[idiotsecant]

This is a tiresome and well trod road.

The fact of the matter is that for profit corporations consumed the sum knowledge of mankind with the intent to make money on it by encoding it into a larger and better organized corpus of knowledge. They cited no sources and paid no fees (to any regular humans, at least).

They are making enormous sums of money (and burning even more, ironically) doing this.

If that doesn't violate copyright, it violates some basic principle of decency.

[michaelmrose]

You are assuming intellectual property has intrinsic basis when it's at best functional not foundational. It's only useful if the net value to society is positive which is extremely dubious.

[idiotsecant]

I'm assuming human creativity has intrinsic value, or what's the point of being human?

[michaelmrose]

You are assuming that somehow human creativity was born with intellectual property and will somehow die with it. It's just not so.

[idiotsecant]

Ok captain pedant, instead of making vague handwavey negations exclusively how about you say something.

[michaelmrose]

Intellectual property is supposed to feed creativity by securing for creators exclusive rights to benefit from their creation. It mostly feeds uncreative leaches whose business it is to own things in exchange for crumbs for the creativity and drags down both the inherent enjoyment of the fruits of creativity and even its creation. It belonged in the bin back when we first thought of it as is only going to be more unfit for purpose as time goes on.