3 thoughts on “Blast From The Past”

  1. While I disagree with the idea of IP in general (yes I understand the arguments… I hate that I have to say the obvious or someone will just assume the worst) it’s particularly egregious that a public entity would hold such.

    The argument that someone more powerful would steal an idea, while having some merit, is not totally true. How is an idea stolen in the first place? By what right does one person say to another, that’s my idea, you can’t use it?

    The answer society has come up with is, it depends. Some things are protected and some things are not. That line is rather arbitrary and I believe it shouldn’t exist at all.

    The public will to some extent not reward plagiarism. I wouldn’t, but some would. The general public benefits from competition and anything that lowers the barriers should be welcomed.

    The idea that people wont publish without protection does have some merit but is not that big an issue. Those that think it is should realize ideas got out long before they had any protection and will continue in the future. We’ve gotten to the point where anything you do is subject to lawsuit because someone else owns the idea.

    1. Patents and copyrights were never supposed to be about “ideas.” They were about particular implementations of ideas. “Ideas” as IP didn’t start creeping in until fairly recently with things like “business process” patents or that ludicrous thing Blue Origin tried to do with barge landings of rocket boosters. There are certainly some huge changes that should be made to the edifice of IP law – mostly, getting rid of all the patentable idea crap of recent vintage. Throwing the whole thing out seems a bit much.

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