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Originally Posted by suicidaleggroll
What about the injustice in people stealing and making money off of someone else's work, with absolutely no legal consequences?
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If they are stealing someone else's product, there are adequate laws against theft to prosecute them under.
But if they have only had the same thought, or even reproduced something based on a thought someone else had earlier -
that is not theft... that is the point.
I know, I hear the howls! Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, and it may be a serious knot in someone's panties, but it must not be considered a crime!
The crime is considering a thought to be property! Eliminating the concept of intellectual "property" eliminates that crime.
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(Paraphrased from previous posts...)
What do business models change to?
So company A invests a million bucks in development of some product - how do you protect their profits until they recoup their investment?
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As I mentioned in an earlier post with regard to the broken academic review systems which are built around intellectual property concepts - existing models built on those concepts will no longer function. But new and better institutions based on equity, respect, justice will emerge to replace them.
How do you protect profits to cover R&D costs? You don't! Why should you!
Without intellectual property law holding everyone hostage, company A will adapt their business model to compete in a level marketplace. Their products will be developed and priced according to their merit and value. If they decide to invest a million bucks into development, they give it their best shot and take their chances! They succeed or they go out of business, like everybody else.
And it is worth pointing out, they can still make proprietary products! If they have a killer idea that has not entered anyone else's head yet they can adequately black box the essential parts, or license the product without selling it... they simply cannot prohibit the other 3 billion humans on the planet from thinking about it and doing it themselves!
Look, obviously I don't have all the answers, but I have many years experience in my engineering profession, including lots and lots of development specifically avoiding IP concepts - full disclosure at every step... it works, better! But more importantly, it creates wealth without relying on someone else's loss to offset it... THAT is the point!
<30 years ago the software companies were screaming that free software would destroy the industry! Releasing the source code would be the end!
The sky would fall!
It didn't and you and I are carrying on this conversation in a forum that exists only because of free software, typing our replies on systems running free software on liberated hardware (at least in my case), both of which are many times better than could have been imagined 30 years ago! Whole billion dollar companies and new business models have emerged around nominally free software! It is a proven model and it works!
In a time not so long ago, human beings could be considered property. Whole industries were built around the concept! It too, was codified in laws and was more or less accepted by everyone where it was practiced. It was called chattel slavery.
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chattel: noun
1.Law. a movable article of personal property.
2.any article of tangible property other than land, buildings, and other things annexed to land.
3.a slave.
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It worked by controlling the production of the owned slaves for the benefit, or profit of the owner. It was law, it was legal.
When some became a little uncomfortable with the thought of what that really meant, and movement toward abolishing it began, those companies and interests that relied on it said the same thing - How will we profit? How will our interests be protected? How will we recoup our investment?
When that particular bad law was abolished many of those interests went out of business - and rightfully so. Some adapted and survived, in very different form.
The business models changed... radically, but for the better.
Chattel slavery law worked by delivering the production of the slaves to the marketplace and returning the profit to the owner. Intellectual property law works by restraining the production of potential competitors from the marketplace, for the benefit of the "owner". They are both property law and both are equally vile concepts.
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Originally Posted by suicidaleggroll
Exactly. You're not just talking about removing IP, you're talking about changing all of humanity! Good luck with that!
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Well, we have to start somewhere...
I am sure someone said the same thing about slavery.