I see this proprietary/free duality as a fundamental weakness of copyright law and intellectual-property-based business models. As things currently stand, softw

I see this proprietary/free duality as a fundamental weakness of copyright law and intellectual-property-based business models. As things currently stand, software that provides the most value to society also often happens to make the least money (and vice versa). To truly prosper, I wonder if society will somehow have to move beyond copyrights, patents, and intellectual property rights as they currently exist. I’m not sure what the solution is, but a recent HN post caught my attention — it was about how quickly Germany caught up to England’s industrialization in the 19th century when books weren’t copyrightable. This may provide a clue. [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17329345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17329345