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Would you spend millions in developing something just so it's copied one month later after it's released?

If it's been copied directly, that's what copyright is for.

Would you spend millions in developing something novel just to have some random with a capriciously granted "X, but on a computer" drag you through court?

Copyright does not protect ideas and never will.

yeah, that was really close, wasn't it? just imagine we had all these mature IP protections in place two thousand years ago! so much stuff we could have had by now! imagine no one but the chinese government having access to silk production!? there'd be no nylon made without royalties!

It does protect specific implementations of ideas, such as in the case of software.

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