As a consumer, that may be good in the short term. But innovation isn’t free. In a world where people can just copy other people’s hard work with impunity, what incentive is there to invest in innovation?
It’s like how the music industry kept saying that people would no longer sing and make songs, because piracy would prevent them from doing so. As if there was no money to be made, and money was the only point of singing. As if piracy ever stopped people from singing for the past 10,000 years.
Well, artists do make money from songs, by having concerts. They are selling the service and the experience of of a live performance. This was the way that it had always been done throughout human history.
Or Apple for example, they don’t make money from selling software, but they make it from selling very expensive hardware, that they force to expire after a few years.
Getting billions invested in anything won't happen without a return. If a company is limited to a short window before everyone can copy means less funding and more valueless throwaway products.
So companies don’t do this, because there is no profit in it? Perhaps, that is the problem with late stage capitalism itself? Everyone wants to become a rent-seeking landlord.
What about a societal need? What about for the survival of the human race?
This is like arguing that humanity can’t muster up the ingenuity to solve something to save the human race, just because there’s no profit in it.
Necessity is the mother of all invention. If there are fewer antibiotics, then maybe this just means that it is not necessary.
Sorry folks! You’re just going to have to take your chances with the Grim Reaper! My bank account can’t be bothered to find a cure for you.
In many industries patents are an innovation blocker. Companies often spend more money fighting patents trolls than they gain form having patents. Patens are increasingly acquired for defensive purpose to defend against patent troll attacks rather than actually protecting any innovation.
I am not against intellectual property protection, but I think how things have developed in the US in particular is excessive and counterproductive.
And now, solar energy just crossed a milestone, at 4 cents per kilowatt hour, making it competitive with other energy sectors.
Everything is derivative.
Even the latest generation of CPU technology pushing faster clock rates and adding more cores. It’s still derivative of the initial idea of the transistor.
You build value by building a moat. You make your business more valuable by making it harder for others to get into, almost like a natural monopoly.
Like consumer automobiles, which require a huge investment in societal knowledge and capability. Only a few countries can mass produce cars at a commercial level. Or commercial airplanes, where only a few companies can really make a profit. Or even Tesla, by changing the paradigm, from internal combustion engines, to fully electric drivetrains.
My initial comment was only to rebut the idea that you can’t do anything without massive amounts of patents and copyrights. Which in itself, has gone too far.
Stealing IP does have an impact on capital allocation.
Yet I don't think the solution to this problem is to abandoned both systems completely. Rather copyright period should be shortened, and patents should cover less and last for a shorter time.
Right now the system is not setup to support innovation and creation but rather to act as cash cow for big corporations.
Put heavy encryption on it. Keep it off the internet. Keep your computers air-gapped.
If you don’t do this, then sorry, this is your fault.
However, if someone else wants to compete with you, then they can just reverse engineer what you did. Any engineer competent enough can figure out the process details, by just working backwards. They don’t even need to bother looking at your source code or blueprints.
Though as used, "innovation" really means "figuring out new things to make money on", which renders your question tautological - "in a world where it's harder to invent new tricks that make money, what incentive is there to invest in inventing new things that make money?".
They are commoditizing their compliments.
Nobody is claiming _all_ ideas business finds / works on should be immediately shared freely with the world. The benefactors of a business are naturally motivated to protect their know-how. But it should be the business' responsibility to protect its secrets, not HN commenters or governments'. If an idea can't be kept secret, then government issues patents, which should be time limited and regional.