Is profit from IP necessarily rent? The problem is that "rent" is defined as "profits earned above what would be earned in a competitive market," but "competitive market" isn't well-defined until you define a system of rights (namely property rights).
First comes the existence of "intellectual property" in property rights. To avoid the dependence of the right to property on the state or the monarch, John Locke and others argued for the concept of "natural rights" - the right to physical property and land property I think are included in this while intellectual property such as copy rights have not been.
After all, if property is merely an administrative system established by the state for some purpose, such a system can be changed if it happens to not serve that purpose. The assumption of natural property is that (land and mobile) property rights are a prerequisite for the existence of a just state rather than the result of the state. So-called intellectual property is always the product of a state, indeed intellectual property is always a monopoly of activity granted by the state (with the "natural rights" argument being aimed to claim natural property rights are more than that).
Now, a purely formal, economic definition only judges the structure of a market in question. So it simply gives what difference between what a competitive market would charge for a good and what a non-competitive market actually charges. Since "intellectual property" is a monopoly granted by the state, the degree of rent they allow is most easily calculated. If anything, the trickier thing is calculating how much rent simpler property rights involve.
Is profit from IP necessarily rent? The problem is that "rent" is defined as "profits earned above what would be earned in a competitive market," but "competitive market" isn't well-defined until you define a system of rights (namely property rights).
First comes the existence of "intellectual property" in property rights. To avoid the dependence of the right to property on the state or the monarch, John Locke and others argued for the concept of "natural rights" - the right to physical property and land property I think are included in this while intellectual property such as copy rights have not been.
After all, if property is merely an administrative system established by the state for some purpose, such a system can be changed if it happens to not serve that purpose. The assumption of natural property is that (land and mobile) property rights are a prerequisite for the existence of a just state rather than the result of the state. So-called intellectual property is always the product of a state, indeed intellectual property is always a monopoly of activity granted by the state (with the "natural rights" argument being aimed to claim natural property rights are more than that).
Now, a purely formal, economic definition only judges the structure of a market in question. So it simply gives what difference between what a competitive market would charge for a good and what a non-competitive market actually charges. Since "intellectual property" is a monopoly granted by the state, the degree of rent they allow is most easily calculated. If anything, the trickier thing is calculating how much rent simpler property rights involve.