[erelong]

hopefully this continues to show how awkward the idea of "intellectual property" (IP) is until people abandon it

IP sounds good in theory but enables things like "patent trolling" by large corps and creating all kinds of goofy barriers and arbitrary questions like we're asking about if re-implementations of ideas are "really ours"

(maybe they were never anyone's in the first place, outside of legally created mentalities)

ideas seem to fundamentally not operate like physical things so asserting they can be considered "property" opens the door for all kinds of absurdities like as pondered in the OP

[AuthAuth]

I have no data to back this up but patent trolling seems to happen far less than companies that already own significant infra/talent ripping products from smaller companies and out competing them with their scale. I'd rather have patent trolling than have Amazon manufacturer everything i launch.

The problem with IP laws and the US is that the big companies already do what IP is suppose to protect and the US refuses to legislate effectively against them.

[galaxyLogic]

And the reason for this is that there is no limit as to how much money corporations can pay for the election campaigns of politicians who make the laws. Right?

[NewsaHackO]

Unfortunately, there are going to be people who push back on the virtue of this being a startup founder website.

[TZubiri]

the issue with this Stallmanian view on IP is that IP predates software and solves an actual issue.

I don't think Stallman has a real proposal to how innovation can be incentivized and compensated.

Take the example of medical innovations, sure big pharma is bad, but if they don't get to monetize their inventions, how will R&D get funded?

If you destroy IP and allow everyone to clone whatever, you will have a great result in the short term, then no one will continue R&D

[duskdozer]

>Take the example of medical innovations, sure big pharma is bad, but if they don't get to monetize their inventions, how will R&D get funded?

By taking the public money that goes to medical R&D already, increased if need be, and hire scientists to research medical tech in the interest of public wellbeing and not profit.

[erelong]

I think getting rid of IP shifts economic focus on to tangible physical goods which you can exclusively own: you can sell the physical medical devices, just not claim a specific design is "yours exclusively"

IP has always had awkward things like, what if you discover the sole treatment for a disease and can restrict people from making use of it... kind of weird, especially when people can "independently" draw the same conclusions so they truly obtain an idea that is "their own" but which then they are legally restricted from making use of in such an example

[chii]

> then no one will continue R&D

i would like to see a system of publicly funded R&D.

[moralestapia]

Is there anything you have created, spending considerable resources and time, that you ended up giving up for free? For the betterment of humanity?

Let's see it!