By this logic, it would be ethical for a mega-corporation to take any technology they like from any individual or small business, without payment, under any circumstance. That's not the kind of ethics I personally prefer.
The guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper, Robert Kearns, made tens of millions of dollars in court because Ford and Chrysler stole the idea from him.
And he was able to do this because (TIL)... he had patented the idea more than half a dozen ways!
In the interest of keeping my stubborn image, I also meant copying code. If no tangible thing is taken that leaves the other without that thing, I'd say it is unethical to not share it.
What does business have to do with ethics? That's all legalities. "Taking" is not the same as "copying" which I assume you meant. Would it be ethical for a large group of people to copy the technology of a small group of people without giving something in return? Sure, it'd be diplomatic to do so (although doing that might set a bad precedence), but I don't think there's a moral obligation.
I'd disagree, with the comment that by ignoring existing human institutions like "business" and "legalities", ethics becomes more a thought experiment than a useful roadmap for interacting with the world. I personally prefer it to be the latter.
Law is a group of people agreeing to threaten other people's well being if they don't do things a certain way. A business is a group of people agreeing to share access to a pool of resources utilizing the threat of law. It's all just people is what I'm getting at. Putting on labels like "mega-corporation" and "small business" just muddies the waters, especially when the general consensus is mega-corp = bad, small business = good. I was attempting to remove the stigma of the chosen labels.
But now I'm rethinking my mapping from mega-corp to large group and small business to small group. Both are more like a small groups of people, the owners, with a varying amount of resources to trade for goods and services (supplies, manufacturing, workers, bribes, etc). The smaller group doesn't necessarily have less resources. And now the idea of a group is muddying the waters, why not just consider them a person? So the question becomes, is it ethical for a person with more resources to copy the technology of a person with less resources without giving something in return? Hell, now the difference in available resources is getting in the way. Is it ethical for a person to copy another person without giving something in return? Keep in mind that copying works both ways. My answer is still yes.
I have a natural tendency toward the type of logic you're pursuing here, likely because I am very technically minded and enjoy mental gymnastics. I may be incorrect, but it seems the same might be true for you.
For myself, I have found this type of reasoning to be an anti-pattern: simplifying the world to the point that I can wrap my head around it and (most importantly) arrive at a simple, clear-cut answer. I find that I can always make adjustments to my assumptions until I arrive at a world where the logic for my desired position holds firm.
I've personally gotten more out of incorporating the messy nuances of the world into my mental gymnastics (e.g. mega-corporation != small business != group of people) even though that almost always comes at the expense of a clear-cut answer. Just a thought; YMMV!
In a society where "mega-corps" and "small businesses" do exist and aren't the same as a simple "grouping of people", you're right, it's not going to really help navigate the current landscape. But, it can help to raise questions about where we went wrong assigning what boils down to a grouping of people the special privileges that enables them to become things like "mega-corporations".
In the case of copyright and patents, I believe the intention was to give small business a head start, but the reality is that they empower mega-corps far more than the small business. Mega-corps can support the continuation of copyright and patents in the name of the intended spirit (using their resources) while consistently acting against the spirit without most people noticing. Pointing that out is my overall intention.
I think we'd all be better off if we could just copy each other freely without fear of legal repercussions, then we could all compete on quality of service and efficient use of available resources.
This is the premise of the question every VC typically asks "Whats to stop [BigCo] from coming in and just throwing their vast resources behind solving the same problem?"
The answer they seem to like to hear is "only Joe-Engineer could have invented this algo/tech/thingy, in this way, thus we have a patent on it!"
Mega-corporations already do this, though, sometimes you get the courtesy of a buy out, other times, their next release includes a copy of your features.
This is the standard statement of people who make profit from others ideas. If ideas are not worth anything, go implement your own instead of using an idea someone else had.
It's true that an idea in isolation is worthless. People need to bring it into existence, refine it, market it, in order to get any money out of it. That doesn't mean the idea has no value. To illustrate, one can ask "why this idea vs some other idea" and suddenly one is better than another.