There are two factors that I think come into play in any discussion about dumping IP protections. I don't think treating everything as a trade secret is really

There are two factors that I think come into play in any discussion about dumping IP protections. I don't think treating everything as a trade secret is really that viable of an option; there are too many ways to reverse engineer things. First, what will happen to industries that require significant investments before any return can be realized? Software does not fit in this category any more (perhaps it did at one time), but biotech, green, and space certainly do. If you need to dump $200M to get something right, then somebody else can come reproduce it for $10M in reverse engineering, your screwed. Who would invest in that space? Second, would people really pay for "shareware" content? Would they pay enough to keep good authors writing books, good film makers making movies, and good musicians making music? Sure, there are a lot of crappy people in those categories getting paid today, but there are also a lot of really good artists getting paid today. If payment was optional (and with no IP protection, payment is optional), how many people would pay? The first actually bothers me more than the second. I bet JJ Abrams could get enough donations before making a film to make it worth his while, so, while the arts would change, it would probably be OK in the end (after some painful times for all, including consumers). I'm not so sure that SpaceX could get enough donations (that is, after all what they might be) to build a space program.