So long as there's enough money behind convincing us to by into ideas being property that can be stolen that "American IP is stolen at alarming rates" doesn't sound ridiculous to most ears, piracy isn't widespread enough.and anyway American IP is stolen at alarming rates overseas.
"American IP is stolen at alarming rates" is a ridiculous thing to say. "Stealing" implies the owner of a thing is deprived of the thing stolen. It is impossible to steal intellectual property. Intellectual property is not a thing, it's a bad analogy that justifies laws allowing publishers to monetize the culture we should be freely sharing with each other. It has always been that way, and arguments about the benefits to authors have been rhetorical slight of hand from the beginning. The only way we will be rid of IP protections is for them to become unprofitable, or for the industries dependent on them to die off. Either way, widespread not-really-stealing hastens that day, and so is a good thing.
The utopian vision of the Internet set is one in which nobody makes money off anything. Somehow, movies, cars, novels, and everything else would still get made in a world where anyone can sell anything. Remember: ideas and creations aren't the same thing. People put real blood sweat and tears into creations.
Yes, they were paid for their work just like any other worker. It was not necessary to be able to collect rent on the product of that work indefinitely. That's the more common case now too; it's publishers who derive significant income from licensing, and publishers are quickly becoming irrelevant.
I'm guessing, but: People are trying to make the idea that "ideas are property and can be stolen" more popular. Those same people are doing this to push tough copyright restrictions(?) We should reject this idea by pirating things.So long as there's enough money behind convincing us to by into ideas being property that can be stolen
that "American IP is stolen at alarming rates" doesn't sound ridiculous to most ears
piracy isn't widespread enough.