I agree. The double standard is the problem. People have been imprisoned for IP theft, but when these companies commit IP theft on the grandest scale ever imaginable, they're rewarded with trillion dollar IPOs. Either IP isn't protected, or it is. Legislators need to pick a lane. Right now it appears that poor people go to prison, and rich people get rewarded.

IP does not protect the little guy. This is nothing new. Draw a picture and then people start putting it on t-shirts and posters without paying you? Great, you can't do anything about it unless you have enough time and money to hire a lawyer to go after them. Self publish a book and then people start uploading PDFs of it? Better hope your real passion is filing takedown requests instead of writing.