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.

[Haiku's Knife]

Originally posted by Nargo:

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 business negotiations and contracts. i.e. none of my businesses.

Is it? You're saying these people have to be compensated, but there's a strong argument that they're not being properly compensated with the existence of IP. And since it's the company that owns the IP of the things that they themselves developed, they have no choice but to accept what wages are given to them, right?

[パエトーン (Belle)]

Presuming it's a free country, then creators/inventors who wish to make a product are free to go to other people to ask for investment; Venture Capitalism
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/venturecapital.asp

If a company already owns the product or IP, then the company owns it. Shrug. They can do what they want with it. Like with Xbox just shelving IP's and closing studios.

And no, people aren't forced into working on something for an x amount, there has to be mutual acceptance of terms.

[Haiku's Knife]

Originally posted by Nargo:

Presuming it's a free country, then creators/inventors who wish to make a product are free to go to other people to ask for investment; Venture Capitalism
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/venturecapital.asp

If a company already owns the product or IP, then the company owns it. Shrug. They can do what they want with it. Like with Xbox just shelving IP's and closing studios.

And no, people aren't forced into working on something for an x amount, there has to be mutual acceptance of the terms.

Sure, but venture capitalism may very well be possible without IP law and you were saying that these people have to adequately compensated, which I think we can agree that they are not, right? Do you think it's fair that someone invents something that causes 50$ million in profit makes 130,000$ for having done so?

[パエトーン (Belle)]

That's an extreme example, but generally if the investor dropped huge sacks of cash to fund the creation of a product, then it's only fair that what they get is proportional.
Because again, they're taking on the risk. They are betting that the product will succeed, which isn't guaranteed.
If the product flops, then the investor would be down $50 million or whatever was spent in R&D for nothing.

The media always hypes up the success stories, but the vast majority of startups and new products fail.

[Utiviroo]

The simplest way would be to shove everything into short term contract, there are no lifetime ownership/control, only say 10 years max.

Most things make the most money in the first 5 years (real competition tends to obliterate the profits before the third year anyhow).

If its something that took 40+ years of R&D it should be public domain anyway, universities used to hold the patents and rented them out to companies, now companies own the patents but since they are "people" their lifetime is forever.

[Haiku's Knife]

Originally posted by Nargo:

That's an extreme example, but generally if the investor dropped huge sacks of cash to fund the creation of a product, then it's only fair that what they get is proportional.
Because again, they're taking on the risk. They are betting that the product will succeed, which isn't guaranteed.
If the product flops, then the investor would be down $50 million for nothing.

The media always hypes up the success stories, but the vast majority of startups and new products fail.

Sure, but if you look at society, the people that create and develop the things that are sold get a disproportionately low cut of the profit for their work. If you're an engineer and create a more efficient motor that boosts sales, are you going to make anywhere near as much money as the people that run the company that makes the cars? No. I understand there's risk involved, but when there's success, the people that are the prime cause of it are still undercompensated for what they contribute, even with IP.

[WhiteKnight77]

Originally posted by Haiku in the Shade:

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.

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.

Years ago, two guys started a toy business (Wham-O) and introduced us to the Hula Hoop. Within a year, others started making their own hoops for cheaper and Wham-O lost market share to the cheaper ones and the market was oversaturated. That is due to not being able to patent a circle/hoop. They had to find new products to sell.

[パエトーン (Belle)]

Originally posted by Haiku in the Shade:

Originally posted by Nargo:

That's an extreme example, but generally if the investor dropped huge sacks of cash to fund the creation of a product, then it's only fair that what they get is proportional.
Because again, they're taking on the risk. They are betting that the product will succeed, which isn't guaranteed.
If the product flops, then the investor would be down $50 million for nothing.

The media always hypes up the success stories, but the vast majority of startups and new products fail.

Sure, but if you look at society, the people that create and develop the things that are sold get a disproportionately low cut of the profit for their work. If you're an engineer and create a more efficient motor that boosts sales, are you going to make anywhere near as much money as the people that run the company that makes the cars? No. I understand there's risk involved, but when there's success, the people that are the prime cause of it are still undercompensated for what they contribute, even with IP.

Engineer made the efficient motor. Okay. But nobody has earned any money from that yet.
They still have to recoup the cost of R&D.

The motor has to be mass produced. It must be advertised. Deals with vehicle manufacturers who may be interested in it must be made. It must be sent to authorities to ensure that it abides by safety standards and industry regulations. etc

Will the engineer be investing in the equipment, manpower, and factories to enable mass production of this new product? That will take billions.
Will the engineer be investing in a marketing and legal department?
Will the engineer be covering the other costs to make the efficient motor profitable?

Doubt it. Nevertheless, the engineer will likely be promoted or compensated well enough for the company to ensure the talent stays. The engineer just won't be benefiting from the economies of scale that come later (engineer isn't investing on those factories after all). Unless the engineer themselves own the patent, in which case the company pays them royalties (an argument for pro-intellectual property)

This is why book authors get like 10-15% royalties from publishers. It might not seem a lot, but authors aren't the ones printing the books, marketing the books, and then distributing them. The publisher is taking on that risk. They are betting that the book sells, otherwise they'll be stuck with stacks of useless paper.

[Duck Twacy]

Originally posted by Haiku in the Shade:

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.

The idea is to allow a person to profit off of their creation. It's part of what drives the economy.

I do believe the Palestinians pirated Mickey Mouse many years ago, and Yugoslavia pirated many popular musical artists during the 80s and 90s. It was Japan and Taiwan that pirated Apple in the early 80s. And China has pirated everything and everyone's creation, including writing their own Harry Potter novels.

Piracy is driven by people who are incapable of creating.

IP rights and laws are there for a reason, and a purpose.

[Soniaa]

But without propiedad intelectual, ppl would not have the motivation to do anything since ppl would steal it anyways... 🤷‍♀️

The laws behind need update but is not something that should be removed completly v:

[sleeps]

what is this? communism? no thanks. i like to keep my idea being true to my intention rather than being true to people i don't trust.

[sleeps]

Originally posted by Stranger:

Originally posted by sleeps:

what is this? communism? no thanks. i like to keep my idea being true to my intention rather than being true to people i don't trust.

then I hope you enjoy poverty and being alone.

and i hope you enjoy being equally suffered and have friends with personality cult.

[sleeps]

the main issue here is not capitalism but more of lack of other economic options. this is where mixed economy come in and i'm glad capitalism and socialism can just mesh together.

[Fumo Bnnuy n Friends]

Originally posted by Magma Dragoon:

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

didn't air bnb and other rentoids go out of business b/c they were stingy and wanted rent on their properties and lo and behold no one rented lol?

[Fumo Bnnuy n Friends]

i say if something is popular enough make it public IP open source

i.e. you cannot use the main material but you can make spin offs or derivatives so long as it's "different enough" and not a blatant cash grab asset flip and/or rip off entirely

best examples i can think of are touhou and sonic that both have input from the community

touhou spin offs up the ass

sonic b/c the devs haven't made a new good game since frontiers lol