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spixyyesterday at 7:02 PM1 replyview on HN

IP and copyrights slow progress, their expiration should be greatly limited


Replies

therealpygontoday at 12:25 AM

I very much agree. Technology moves far too fast in this century for companies, who will only need to invest less as AI improves, to have a monopoly over things that would inevitably (or were already) also being developed. It made sense when you invested 20 years into the research for a thing, back when that was necessary due to the slower pace. People had to travel places more often, spent more time doing so, communications took longer, and generally everything took significantly more time. Those policies served companies well in the last century. These days a grad student tested something on a weekend, a professor viewed the results in the morning and a reaction is already in progress. It simply isn’t reasonable anymore; they should have a right to recoup a reasonable costs, of course, paying off their investment. When that investment becomes a company worth more than at least 50% of the others, maybe they should need to compete more, not less? Make them innovate to maintain customers rather than simply sit on their patents. Just an opinion, but I believe that internal competition will only help us innovate.