From big companies to the lone worker, if IP is not a thing, I don't see how we can evolve technology.
I agree with the idea of not patenting software, since that is already covered by copyright, and patents were never intended to cover algorithms, however, discarding IP altogether seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Lack of IP doesn't shift the power to innovators, it shifts it to the people with printing presses, with large manufacturing plants that can scale, apple music, etc etc.
IP is the very basis for compensation of innovators.
It makes sense that if you make a comic book about a superhero named Jumpman, printing presses shouldn't be able to just 1:1 copy your product and sell it. They also shoudln't be able to use your Jumpman character in their own works.
But we have moved so far that you can copyright generic things like the very concept of a comic book. Or having a HTML image that's also a link. Or having round corners on a mobile device.
The only reason we have anything public at all is because most of these inventions happened before the dawn of oppressive IP laws.
You can't, in fact, copyright any of those things. Were they novel, the first two might be the kind of thing to qualify for utility patents, and the last is presumably a loose description of an actual Apple design patent.
I fully agree. Software patents for example should be abolished, and we should get shorter terms on copyright (20 years after death of creator or 80 years after publication, whatever comes sooner would be a good choice). But the very basic concept of copyright and patent law is still good for the individual creators as well as the commons. Abolishing it does not benefit the creators in general, and only shifts power away from them.
I mean that producers are now strongly bound to distributors, and companies like Disney basically own everything from top to mostly bottom (they’re getting there with their streaming service).
In today’s world I don’t see “little guys” getting practical benefits by virtue of IP. Is there still a baby in the bath water?
But I don't think copyright amendments have been about protecting creators, or the public domain, for some time.
Not true. Copyright originally existed to give governments control over owners of presses in an effort to stop printing of dissenting material. It had nothing to do with compensation for authors.
But this case is exactly the reason why it should exist.
Yes, it should get tweaked a little bit though
Your incentive would be that your product is better and sells more, unless and until everyone copies it. As long as the extra profit exceeds the cost invested, it's worth it.
You're claiming there would be no innovation at all unless there's IP.
How did we innovate for hundreds or thousands of years before IP laws, whether the wheel, ironmaking or any other technology?
To flip your question on its head, if IP laws prevent your innovation from reaching everyone, the benefit to society from this innovation is reduced, and that's bad.
I'm curious if you ever tried to sell anything in large volumes. You can invent a brilliant thing but still have hard times selling it because of a lack of resources for marketing and a lack of established sales channels. At the same time, big resourceful corporations just steal you invention and resell it to existing customer base, use huge marketing resources, benefit from brand awareness, etc.
Inventing something better doesn't automatically guarantee you a solid revenue stream. Monetizing good inventions for a small company is a way less trivial task than it might seem.
Are you talking about software patents?
In this way, eliminating copyright will create a race to the top, making all products better.