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If you think for more than a few seconds on the matter, you quickly realise that intellectual property is a moral necessity, because intellectual expropriation

• Joeri 2y ago
  Most of the great art was created in a world without intellectual property, or with no effective IP enforcement on that art. While I don’t think all IP should be abolished, I think in general there is too much of it, protected for too long, and society would be better off getting rid of patents and dramatically downsizing copyright to at most a few decades of protection. (And yes I have thought a lot on this matter. The evidence behind patents being overall beneficial is weak, and there is no effective societal argument for the current copyright terms.)
  • fletchedx 2y ago
    I tend to agree with your takeaway, but I want to pick a nit on your point about great art being made without copyright. "The Most Powerful Idea in the World" basically makes the case that intellectual property is what enabled the Industrial Revolution. I won't try to summarize or defend the entire thing here, but I think it makes a very compelling case that the notion of "owning ideas as property" was the thing that made Britain unique (among other factors of course) and led to runaway technological explosion. It points out how in earlier times, inventors were literally killed for coming up with better methods that threatened some established system. So there is a big difference between art and technology there, and while I think debating the merits of copyright as it pertains to art is valid (and 100% agree it's overdone in our current system), I'm not convinced the current issues are serious enough to undermine the entire concept of intellectual property.
    • jampekka 2y ago
      Enslaving half of the world also played a slight part in that uniqueness.
  • dagw 2y ago
    Most of the great art was created in a world without intellectual property It was also created at a time when copying work was almost as hard and expensive as creating it.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
• jampekka 2y ago
  I have thought on the matter for millions of seconds. Politics and economics don't have anything to do with morality. It's about power. The moral fairytailes are there to justify whatever the state of affairs are. When these change, new fairytales justifying them will be adopted. If right to property is a God given right, why the hell I as a atheist should give a damn?
  • spacebanana7 2y ago
    > If right to property is a God given right, why the hell I as a atheist should give a damn? You can argue it from political necessity. Some kind of property rights are necessary for the operation of any social group. Even in a communist society you can't have the air force stealing land from the navy, or the transport department taking electricity from hospitals, or neighbours taking each others food allocations. There needs to be some kind of organised transfer of property or you get chaos.
    • jampekka 2y ago
      You can argue divine right of kings or white supremacy from political necessity. Some kind of systems to allocate scarce resources is needed. This doesn't have to be property. Access to e.g. the moon and earth's orbits and international waters and polar regions have systems of allocation, but they are not property.
      • andsoitis 2y ago
        > Some kind of systems to allocate scarce resources is needed. This doesn't have to be property. I should not be coerced to give output of my labor (whether physical or mental) to others based on some burocrat’s allocation system or my neighbor’s wishes. That would be immoral.
        • jampekka 2y ago
          Per your morality perhaps. But morality is just an opinion, and one that can't be justified otherwise. I should not be coerced not to enter a piece of land just because somebody made a contract with somebody who killed or evicted by force the people (and other animals) who previously inhabited the land. That would be immoral, right?
• infostud 2y ago
  Most creators work for hire and the company owns the IP. Anecdote: I can't remember the song written on a bus and sold to the record company for $250 to keep food on the table that has earnt billions for Warner, Sony, or Universal Music. Nothing more for the creator. Big company stealing from another big company to benefit the rest of us? Seems like fair use. Nothing to do with creators. That incentive was meant to be something like 20 years (same as patents) not almost "forever" like the Mouse wants who expropriated from all of those European folktales and sanitised them. No incentive if you live off the earnings of a "one-hit wonder".
  • vel0city 2y ago
    > sold to the record company for $250 And without any form of copyright it would have gone "hey $RECORD_COMPANY here's this cool jingle I made" and they'd say "yeah we think so too, we'll use that and compensate you $0." Way better.
  • jampekka 2y ago
    A lot of creators, at least in music, are not even work for hire, but in a form of indentured servitude.