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> enough cheaters to destroy any pure goodwill based system the instant an attempt is made to scale beyond small communities

Well said

And one's software is accessible to all cheaters across the globe (pretending for a while that everyone has a computer)

Even things like Patreon likely would not work without copyright, as people would just steal the work and republish it on another medium.

See https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/akz4xk/onlyfans-creator-n...

> Open source business models couldn't work without copyright, and there is a minor rebellion underway in OSS against highly permissive licenses due to rampant corporate exploitation (e.g. "SaaSification" and rebranding and commercialization that robs the authors of even credit).

Here is a counter example. Up until a few decades ago, standards organisations like the ISO carefully guarded their standards with copyright law, and funded themselves off the proceeds of selling them. I'm sure they shared you're "standard organisations could not exist with the proceeds" outlook, right up until the IETF came along with there completely free RFC's, and won the networking standards war. One of the reasons ISO lost is it turns out a standard that can be read by everyone is implemented a lot more, and that in turn makes it worth more, which amazingly is actually recognised so people fund the development of more of those standards even though they know their hard work will be given away for free. The W3 works exactly that way, yet is funded by hard nosed corporates.

In some cases, the value of letting every one use the thing you spent millions on developing simply outweighs the cost of charging for it. Today's classic example is AV1, the video Codec. It's competitor, MPEG was does rely on copyright to fund it's development. The initially hidden cost of doing it that way, was if you can force everyone to pay a little bit, why not a little bit more, and perhaps a fair bit more on top of that. It took 20 years or something, but is exactly how it has panned out. And surprise, surprise, a few hard headed capitalist companies (like Microsoft / Facebook and Google) got the shits with this and funded the development of AV1, and gave it away for free.

Yes, the Patreon distribution model could a counter example. But understand that is an attribute of that particular method of distribution. If we removed copyright we may well lose that Patreon, it's unlikely we would lose what is being distributed by it. Music made it's way around the world long before copyright came along, the fashion design industry does perfectly well without copyright to this day.

In fact music is the most glaring example. Music distribution was heavily dependent on copyright for most of my life. Now, that is gone. Almost any song can be downloaded legally for free, and if not trivially pirated for free. The methods of distribution dependent on copyright right has indeed succommed to the petty avarice of humanity as you put it, the avarice being piracy in this case. But notice while that method of distribution has died, music lives on, and methods of distribution that are so cheap piracy isn't worth it risen to replace the old methods.

That's not to say copyright doesn't have it's virtues, but it very doubtful the world would stop if it died tomorrow.

Excluding really obvious things like ethnic cleansing or aggressive war, it's hard to find any policy or practice in the realm of politics that is all good, all bad, perfectly effective, etc. You can almost always find counterexamples or special cases.

I think my overall point is that IP law today is one of the only things that balances the power of pure financial and physical capital. Without IP law, whoever has the easiest access to the most cash wins, period. They can take anything they want and put as much marketing muscle as they want behind it. If the original creators don't have access to as much capital, they lose.

I think it's more true today than it was in the past since digital communication amplifies all these winner-take-all effects.

Some strategy I can think of: be the first to market, market yourself as the original creator, constant innovating, other people can copy but they can't control the updates and product roadmap, and you have the advantage of intimate knowledge of the product.

Another strategy is to create personalized custom solution. This would be hard to copy, unless you can copy the creator brain.

No one cares if you're the original if someone is offering the product for half the price because they paid $0 for R&D.

This is a really pathetic viewpoint to hold and I wonder if you actually live your life by these standards.

Like I said, if you are the original creator you have advantage the copier doesn't have.

Another way is to provide customized personalized solution. That would be very hard to copy.

How is these pathetic?

Either way you have to adapt or left behind.

Yes, that is what you said, and I think it is quite wrong. Being the original creator doesn't mean much when others can copy your design and not pay any of the costs associated with developing it in the first place.

Personalized solutions might work for some products but not for others.

It is pathetic because it treats illegal behavior as if it you are powerless to stop it. It would be like if your house kept getting broken into, and someone gave you advice to stop owning things, instead of say putting up security cameras, strengthening the locks on your door, or buying a gun or guard dog. I can only imagine you've never created a single thing in your life if you think that other people automatically have a right to take whatever you do and do whatever they want with it.

"Adapt or be left behind"...of what? Once people steal the IP, it is unlikely they are going to all of the sudden become great innovators in the field. At best, they are going to just keep producing shitty knock offs until there is no market left for them. In that sense, progress stops because no one will take the effort to build something because someone else can just come along and copy it. So there is no getting left behind. There is just shitty people siphoning off the work of good people and slowing their pace to zero.

How about the adapting is putting sanctions or restrictions on companies that engage in corporate espionage?

I'm really curious what you do for a living, and how you would feel if your work product was just stolen and ripped off and then used to attempt to shut down your living.

>Being the original creator doesn't mean much when others can copy your design and not pay any of the costs associated with developing it in the first place

yes, it doesn't much if you don't know how to monetize it.

>It is pathetic because it treats illegal behavior as if it you are powerless to stop it.

I'm not powerless, I still can make money by employing different strategy and I still have my knowledge.

>and someone gave you advice to stop owning things

I think its still a valid advice.

>progress stops because no one will take the effort to build something because someone else can just come along and copy it.

On the contrary, you always to have be progressing and innovating so that you always one step further than then copier.

What I mean left behind is if one refuse to adapt.

>How about the adapting is putting sanctions or restrictions on companies that engage in corporate espionage

I'm just merely suggesting alternative solution.

≥I'm really curious what you do for a living, and how you would feel if your work product was just stolen and ripped off and then used to attempt to shut down your living

I would be delighted if someone feel my product are important enough or useful enough for some one to copy it.

Like I said before there are strategy for making money that doesn't rely solely on IP

its pathetic because its a disingenuous argument offered to prop up the side of the oppressor. the type of business scenario you describe is an edge case, and you are arguing as if it were the only case.

In Canada, in high school, we learned about Sam Slater. He is affectionately known as the father of the American factory system, but in Britain he was known as 'Slater the traitor', because he built the American factory system using stolen IP. Has nobody here heard of this guy?

Beyond it being 200+ years ago - it was one guy, not state sponsored, who remembered things he saw...versus whole scale theft of documents, designs, blueprints and other IP byproducts. I hate to say it but I can't believe you are making this argument in good faith.

It was actually pretty standard. Even in the mid 19th century when Charles Dickens visited America to a rapturous welcome he pointed out that he didn't earn a penny from American sales of his work. America only started to recognise foreign copyright holders in 1891.

You have a disadvantage too:

You had to spend time and money to create the thing.

The copycats can instead do marketing, convincing others they're the true creator

Without copyright laws

I see amazing naivete whenever this topic comes up.

People need to think of it this way: there are people who will kill you for the cash in your wallet.

So, you are saying to brand yourself but what stops someone from copying your brand and marketing?

Also, not all business can be personalized solutions (would you want a custom car that no mechanic knows how to fix?), furthermore you lose economies of scale, which is a major reason why most companies are viable outside of tech.