Treating ideas the same as physical possessions can give some pretty odd results, when you think about it past your own immediate gain. Somebody else came up w

Treating ideas the same as physical possessions can give some pretty odd results, when you think about it past your own immediate gain. Somebody else came up with the idea that you can put letters on paper. Another person came up with the idea that you can put paper together in a collection to form a book. Why are you stealing these ideas, making money and keeping the profits? The only reason this isn't an issue for you right now is because these ideas were created up a long time ago, and the ideas have become "public goods" that anybody may use. But what if you could inherit intellectual property in the family just like physical property? After all, if a farm can be kept in the family for hundreds of years, why not an intellectual piece of real estate? What sort of free society would say "okay, after you have created a good, you may keep it for 70 years and then it belongs to the public"? And yet we do this for intellectual property, and I suspect, the truth is, because we don't really truly believe it's real property. And I'm very happy for that.