Comments by "Mat Broomfield" (@matbroomfield) on "Abolish Copyrights and Patents? A Soho Forum Debate" video.

Sampling is one matter, simply taking without paying is another thing entirely. Surely you deserve to make a living from your work?
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I create software. I sell it through a broker. I see the exact second that my software goes up on wares sits because my sales take a nose dive. I may not know specifically who is downloading my software, but it has a tangible effect upon the return of my time investment. I am not concerned about competition because I strive for originality, although if other people iterate too closely upon my work, that again steals the fruit of my labour. Why should indivuals or coorporations, especially the Chinese, be able to steal from me like that?
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Ideas are frequently the result of years of effort and cost, focussed upon solving specific problems or limitations, and creators deserve fair recompense for doing so. The fact that they may lack the financial means to manufacture their solution on a grand scale should not be used as justification for stealing that work from them. You seem to have the fanciful notion that inventions simply pop into people's heads as they walk down the street, which is extremely rarely the case when it comes to society-changing inventions. As for patents, they are extremely specific. You don't just say "a device for talking to people at a distance" and that covers every conceivable permuation of a phone. Intellectual property has a tangible cost and a tangible value. Getting hung up on the words "property" is like fixating on the word "new" in the phrase "green new deal." It's entirely the wrong thing to focus on. The public already subsidises innovation at NASA, medical companies, and weapon manufacturers - the latter I disagree with. Where should the line be in terms of subsidising every crackpot idea? If and idea is NOT granted subsidy, does that mean it should not receive protection? Just looking at the epic fails on Dragon's Den, we know for certain that assessment panels get it massively wrong sometimes.
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@skylanh4319 Well said. These people seem to think that products just pop out of the air for free and should be the property of anyone with the wherewithall to manufacture them. The iriny is, the vast majority of them would absolutely certainly whine about "socialism" in every other context.
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@komnennos If I invent lemonade, then you steal my creation in order to compete with me, then I'd say that you have behaved immorally and unfairly, especially as it tends to be the companies with the most resources that get to own all the lemonade stands. I don't know what you mean by a "guild system."
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@komnennos "potential sales" are not an abstraction - they are clearly demonstrable. And a monopoly and patent protection are two totally different things. Patent protection grants an inventor limited duration protection of original inventions. A monoply is application of state or economic might to drive all competition from the market. As an original software creator, lack of feasible protection has all-but stopped me creating products. Nobody else has entered the market to do what I did; it has simply ceased to be economically viable due to theft. I also invented some original products, but the high cost of patenting them, far less the impossibility of preventing the Chinese from using their economic might to semply steal my inventions has mean that I have never bothered to to bring them to market. These are inventions that the public WANT, the public would find USEFUL, and which nobody else has created, yet they will never get to see. All because of intellectual property theft. How is that situation preferable to a world in which I am fully protected?
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@CarrotCakeMake What a ridiculous argument. Most inventions don't occur by luck or simply because a genius comes up with it. It needs to be iterated, problem solved, evolved, and developed until it reaches a useable state. Do you think NASA is awful at problem solving simply because it took them years to get to the moon? No, many challenges simply do not yield to quick, inspired, easy solutions. That does not mean that the inventors do not merit protection.
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@Hibernial "Government proves in every area that it fails to protect and preserve" I absolutely agree. "violation of contracts in an industry heavily risks being blacklisted" You only have to look at the fact that Trump has gotten to live for 75 years breaking every law, ripping off every partner he ever had, including international banks and the largest economy on the planet, to know that the corporate world does NOT regulate itself. EVERY corporation gets away with whatever it can, and the only time it stops is when government, with all its legion of flaws, yanks its choke chain. Your libertarian fantasy does not, nor ever has worked, and the more powerful companies become, the more easily they can get away with abusing the system. Government is deeply imperfect, but with all its flaws, I'd sooner take my chances that a "democratic" institution with a survival interest will at least make an effort to protect my legal rights.
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@austinbyrd4164 Needy much?
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@austinbyrd4164 @Austin Byrd Thirsty thirsty thirsty. If you want a discussion, don't start with childish insults. Too late now. You're dismissed kid.
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@noahorr3480 Sotware as a service is the scourge of the industry from a consumer perspective - the concept that customers should have to continue paying you indefinitely for a single creation. I see that as being as immoral as stealing software.
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@ichimiustin8390 The fact that the term is not clearly defined does not mean that it cannot exist. If I invent a product that performs a never before seen function in a never before seen and non deriviative way, I think you'd have a difficulty arguing that it was not original.
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