Yes I agree. I think there might have been a case for intellectual property many years ago when the cost of entry was extremely high. To write a book and get i

Yes I agree. I think there might have been a case for intellectual property many years ago when the cost of entry was extremely high. To write a book and get it published required a big amount of effort to get it to the finish line. It would therefore make sense to have extra protections. But now a days? Anything that can be digitalized can be distributed instantly and massively at an extremely marginal cost. But whereas in the past it was relatively easy to catch and punish someone that had broken intellectual property laws and was making any kind of real money with that... Now a days it becomes a much more difficult task, because obviously to track down everyone that is committing piracy is incredibly difficult and expensive. Yet companies are using our legal systems to do exactly that. The amount of money and time that is spent in court every year in patent related issues is astounding. We also have to consider who the owners of intellectual property are and therefore who is benefiting the most out of the system. And curiously (well, not really) most patents are owned by big transnational businesses. Why is this the case? Well, because when a patent is useful and is owned by a small company it is very much posible for a big corporation to acquire this patent either through directly buying it or through buying the smaller company. This is common practice. Not only that but these big corporations have the resources (legal and monetary) to release similar enough products that will overflow the market anyway. An example of this is Amazon through their Amazon basics line. In terms of creative effort, I think it is worth to look at tiktok and how people will make use of copyrighted material to produce thousands, if not millions, of these small videos that bring entertainment to so many people. This is possible through the fair use act which in reality is a form of intellectual property waiver. But this can easily be turned to its head when the ride of virality ends. Just look at YouTube and how most small creators are being sued for using copyrighted material in ways that in many cases are unfair. But what can they do about it? It's not possible for a small YouTuber to go head to head against a company the size of Nintendo (known to be "patent trolls"). I think in many ways the intellectual property system has stopped serving small creators and innovators and instead is used as a legal recourse to precisely uphold oligopolies and slow down innovation.