If IP wasn't a thing then what would be the incentive to find new IP? Why would anyone make movies, do drug research, etc

This notion that creators are motivated exclusively for monetary reward is absurd. But forgivable. Just because the corporate variant of creators tend to best proliferate does not mean that they best innovate.

I'm more talking about big budget projects that require large and expensive teams, rather than indie projects or music. Say, The Lord of the Rings or the Pfizer vaccine. Achievements of this scale can't be done by small groups of the intrinsically motivated. Without some IP protection, private capital wouldn't pursue these projects.

You may think that sacrificing these things is worth it, but at least be up front about that trade off when making the argument.

counterpoint: without ip the economy would be a multiple of its current size and such projects would easily be funded.

> such projects would easily be funded

You must mean publicly funded, which I don't dispute.

> the economy would be a multiple of its current size

Why? I haven't heard reasoning presented in this thread as to why the negative consequence of removing incentive for private capital to invest in research doesn't outweigh the positive consequence of fostering an IP commons that can be leveraged by everyone. Maybe you can lay out the case for that.

Isn't it the best to have a middle ground where the worst parts of IP protection (e.g patent duration and insulin prices) are tamed, and the beneficial parts are kept (e.g. not letting people take wholesale another company's codebase, and allowing private ownership of movie rights for at least 5-10 years)?

I mean open source pushes things forward but lack of IP? I don't think so. Linux is a great example of how open source brings great things, it's also a great example of how IP has helped open source.

500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, we dont need economic incentive to make movies.

because they are paid to do research.

I'm referring to privately funded IP projects. I agree that publicly funded research can still exist even without IP protection.