Quote:
Originally Posted by Malkuth
For patent/copyright supporters... except maintaining the status quo, is there any argument to support them... and let me be extremely simplistic about it... should copyright law apply in 10000 BC we would have to pay in order to legally talk to each other... or 40000 BC pay for the patent of breathing 
Now a little bit more seriously, for insignificant matters these laws are not problematic, but what concerns common good, like inventions, art, literature, limiting accessibility can only lead to oligarchies first, and totalitarianism later... independent of what ideological cover they take. |
It boils down to one: people need a reason to invest in research.
For a new drug, for example, we're talking about dozens or hundreds of millions of dollars upfront, before you can even think of trying to get it patented. And the whole thing can and often does fail before you get to that point.
Without patents and their licensing fees, they'll have to resort to just trying to keep stuff secret, when it's doable - that means, actually,
less sharing. When it's not, they'll resort to not researching at all.
Copyright's iffier. People will create for free. The complete end of copyright might spell the end of blockbuster movies... or anime... or big concerts... but there'll still be plenty of entertainment available. And of course there's all that's already existing, far greater than what could consume in a single life.