Could we obliterate IP and still compensate folks for their labour? | Hacker News Reader

Could we obliterate IP and still compensate folks for their labour?

1 pointgeorgestrakhov2 comments

Excuse my ignorance, but I've always found the idea of intellectual property weird. If you have an apple and I take it from you - you no longer have an apple. So it makes sense that the legal system protects your apple. But if you have an idea or a word or a piece of code or design and I take it from you - you still have it. So why should the legal system protect it? If you want to keep it to yourself only - simply don't publish it.

Now, I understand that right now IP is the only way we can make sure people who produce information are compensated for the labour. But clearly it's not even doing that very well. So could there be another way to ensure the above without restricting the flow of intellectual capital?

I'm probably very naive here. Please point me towards something I can read or watch that will help me come to light.

> But if you have an idea or a word or a piece of code or design and I take it from you - you still have it.

You aren't just taking the idea itself, you are also implicitly taking all the failed ideas and experiments that came before it, and that's where the bulk of the expenses usually lie.

To make an example, if I invest x$ in developing an idea then I need to make x$ in sales to break even. But if you can copy it and tweak it for a fraction of the cost, then you can sell it for much less and still make a profit. So you benefitted from my x$ expenditure in R&D without paying a penny for it.

All intellectual discoveries rest on the shoulders of giants - those that came before. Trillions of dollars into universities, millions of scientists working on a vast human project of technology.

I am okay with media piracy. If I read a book I can use the ideas in it. Yet I cannot 'copy' a technology? There is certainly a mismatch between these fields.

In practice, to commercially produce that which is covered by IP is very expensive - factories and tooling, production lines and global logistics - the knowledge is only half of the game.

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