>our entire society exists because of intellectual property

Are you sure that's true? If so, in which century did it start being true?

From the beginning. Ownership is intangible. It exists only because of the collective consent to laws.

The difference between ownership of a physical object and ownership of an intellectual one is a matter of conventional. It's easier to define ownership of an object that is excludable, but that's human convenience, not a physical law.

	▲	microgpt 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		So Neanderthals had copyright law and if they didn't, their society would have fallen apart? Is that why it did fall apart?
	▲	TacticalCoder 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Some dogs have a concept of items belonging to them. Early humans had weapons and, with our lizard mind, things wouldn't go well when neanderthal B considered neanderthal A's weapon was now is. They also had "homes": caves/camps that belonged to them. Fighting physically for ownership predates fighting judicially for ownership. To the extent that you can "own" another animal: the ownership of a female by a male is definitely a thing in the animal kingdom. And before the first law was ever written, human slavery (estimated to be at least 4000 BC, with mentions in the first law ever written) did exist too. Ownership predates the law that later on codified the concept of ownership.

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drooby 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There was a touch of hyperbole ;) we live in the Information Age after all.. but to answer your question,

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution

Which empowered Congress to "promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

Scientists and the artists and their "exclusive rights" have built quite a lot over the centuries.