I get what you're ssying, but artists and inventors would be shafted if they didn't have intellectual property protections.
Anon, let me take you by the hand and ask you, without judgment or malice, do you think artists and inventors only started making a living off their work once IP was enforced?
Do you know that most software that runs the internet are based on a handful of code that the creators decided to make open source, and if they made it proprietary, we probably wouldn't have tumblr? Did you know that (in the US) "intellectual property" wasn't even subject to copyright until Disney led a lobbying campaign that spanned over a century, so instead of works entering the public domain after 14 years, you can only adapt Star Wars after 95 years?
To quote sociologist and Professor Emeritus Brian Martin:
What about all the writers, inventors and others who depend for their livelihood on royalties? First, it should be mentioned that only a very few individuals make enough money from royalties to live on. Most of the rewards from intellectual property go to a few big companies. But the question is still a serious one for those intellectual workers who depend on royalties and other payments related to intellectual property.
The alternative in this case is some reorganisation of the economic system. Intellectual workers could receive a salary, just like most scientists do.
Getting rid of intellectual property would reduce the incomes of a few highly successful creative individuals, such as author Agatha Christie, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Publishers could reprint Christie's novels without permission, theatre companies could put on Webber's operas whenever they wished and Spielberg's films could be copied and screened anywhere. Jurassic Park T-shirts, toys and trinkets could be produced at will. This would reduce the income of and, to some extent, the opportunities for artistic expression by these individuals. But there would be economic resources released: there would be more money available for other creators. Christie, Webber and Spielberg might be just as popular without intellectual property to channel money to them and their family enterprises.
- Against intellectual property by Brian Martin
