They feel just as threatened as book publishers, MPAA, RIAA and all the short-sighted content producers who have been relying on quirks of technology that allowed them to monopolize distribution of content. Quirks that no longer exist in Internet/Digital age. These people have and continue abusing the legal system to shore up their previous monopoly.
Distribution of content is easy, yes. But creation of content is still just as difficult.
Intellectual property laws are a bit extreme, but they also protect the small inventor/business owner.
Without these protections, we would have an increase in trade secrets and any individual or company that had enough money and resources could just sit there and legally rip everyone off.
China is a good example of this. With weak IP laws, tecnology moves at a snails pace and small business owners really can’t compete.
> With weak IP laws, tecnology moves at a snails pace and small business owners really can’t compete.
I beg to differ. With weak IP laws, technology moves at breakneck speeds with no artificial roadblocks (patents). Take dual-sim phones as an example of Chinese innovation - virtually every Chinese OEM supports them. Imagine if Apple had invented (and patented) this tech: only Apple would have it.
I'm not sure creating content is "just as difficult".
Writing a novel hasn't changed. It's the same as 50 years ago.
Photography: there are many time consuming effects that are not longer time consuming because of digital photography and digital editing.
Music: It used to require expensive equipment which is why you'd rent a studio. Now it requires a single PC or even just a single phone to replace $$$$$ of equipment and people. In other words it used to be much more work.
Movies: digital video cameras and access to cheap software have made it much less work for a tons of things that used to be much more time consuming.
Games: all the various engines have taken away man years of work that were needed to write an engine and all the support tools.
True and exactly! The same difficulty which is "not that difficult".
And I'm 80% against expansion of Copyright and patent, only a small portion against TM et al. Traditional patents are great (i.e. not look and feel, business process or software patents). Hell, original copyright was great. Those help with things you mention.
