Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Really, Steve, I couldn't disagree with you more. As more and more people produce "intellectual" rather than "physical" property, it can only become more and more commercially valued.
Take drug research as one simple example. Drug companies can spend literally billions to produce a commercially successful drug and, at the end of the day, what they are basically producing is a chemical formula - intellectual property. It's that that they "own" and which has value, not the physical chemicals which go to manufacture the drug; they often cost mere pennies.
If they couldn't profit from that chemical formula - that "information" - they wouldn't spend the money to produce it in the first place.
A more "mundane" example; the recipe for coke is "information" which belongs to the Coca Cola company and which only they are allowed to use. Once again, intellectual property which has immense commercial value.
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Harry, this is what drives me up the wall about intellectual property. On one hand, it's 20 years and that's all. On the other hand, it's life + whenever (50, 70, 95, or what the next Mickety Mouse preservation act calls for.) It's not
just to treat IP so differently....