[FullyFunctional]

Is this a serious question? They are stealing results of very long and expensive R&D, commonly know as Intellectual Property, or "IP". Producing this locally would require a sufficient mass of experience talent and lots of time and money. It might not even be possible to catch up.

The fact that this is being stolen from Micron who presumably weren't blind to the value of their IP make it all the more frighting. None of the companies I have worked for in the past few decades would have had any chance of resisting a motivated thief as locking down knowledge runs counter to fostering innovation.

[pzh]

Stealing these results is a negative to society because it prevents the inventor from making profit on their inventions and from recovering their R&D costs. It is bad because it discourages companies from investing in R&D and from making advances in science and technology.

[claudiawerner]

This makes me question whether it is actually a negative to society, then; should we, as a society, rely on the incentive of profit to push technology forward, if this incentive is such a fickle thing? If it depends on keeping information secret? One of the favourite arguments of the liberals and capitalists is that the free market is efficient, but where is the efficiency in companies and individuals needing to re-create the same R&D over and over again?

[scarejunba]

Usually, HN’s position on this is that it isn’t stealing since both parties now have access to it. No one is being deprived of the blueprints.

[prolikewh0a]

>They are stealing results of very long and expensive R&D, commonly know as Intellectual Property, or "IP". Producing this locally would require a sufficient mass of experience talent and lots of time and money. It might not even be possible to catch up.

Can you tell me how stealing these results is actually a negative to society? Is it just a negative to already extremely wealthy individuals? I'm finding no negative here and nobody is really giving me anything other than capital.

[hueving]

We wouldn't have modern computers if it weren't for IP laws. The semiconductor industry would have collapsed and stopped investing fab research if they could have just waited and immediately stolen any better design.

I suggest you read up on "tragedy of the commons" and maybe some basic game theory to understand why there needs to be an incentive to invest in R&D for a company to do so.

[toomuchtodo]

If capital is required for innovation, and capital won't invest when that innovation can't provide a return, it is a negative to society.

[prolikewh0a]

Capital is not required for innovation. See Open Source, Cuba's CimaVax, the Soviet space program.

[hueving]

The Soviet space program is an example of an economically unsustainable program kept alive by money being pumped in from external sources (govt tax revenue). Capital is most certainly required to make these programs work in order to purchase the fuel, basic materials, etc.

Open source is a good example of where innovation can work because all it takes is people donating their time. It doesn't require $15 million of rocket fuel and a $100 million rocket to make a commit to Linux.

Government-backed research works well when there is no immediate commercially useful aspect (e.g. basic sciences, space exploration), but it's incredibly bloated and slow compared to business R&D that has competition and motivation to make discoveries.

Where are the socialist programs producing processors competitive with Intel/AMD? Where is the socialist program producing an electric car people want more than Teslas?