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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33462 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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I'm saying in your world without IP a whole lot of good stuff simply cannot be produced. To repeat this example from a different thread my grandfather was recently saved from colon cancer by a new cancer drug developed by some pharmaceutical company that raised funds on their research on the basis that their IP would be able to recoup the costs. Please explain how my grandfather survives with your preferred world without IP.

I'm very happy for your grandfather, but i repeat myself - my rights for the private property are not up for debate. The IP laws are infringing on private property rights as they say that i cannot do anything i want with the property i lawfully bought. Including reverse-engineering and selling or gifting it to anyone else. So if you're saying that look, you must totally reduce your private property rights because of the life of people - i'm sorry, no, that's EXTORTION. And what's probably even more important - you're not even making a practically good point, developing a cure from cancer is desirable with or WITHOUT IP rights, it can save the life of anyone and it will produce benefit no matter what. Imagine the president of a pharmaceutical company which decided not to finance the cancer research because without the IP rights he will have higher return of investment risk, at his daughters funeral after she died from cancer. I'm not sure why do you need to generate pity for poor pharmaceutical companies which will all surely die without the IP rights! No, they won't, and they won't cease any research.

And if you'll seriously argue that a bit higher risk of investment as well as a bit lesser profit margin LITERALLY KILLS PEOPLE then there surely is no other way but to just give all the money currently spent on less important activity(and what can be more important than saving human lives??) to pharmaceutical companies RIGHT NOW, as it will surely save at least some lives, right? It's some bullshit rationalist trolley problem again.

Somehow good stuff was produced before IP rights saved humanity.

I am certain that spending money on stuff that prevents piracy is not profitable if there is no piracy.

I'm not talking about anti-piracy mechanisms like DRM, i'm talking about subscription mechanisms, when you no longer own a piece of software but you rent it/use it with some asterisks(or car, or house, or anything). Paying more, getting less, not owning it so the product can be removed from you at any time and so on. Those things sometimes are positioned as some kind of anti-piracy defense too when they are quite obviously not, they're for maximizing profits. Looking forward for you to own nothing and be happy. But muh IP rights...

The IP laws are infringing on private property rights as they say that i cannot do anything i want with the property i lawfully bought.

And the obvious patch on this is that you buy a diminished perpetual license, that's the world you're pushing for there are no other options. And stop pretending this is some kind of novel limit on private property laws, there are tons of things you're not allowed to do with your private property. You can't swing your totally legal axe at my head for example.

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