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We live in a knowledge economy. If I spend $200M making a movie and you start showing it in your theaters without paying me, saying that you aren’t depriving m

We live in a knowledge economy. If I spend $200M making a movie and you start showing it in your theaters without paying me, saying that you aren’t depriving me of my copy is irrelevant. The property you’re talking about is orthogonal to questions about who has the right to control what information.

csallen 6y ago
The economy we've created that transacts in information is the direct result of laws that support it. If, for example, anybody could copy your movie, then spending $200M to make it would be a very bad business decision, so people would prioritize other business models and endeavors. Hollywood would be weaker, and Broadway would be stronger. There'd be a much larger emphasis on live, interactive, and/or customizable entertainment experiences. I fail to see a problem here. "But that's not how it works today," isn't a problem imo. Let's say we made recipes broadly patentable. I'm sure that would change the restaurant industry into something unrecognizable over time. 100 years from now we'd see all sorts of massive businesses profiting in ways that are unimaginable today. Those businesses' existence wouldn't imply the laws were good. However I'm sure somebody might say, "But how is MegaPizzaWorld ever going to justify its $10 billion investment into monopolizing pizza if anybody can just copy it?"