Our current IP system is remarkable in that it is both very complex and, despite that complexity, it is entirely reducible to a system for allocating fees for e

Our current IP system is remarkable in that it is both very complex and, despite that complexity, it is entirely reducible to a system for allocating fees for entities to pay. Using you own IP? You pay your fees to your legal team. Using IP owned by someone else? Pay your legal team and their legal team and them. Except for the situation where you are much larger than the IP owner - then they get nothing from you and pay their normal fees to their legal team. There's a cottage industry of infringement on social media where 'enterprising' companies outside the US take art they don't own and put it on merchandise. Large brands routinely duplicate small artist styles or simply trace their work. Often single individuals at the larger company choose to illegally copy the work of another, but the bulk of the benefit accrues to the corporation. Personally, though I am a software engineer and much of my "property" is intellectual, the whole system feels wrongly conceived. It focuses on allowing commercial activity to continue around IP instead of keeping creators in control of their creations. In general, the best way to make money is to excise any humans from the IP as quickly as possible (like cutting away an un-wanted growth) to best shape the IP for future needs and markets. It sucks, even if I understand all the decisions along its path.