The concept of intellectual property on its own (independently of its legal implementation details) is at most as evil as property ownership, and probably less so as unlike the latter it promotes innovation and creativity.

Despite the apparent etymological contrast, “copyright” is neither antithetical to nor exclusive with “copyleft”: IP ownership, a degree of control over own creation’s future, is a precondition for copyleft (and the OSS ecosystem it birthed) to exist in the first place.

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margalabargala 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> unlike the latter it promotes innovation and creativity.

Does it though?

I know that people who like intellectual property and money say it does, but people who like innovation and creativity usually tend to think otherwise.

3D printers are a great example of something where IP prevented all innovation and creativity, and once the patent expired the innovation and creativity we've enjoyed in the space the last 15 years could begin.

	▲	johnnyanmac 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>Does it though? Yes. The alternative is that everyone spams the most popular brands instead of making their own creations. Both can be abused, but I see more good here than in the alternative. Mind you, this is mostly for creative IP. We can definitely argue for technical patents being a different case. >but people who like innovation and creativity usually tend to think otherwise. People who like innovation and creativity still might need to commission or sell fan art to make ends meet. That's already a gray area for IP. I think that's why this argument always rubs me strangely. In a post scarcity world, sure. People can do and remix and innovate as they want. We're not only not there, but rapidly collapsing back to serfdom with the current trajectory. Creativity doesn't flourish when you need to spend your waking life making the elite richer.

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zbyforgotp 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Property is a local low - it applies to a thing that exists in one place. Intellectual property is trying to apply similar rules to stuff that happen remotely - a text is not a thing, and controlling copying might work in some technological regimes while in others would require totalitarian control. When you extend these rules to cover not just copying of texts but also at the level of ideas it gets even worse.

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NoMoreNicksLeft 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>The concept of intellectual property on its own (independently of its legal implementation details) is at most as evil as property ownership, and probably less so as unlike the latter it promotes innovation and creativity.

This is a strange inversion. Property ownership is morally just in that the piece of land my home is can only be exclusive, not to mention necessary to a decent life. Meanwhile, intellectual property is a contrivance that was invented to promote creativity, but is subverted in ways that we're only now beginning to discover. Abolish copyright.

	▲	johnnyanmac 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>the piece of land my home is can only be exclusive, not to mention necessary to a decent life That mentality is exactly why you can argue property ownership being more evil. Landlords "own property" and see the reputation of that these past few decades. Allowing private ownership of limited human necessities like land leads to greed that cost people lives. That's why heavy regulation is needed. Meanwhile, it's at worst annoying and stifling when Disney owns a cartoon mouse fotlr 100 years.