China has a huge, captive local market. The business model of copying foreign ideas and applying low-cost local labor, and local marketing/distribution know-how

China has a huge, captive local market. The business model of copying foreign ideas and applying low-cost local labor, and local marketing/distribution know-how has plenty of precedents in all kinds of developing markets. Hollywood itself is founded on so-called IP “theft”. Anyway, the legal barriers of intellectual property have proven again and again to be futile and problematic as a means to drive innovation. Just look at the huge waste in IP litigation, the perverse incentives of IP trolling, and the utter impotence of DRM as a legal mechanism. Trump’s claims about IP rights are as credible as his claims about bring manufacturing and coal mining jobs back to America. It’s just pandering to an audience that can’t or won’t keep up with the winds of change.