Abolishing Intellectual Property & Gaming

[Haiku's Knife]

I've always hated intellectual property because it's inherently counter-intuitive. Human beings learn from one another as part of our survival and progress is always about taking things that other people have done and altering and improving upon them. It's pretty ridiculous to say that you own an idea, design or a piece of art.

With the rationale out of the way, do you think there's any practical way that we could abolish intellectual property, yet still incentivize people to create fabulous things like videogames?

We have things like donations, PWYW (pay what you want), microtransactions, Game Pass (games as a service) and so on, so it doesn't seem completely unfeasible. Also, I think the biggest and most simple solution is to continue improving anti-piracy and cyber security to protect the sale of peoples' creations.

[sage2001]

we could just wait for everything to become public domain lol

[Haiku's Knife]

Originally posted by sage2001:

we could just wait for everything to become public domain lol

If only we were vampires .

[Magma Dragoon]

Yeah, just do it. There's no economic rational for it, it is pure rent seeking.

[Knee]

when people stop stealing others’ ideas

[Haiku's Knife]

Originally posted by Knee:

when people stop stealing others’ ideas

OK, what exactly constitutes stealing someone else's idea? For example, there was a game called Hydlide that was the first documented videogame to use health regeneration; would you say that any game that copied that mechanic is stealing their idea? What are the parameters?

[Haiku's Knife]

Up.

[HermitTheToad]

I mean you could try Communism, and government made and controlled video games...

[76561199586159139]

Very much agree with the first paragraph. It's completely artificial. I don't own my games? Wtf are you talking about? It's on my hard drive! I can do with it whatever I want! Of course it's mine. Everything else is an illusion.

As for how to manage this with commerce and so on, I have no idea. Things like anti-piracy have never been working very well.

[ナルゴ]

Intellectual property exists because R&D isn't free.
You can't abolish it without significantly diminishing incentive to create.
Why invest resources into making something real if others can just enrich themselves off your creation?
People should be able to iterate and improve upon an existing product, yes.
But that's why copyrights expire and licencing exists.

If you want software that you can freely tinker with, then use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software
Software that have licences that specifically promote the freedoms you seek.

[Haiku's Knife]

Originally posted by Nargo:

Intellectual property exists because R&D isn't free.
You can't abolish it without significantly diminishing incentive to create.
Why invest resources into making something real if others can just enrich themselves off your creation?

IDK about that. If you're the first to enter the market with anything, you're at a distinct advantage. And there's tons of knock off stuff, iterations and imitations out there, but the originals are still going and are always the biggest drawers.

People should be able to iterate and improve upon an existing product, yes.
But that's why copyrights expire and licencing exists.

So, do you think it's only possible for creators to make profit if IP exists? Think about things like Patreon and GoFundMe where consumers directly fund the things they want to be made.

[ナルゴ]

Originally posted by Haiku in the Shade:

Originally posted by Nargo:

Intellectual property exists because R&D isn't free.
You can't abolish it without significantly diminishing incentive to create.
Why invest resources into making something real if others can just enrich themselves off your creation?

IDK about that. If you're the first to enter the market with anything, you're at a distinct advantage. And there's tons of knock off stuff, iterations and imitations out there, but the originals are still going and are always the biggest drawers.

The problem is that there's big businesses out there with deep pockets who can immediately allocate resources and manpower to copy and improve upon your idea.
As soon as they find out there's a market for your thing, they'll try capturing said market.
Copyright is one of the things that keep this in check.

For instance.
The well known incident where Steve Jobs saw the first graphical user interface from Xerox, then copied the idea for Apple's own products. And ironically, Microsoft did the same to Apple.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQocN_c2uLI


More recently; Amazon has been caught copying the products of 3rd party sellers then manipulating search results so that their bootlegs are more visible.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisakim/2021/10/13/amazon-reportedly-copied-products-and-manipulated-search-results-to-benefit-its-own-products-in-india/

[Haiku's Knife]

Originally posted by Nargo:

The problem is that there's big businesses out there with deep pockets who can immediately allocate resources and manpower to copy and improve upon your idea.
As soon as they find out there's a market for your thing, they'll try capturing said market.
Copyright is one of the things that keep this in check.

For instance.
The well known incident where Steve Jobs saw the first graphical user interface from Xerox, then copied the idea for Apple's own products. And ironically, Microsoft did the same to Apple.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQocN_c2uLI

This is true; however, Xerox is still operating and turning a profit to this day, so theoretically, even if this were to happen constantly, there's still incentive to create.

More recently; Amazon has been caught copying the products of 3rd party sellers then manipulating search results so that their bootlegs are more visible.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisakim/2021/10/13/amazon-reportedly-copied-products-and-manipulated-search-results-to-benefit-its-own-products-in-india/

That is interesting. Now, let me ask you this: do you think IP enables companies to get as big as Amazon and Microsoft? Because theoretically, without IP, there should be more and stronger competitors to them.

[ナルゴ]

More competition? Perhaps. Is it fair for the ones who spent on R&D to make the product happen. Nope. That's the root of the issue. R&D isn't free.
They should be compensated for being the first to explore, the first to test the idea, the first to make a working proof of concept, etc

[Haiku's Knife]

Originally posted by Nargo:

More competition? Perhaps. Is it fair for the ones who spent on R&D to make the product happen. Nope. That's the root of the issue. R&D isn't free.
They should be compensated for being the first to explore, the first to test the idea, the first to make a working proof of concept, etc

And yet those people get paid disproportionately less as it is for what they contribute. It's the CEO's and executives that make the most money, so even with IP, they're still not being properly compensated.

[ナルゴ]

That's a different discussion entirely. Stakeholders and investors who give capital to creators and inventors should be compensated too of course.
They're essentially making a bet that whatever someone was doing will make them money in the future, and that isn't guaranteed. There is inherent risk.

Whether or not the compensation is 'disproportionate' is subject to their own business negotiations and contracts. i.e. none of my business