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> But arguing you can't "steal" the intangible The issue is not intangibility. The issue is scarcity and ownership. Theft is (or rather, ought to be) when you
by wyager 10y ago
> But arguing you can't "steal" the intangible
The issue is not intangibility. The issue is scarcity and ownership.
Theft is (or rather, ought to be) when you deprive someone of a scarce resource they can claim ownership over. If they can't claim ownership of it, or you're not depriving them of anything, then it's not theft.
Any given idea, after it has been conceived, is obviously not scarce; the reproduction costs for an idea are essentially zero. You can't deprive someone of any idea by copying it.
The question, then, is whether you can claim ownership over the control of an idea (i.e. who is allowed to know the idea, and how they are allowed to apply it). To me, that seems insane, but obviously not to everyone.
- closeparen 10y agoThe level of support for this idea is astounding for a community where most people put food in their mouths by providing their employers with exclusive control of "ideas" (source code).
- wyager 10y agoOur jobs would still exist in the absence of the current overbearing IP system. The legal structure would just be slightly different. There are any number of ways companies could continue to have proprietary technology without patents, and even without copyrights.