each endowed with the [right]* to exclude others from a scarce resource,
 * and no one has an effective privilege of use.
 * When there are too many owners holding rights of exclusion, the resource is prone to underuse -- a tragedy of the anticommons.

*  [The abstract says "fight", evidently a typo.] 

It's not a shortage of rightsholders that creates a tragedy of the commons, it's their combined overuse of the resource. I've rewritten the first paragraph to correct the definition, express the two definitions in parallel, and generally tighten up the writing. (The verb "mirror" as quoted above means "same sort of thing", the very opposite of Heller's expression "mirror image". Isn't English fun?) --Thnidu (talk) 07:12, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Merge from comedy of the commons
Both theories 'comedy of the commons' and 'tragedy of the anticommons' discuss way in which the commons can be beneficial and what is lost when there is a lack of commons. Only one article is needed. However, the article should be renamed see section below.Jonpatterns (talk) 12:57, 2 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Merge both this article and Comedy of the commons into a criticism section within the Tragedy of the commons article. Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 15:30, 2 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Very strongly oppose they're on absolutely, totally, completely different topics, one is on how a commons can be successful, the other is about how private ownership can be unsuccessful; they're complete and total opposites. For example, just because private ownership may be unsuccessful in one case, doesn't mean that common ownership would be successful either in the same case. Shared articles on polar opposites are very rarely a good idea.GliderMaven (talk) 18:41, 2 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Frankly, I think any kinds of criticisms and discussions can be handled well enough in the actual Tragedy of the commons article, but I'll take this proposed merge as the second best option.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:48, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * And yes, if it's all merged, the proposed rename below makes sense as well.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:49, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

They could have headings each, and thereby the accessibility of users would be improved by having all this in one place, and the context of a single article. To someone just wanting know about common land, all these articles coming up on a search is very confusing.Dougsim (talk) 17:20, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Suggest that tragedy of the anticommons and comedy of the commons be merged into Tragedy of the commons. The first two articles do not stand well alone, and I felt them very puzzling when I first came across them, when cleaning up and adding to the article on common land.
 * This would be my most preferred solution as well.Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:29, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Rename to Criticism of the tragedy of the commons
There are a number of theories that critique the tragedy of the commons it would be good to have one article covering them all.Jonpatterns (talk) 12:57, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Good outcomes
Why is a good outcome of common ownership a 'Comedy of the commons', when the good outcome out for private ownership 'Successful capitalism'? Jonpatterns (talk) 16:14, 2 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Because one particular Wikipedia editor believes very strongly that this is so. No other reason.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:54, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

original research table
Re. Seriously. This table is original research, as I've repeatedly pointed out on all the articles that GliderMaven is trying to spam this into.

The idea that "Tragedy of the anticommons" is "related to" these three other "concepts" is original research. It's unsourced. It's one Wikipedia user's opinion. Show me a source which actually says "Tragedy of the anticommons is related to these three other concepts"

The idea that there's a 2x2 categorization of these concepts is original research.

The idea that some of these concepts, like the "comedy of the commons", are notable is original research.

The idea is that this conceptualization is useful enough to be presented in a table is original research. For example "successful capitalism", whatever the funk that is, probably entails components of BOTH public and private ownership.

Etc.

It's simple. Find a source which has a table like this in it, or at least a source which categorizes these very concepts like this. Otherwise it's... original research. Unsourced original research. And that gets removed.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:54, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

European data policy
Duch-Brown et al (2017) discuss the anticommons in their European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) working paper on data property rights. Someone may like to work that material into this article? With best wishes. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 12:48, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

additional info added
added info below, feel free to critique/remove as you see fit.

Added as an elaboration of definition "Here, the right of an individual to exclude others from accessing or using a resource results in the underutilisation of a resource. The lack of synergy between use rights and exclusion rights causes a net welfare loss, as the individuals exercising their right to exclude do not completely internalise the cost of excluding others."

Another paragraph in short description "Based on the non-conformity between use and exclusion rights, Parisi, Schultz and Depoorter (2002) have presented two cases to model the anticommons tragedy: simultaneous and sequential. The simultaneous case is where multiple individuals exercise their exclusion rights simultaneously as well as individually on the same level of the value chain. For example, multiple co-owners with veto rights on a shared resource. The sequential case is where exclusion rights are exercised in successive order on different levels of the value chain. For example, entities on a hierarchy exercising their veto power on a proposal."

Another paragraph under examples "The Greek government-debt crisis demonstrates the tragedy of the anticommons in the political economy. Sixteen countries in the Eurozone agreed to contribute to the bailout program. Here, coordination is dependent on the availability of information. Given that there is no information asymmetry and knowledge is shared between each country, this means the agreement of the bailout plan is enforceable and executable. However, each donor country failed to coordinate and carried out their own separate plans. This competitiveness and non-cooperative approach of the Eurozone countries resulted in a coordination fail and exacerbated Greece’s government debt crisis."

S4395221 (talk) 03:53, 1 May 2022 (UTC)