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No, patents pretty much only enrich someone at the expense of everyone else. Without patents and copyright we could progress much faster. Look how fast China ca
by Kaiyou 7y ago
No, patents pretty much only enrich someone at the expense of everyone else. Without patents and copyright we could progress much faster. Look how fast China caught up. It's not becaue they respected intellectual property, I can tell you that.
- IanDrake 7y agoAnd what are you dedicating your life to research and development for no pay now, or ever?
- Kaiyou 7y agoWhy no pay? Copyright and patents are a pretty new invention in history. Money isn't. Just look how Hollywood developed in the early years by escaping from this whole copyright thing.
- IanDrake 7y agoAnd who would pay you to create something new that they could not profit from? That's why.
- Kaiyou 7y agoWhy wouldn't they be able to profit from it? Didn't humanity profit immensely from creations before intellectual property was invented some three hundred years ago? Like with ships. Or windmills. You're not seriously suggesting people weren't able to profit from their creations prior to intellectual property? Or even that people nowadays necessarily have the ability to profit from their own creations, when in reality everyone who isn't a big company just gets bullied with lawsuits until the comply. Lawsuits can ruin you, even if you're in the right.
- IanDrake 7y agoI can't tell if you're just trolling me now. Three hundred years ago the world was a completely different place. We didn't have labor and environmental arbitrage like we do now. One could email IP to someone in China who can mass produce it, with lower quality, lower costs, higher environmental impact and ship it across the Pacific a month later. 300 years ago, if someone stole your windmill design and took it to china, you'd never know.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago> No, patents pretty much only enrich someone at the expense of everyone else. Without patents and copyright we could progress much faster. Look how fast China caught up. While there is a decent argument to make here, this isn't it. Obviously a lack of IP protection makes it easier to copy what already exists ("catching up"). The question is whether it makes it easier to develop what doesn't exist yet.