You're making my point though. The fact that Google is successful, in part, is because of the fact that you can't copy their trade secrets and methods; which is one reason no solid competitor has come up to challenge Google.

(There are infrastructure challenges as well, but this thread is about intellectual property.)

My understanding is that trade secrets are distinct from patents. For patents, you tell everyone how to do it but they're not allowed to for 20 years. For trade secrets, you don't tell anyone how to do it, but if someone else figures it out for themselves, it's fair game. Most of Google's search IP is protected as trade secrets rather than patent/copyright, I believe.

Your point is that you can't copy Google's secrets because of copyright, and therefore copyright is valuable to its employees. I'm saying that the reason you can't copy that information is different from copyright.

> Even if copyright didn't exist, you couldn't copy the Google executable.

If copyright did not exist, you could take it as a google employee and start your own google without going to jail.

Pretty sure you could sue them using other means, such as through contract law, if they signed an appropriate contract. You really don't need copyright if you aren't broadly distributing information.

if Guy A copied your code, and i got it off him, you can sue him for violation of contract but you cant stop me, a third party.

Your ability to sue him will be limured, he cant go to jail, he can deckare bancrupsy, and you have to be spesific about what is protected, 'idea' is a vague term that cant be protectedm