Are patents and IP even a good thing? Preventing idea or bytes from spreading, what kind of silly thing to try to protect. Look at software: OSS is probably the 1st world wonder, and Debian and Postgres will last for millenia. The rest of the software world is moving to the cloud, where the source is not visible to the user anyway. Software never successfully relied on the law to be protected.

Same for the film industry. Piracy is common consumption, law has had no power in this billion dollar industry, and yet this industry is striving. I say, companies should be allowed to protect their films with the DRM they want, but once the film is in the open, the law shouldn’t try to protect it from being copied. So you’d just pay to be among the first to see the movie, in a good quality, and the rest of peer-to-peer would be legal.

IP law and patents is a weird contraption, making very little money compared to what it costs, and a major risk to any innovating company. IP law is a major drag on our industry, that’s not even respected by our real competitors.