this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2025
212 points (96.5% liked)

Technology

2489 readers
315 users here now

Which posts fit here?

Anything that is at least tangentially connected to the technology, social media platforms, informational technologies and tech policy.


Rules

1. English onlyTitle and associated content has to be in English.
2. Use original linkPost URL should be the original link to the article (even if paywalled) and archived copies left in the body. It allows avoiding duplicate posts when cross-posting.
3. Respectful communicationAll communication has to be respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences.
4. InclusivityEveryone is welcome here regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
5. Ad hominem attacksAny kind of personal attacks are expressly forbidden. If you can't argue your position without attacking a person's character, you already lost the argument.
6. Off-topic tangentsStay on topic. Keep it relevant.
7. Instance rules may applyIf something is not covered by community rules, but are against lemmy.zip instance rules, they will be enforced.


Companion communities

!globalnews@lemmy.zip
!interestingshare@lemmy.zip


Icon attribution | Banner attribution


If someone is interested in moderating this community, message @brikox@lemmy.zip.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 129 points 1 week ago (6 children)

There’s nothing stopping Dorsey from releasing all of his IP under a public license. Same with Elon who jumped on this bandwagon.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] Stern@lemmy.world 38 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Jack Dorsey, who owns dozens of patents, conveniently does not opt to lead the charge by cancelling them all.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] j4k3@lemmy.world 35 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] sik0fewl@lemmy.ca 18 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Yes, now that rich people want to break the law to create AI we should just make it legal for them.

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 48 points 1 week ago

Yes. Because individuals stand to gain far, FAR more than corporations if IP law disappeared.

[–] j4k3@lemmy.world 35 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

No, this has enormous implications to break the monopolies of many companies and supply chains. Companies like Broadcom and Qualcomm only exist because of their anticompetitive IP nonsense. This is everything anyone could ever dream of for Right to Repair. It stops Nintendo's nonsense. It kills Shimano's anti competitive bicycle monopoly.

Every frivolous nonsense thing has been patented. Patents are not at all what they were intended to be. They are primary weapons of the super rich to prevent anyone from entering and competing in the market. Patents are given for the most vague nonsense so that any competitive product can be drug through years of legal nonsense just to exist. It is not about infringement of novel ideas. It is about creating an enormous cost barrier to protect profiteering from stagnation by milking every possible penny from the cheapest outdated junk.

IP is also used for things like criminal professors creating exorbitantly priced textbook scams to extort students.

All of that goes away if IP is ditched. The idea that some author has a right to profit from something for life is nonsense; the same with art. No one makes a fortune by copying others unless they are simply better artists. Your skills are your protection and those that lack the skills have no right to use their wealth to suppress others. The premise of IP is largely based on an era when access to publishing and production was extremely limited and required large investments. That is not the case any more; that is not the world we live in. Now those IP tools are used for exactly the opposite of their original purpose and suppressing art and innovation.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 28 points 1 week ago (30 children)

I am hard side eyeing everyone who are pro abolishment of IP laws. You are either mindless consumers who have never spent time and effort creating anything yourselves your entire lives, or you haven't thought this through.

I hope for the latter.

[–] easily3667@lemmus.org 3 points 6 days ago

Patents are also how you kill electronic vehicles for 15 years.

I think if you said "major reform" like use it or lose it, mandatory licensing, and any other number of sane overhauls...sure, but the point is to destroy the broken system we have today.

[–] EnsignWashout@startrek.website 25 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (9 children)

I've created lots of things. The moment I finish creating it, I sign over my IP rights in exchange for money for food, and never have a right to it again.

Without IP law, the thing I created would at least be in the commons where I can still legally use it.

(I agree with your point, some IP law could be better than none. But I'll assert that a total void of all IP law would be better than what we have now.

And we need to theaten to void it all, to get the current rights holders to negotiate. Frankly, I don't think they will. I think we need to void all IP law and then encourage the next generation to create some new IP law after we starve our current billionaires.)

(All this is in spite of my objection to being on the same side of any argument with Jack Dorsey. I have no illusion that his motives are pro-social.)

load more comments (9 replies)
[–] stray@pawb.social 20 points 1 week ago (2 children)

How do you explain the vast wealth of free software and entertainment media created by both professionals and hobbyists alike? How do you explain the profitability of games and movies when any of us can pirate a copy with little effort? Why is it possible to sell copies of public domain books when we have libraries?

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I have spent time and effort creating things myself. Still think ip law is not entirely accomplishing what it should, which is protecting the interests of people producing intellectual works, preferably while they can still reap the benefits of said work and are not financially/socially stable. It seems it's basically working backwards, great for inheritors to make millions by doing nothing except owning some IPs but terrible at protecting the people who actually need it.

I also know a few people holding some important patents, and I guess the patent system is alright in comparison, at least in France, since it did actually protect their work while also allowing others to use it fairly and improve on it.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (26 replies)
[–] drspod@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Businesses were innovative long before patents and copyright became a thing. In fact, evidence shows that society was more innovative without patents and copyright than with.

For your reading pleasure:

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 19 points 1 week ago

So what are the chances he means no copyright for everyone, versus that he means copyright shouldn't affect corporations?

[–] TootSweet@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I hate agreeing with a CEO.

[–] Artyom@lemm.ee 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Don't worry, he's probably being disingenuous and likely has ulterior motives.

Oh absolutely he's being disingenuous, but it doesn't make the idea outside of his goals wrong.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 16 points 1 week ago

🏴‍☠️

[–] Cargon@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 week ago

Delete all P = NP law. Return the sand from whence it came.

[–] Tiger_Man_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 1 week ago

Delete all internet protocol

[–] Thcdenton@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

Sure. Let's start with publishing and copyright.

[–] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 10 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Actually fully agreed. IP, trademarks, copyright, all that shit just serves to make the rich richer and stifle innovation.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

And that is bad why...?

Intellectual property, the sheer concept that an idea, or color, or shape can be owned at all is absurd if you really think about it. There is certainly room for a fair compromise of appropriate and proportional compensation for the actual inventors or creators of something, but our current system of intellectual property and patents is silly and hostile to human nature.

[–] andMoonsValue@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Current IP law may be too over reaching but I do like the idea that if an artist writes a song, or paints a picture others can't just make copies and sell it. Similarly, if someone makes some invention its nice that there is an incentive to publish the technology openly for everyone to understand how it works, and in return they get to profit from their discovery for a set number of years.

Some design patents and patent tolls are obviously bad, but I think for the most part its a decent system. What compromise would you propose?

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] 100_kg_90_de_belin@feddit.it 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

If Jack Dorsey proposes something and Elon Musk agrees I'd be wary to see it as a good idea.

[–] InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

I'm big on copy left, but I agree

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

i mean, i hate IP law as well, i like stealing shit.

[–] milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee 8 points 1 week ago

If there's no IP law you can't steal IP any more. Hah!

load more comments
view more: next ›