I am strongly convinced that the possession of ideas and creations of the intellect is not possible. In my opinion, only physical things can be possessed, that is, things that are limited, that is, that can only be in one place. The power or the freedom to do with the object what one wants corresponds to the concept of possession. This does not mean, however, that one must expose everything openly. It is ultimately the difference between proprietary solutions, where the “construction manual” is kept to oneself, and the open source philosophy, where this source is accessible to everyone.
As the title says, I would oppose this thesis to your arguments and hope that together we can rethink and improve our positions. Please keep in mind that this can be an enrichment for all, so we discuss with each other and not against each other ;)
We already tried the system you proposed. Before patent law existed, people who invented something new would jealously guard their knowledge to ward off competition from copycats. When they died, their knowledge died with them.
As a result, even today we cannot reproduce the work of some old masters. For example, nobody knows how to make a new Stradivarius violin.
Such a waste of human genius. Patents exist for good reason.
Stradivarius violins were made over a course of 200 years by the Stradivari family. Antonio Stradivari in particular produced violins for over 75 years! I don’t think a 15 year patent would have been enough to give away their trade secrets. These were hand crafted art pieces, not mass produced items. The reality is that patent law extends all the way back to the Roman period and was mostly a legal system for emperors and kings to distribute monopolies to his favored subjects.
So I did some research and it reinforces my suspicions. Of course, having no IP protection had many clear disadvantages. But this has not prevented the development of advanced civilizations and fundamental innovations. On the contrary. Through the open exchange of knowledge, things could be created that are far greater than a human or a company can handle. IP is a child of the Enlightenment, when ideas or something intangible began to be regarded as a structure of our intellect and thus as property, just like tangible things.
I never said that lack of IP will prevent innovation. It will, however, slow it down.
The rate of technological progress accelerated considerably at the same time that IP protections were enacted.
Gutenberg developed his printing press around 1440. The first copyright law was enacted in 1710.
How many works of literature can you name that were published in the 270 years between 1440 and 1710? How many between 1710 and 1980?
But is this still true in the days of AI and automation? What if not we humans but some neural networks will be the main researchers of tomorrow? I’m just thinking
Copyright law has already foreseen that possibility. Only things created by humans are eligible for copyright, and there are already cases where copyright was denied for work generated by an AI.
This is something I haven’t considered. I’ll think about it ;)