| The concept only makes sense for physical objects. The problem are the definitions of "piracy", "robbery", "theft", etc. There's two ways you could reasonably define them: by the loss, or by the gain. From a simple ethical/logical viewpoint it stands to reason that if a gain can occur without a loss, that's good for everyone - so we should define theft to have occurred only when a loss is incurred (and hence intellectual property theft wouldn't be theft, and the very concept of IP makes no sense). Unfortunately just because it's good for everyone doesn't mean it'll obviously work out that way. Defining theft by the unauthorised gain of something (regardless of whether there was a loss) lets those with the authority to grant rights to those gains profit. That profit can then be used to create incentives for others with authority (through lobbying, for instance), creating a situation where despite the fact that it's in the common interest to define theft solely on the basis of loss, it's in the interest of those with authority to define it as any gain which is not approved by an anointed member of the authority structure (either economically or politically). Intellectual property is stupid, counter-productive, hurts culture, hurts innovation, and generally doesn't do an ounce of good to the vast majority of people on the planet Earth. |
Further, and this is the one that really kills me: Countries/Companies that ignore IP have a serious competitive advantage.
It's not only more ethical, it's also more efficient. It's folly to believe that IP laws will protect you against these motivated actors, and playing the game internally is slowing us down and hampering our own performance.