Yep. If one consider modern machine tools, I could in theory buy a chair, you could take proper measurements of it, and then feed those into a CNC or 3D printer to get an exact duplicate.
The only one at a potential loss here would be something like IKEA, because you didn't buy the chair from them.
And that is the kind of insane territory the likes of TPP and TTIP are heading into with their clauses whereby companies can sue nations for loss of potential profits (due to new legislations or whatsnot).
You know how people use the term e-sports to refer to playing video games professionally instead of sports? The same is true for Copyright. It's not property. It's at most a 'property-like concept'.
There are those of us who do not agree with Copyright and would gladly suffer the negatives to be rid of it.
That's a great comparison because e-sports is sports, just as intellectual property is property.
I'm curious how you think the cost of IP generation should be distributed across an economy, because it sounds like you want content-creators to "suffer the negatives" for your own personal gain.
The problem with this argument is that the underlying assumption is, "I have a right to make a living through the sale of information." This is a popular idea to say the least, but it's a positive right which is why I disagree with it.
I do not think that people should be able to own ideas and information.
> And most of these people are not people who are trying to earn a living from their works.
You could make the same argument to a person who wanted to abolish slavery. Just because someone is earning a living by doing something doesn't mean it's right.
I'll ignore that we are debating this(and both getting upvotes), and thus it's debatable.
For most of human history if you, say, heard a poem someone else wrote you were absolutely free to copy it, reproduce it, even sell it! Even if you didn't do the work of actually writing it. And this was the norm, and no one thought the author should have the right to stop you. So saying that it's not debatable whether this is still the case from a moral standpoint (hence the "should" in the debated statement) seems to me shortsighted.
What's more, even today there are countless ways in which content is distributed without permission from it's makers that we don't deem wrongs. Libraries were named in this thread, and we have all kinds of lendings, readings, quotes and all use that is allowed by fair use. Where the rights of the makers should end (and those of the consumer start) is very much debatable.
You have a point if you ignore that under the "anything goes" regime, vanishingly small amounts of new content were created regularly. Now that we have a legal framework whereby you can potentially get rewarded for your output, we literally have more creative output than any one person can ever even understand. That's a situation many of us would like to see continue, despite the constant attempts to make it seem like the current copyright regime is somehow suppressing artists.
I did not say no IP is necessarily better than some IP, or even that it's better than the insane copyright system we have today (though personally I believe strongly that the latter is true). I'm just saying that this is a debate worth having, and that it is not happening.
The invention of IP is one possible explanation of why we have so much content nowadays. Other possible contributing factors include the population explosion of the previous century, the fundamental improvement of communication technologies, and the overall increase in the material conditions of the majority of the population.
>under the "anything goes" regime, vanishingly small amounts of new content were created regularly.
I'm inclined to believe you but I wonder how we can possibly know that. Before modern communication and distribution technologies, lots of content was simply lost and forgotten.
I'm the author of a software product. The main reason why people buy the license and renew it is the free upgrades for one year. It means I've adapted my business model to acknowledge the fact that I'm not a monster with eyes and hands everywhere in the world, as opposed to MPAA.
And it's time the music/movie industry understands that they need to upgrade their business models to the internet age. Maybe they should charge for fresh music, acknowledging that after 6 months everyone can have a copy of the music, pirated if necessary.