Yes, I understand that, but if there weren't copyright laws we wouldn't need a CC0 license for example, because it would be the natural state of affairs: you ca

Yes, I understand that, but if there weren't copyright laws we wouldn't need a CC0 license for example, because it would be the natural state of affairs: you can do whatever you want. And afaik MIT, BSD and Apache just add the duty of mentioning the author, which has no practical implications on the usage of the software. At least I wouldn't care if someone actually writes my name somewhere. If someone asked me to relicense software I wrote as CC0 (and it was formerly MIT) I'd happily do so. That means that the open source movement doesn't depend on IP laws. Some projects might still depend on it, like the linux kernel (because of GPL) but bitcoin for example doesn't (MIT). Both strategies work in practice. ADDENDUM: What I want to say is: for many projects IP laws don't have any positive effects, they just add friction by requiring the author to add (and think about) a license.