It was so hard for me to grasp at some point over a decade earlier that in the past, in the middle ages and earlier for example, that people would publish all these educational books.....and none of the info was copyrighted; literally anyone could find some book published by some random Greek or Arab person and just take all the knowledge, and release their own stuff that just freely builds on the knowledge contained within, or that inventions could be copied by anyone and no one was like 'pay me for my brilliance'.
At the same time, paying people who generate, develop and curate information, enables and encourages more people to do so. IMHO one of the amazing things about the open source movement is it's built on so much generosity of time and resources.
Yes, but it's important to remember that a much (most?) of that work was performed by those with hereditary wealth, under the patronage of those with hereditary wealth, under the patronage of the church, or by clergy who had plenty of free time beyond their duties and no separate need to earn income for housing and food. In fact, one reason to enter the clergy was to gain access to the resources to pursue other activities.
IP shouldn't exist in general.
It was so hard for me to grasp at some point over a decade earlier that in the past, in the middle ages and earlier for example, that people would publish all these educational books.....and none of the info was copyrighted; literally anyone could find some book published by some random Greek or Arab person and just take all the knowledge, and release their own stuff that just freely builds on the knowledge contained within, or that inventions could be copied by anyone and no one was like 'pay me for my brilliance'.
Absolutely. Free flow of information without pay wall allows humanity to collectively build upon itself.
At the same time, paying people who generate, develop and curate information, enables and encourages more people to do so. IMHO one of the amazing things about the open source movement is it's built on so much generosity of time and resources.
Could your average joe even afford to buy a single one of those handwritten books? Or even read said book for that matter...
Yes, but it's important to remember that a much (most?) of that work was performed by those with hereditary wealth, under the patronage of those with hereditary wealth, under the patronage of the church, or by clergy who had plenty of free time beyond their duties and no separate need to earn income for housing and food. In fact, one reason to enter the clergy was to gain access to the resources to pursue other activities.
A monopoly is thought to inspire creation, if that's so IP is good, but should be on human timescales.
100 years of monopoly won't inspire me any better than 20 years, and even most cooperate products have less time in production than that