Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter (now X) and Square (now Block), sparked a weekend’s worth of debate around intellectual property, patents, and

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter (now X) and Square (now Block), sparked a weekend’s worth of debate around intellectual property, patents, and copyright, with a characteristically terse post declaring, “delete all IP law.”

X’s current owner Elon Musk quickly replied, “I agree.”

  • UlrichEnglish
    -2•2 days ago

    People made stuff before patents existed.

    People also didn’t make stuff before patents existed. That’s why they exist.

    Knowing how someone else makes something doesn’t mean you can make it as well as the other person.

    Not necessarily, but often you can. You also don’t have to, you just have to make it cheaper, which you can because you are benefitting from someone else’s investment.

    • snooggumsEnglish
      0•2 days ago

      People also didn’t make stuff before patents existed. That’s why they exist.

      What didn’t they make?

      Not necessarily, but often you can. You also don’t have to, you just have to make it cheaper, which you can because you are benefitting from someone else’s investment.

      How many restaurants make fries? How many companies make a drink called cola? Are they all identical?

      Why do they keep making making those prodicts when they aren’t covered by patents?

      • UlrichEnglish
        0•2 days ago

        I don’t know. They didn’t make them.

        • snooggumsEnglish
          0•2 days ago

          So you are assuming they didn’t make them for reasons that didn’t exist at the time.

          Ok.

          • UlrichEnglish
            1•2 days ago

            No. I’m assuming that they didn’t make them based on simple and rational thought processes that I’ve already outlined several times.

            Does the fact that the richest billionaires in the world all want to get rid of them not concern you at all?

            • snooggumsEnglish
              0•2 days ago

              I assume that the way that Dorsey and Musk want to ‘get rid of them’ means for everyone else and will be terrible.

              But that doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that before patents and copyright people made all kinds of things and had zero reason to not make something just because someone else cpuld too. That is a made up theory of yours that has no basis in reality.

              • UlrichEnglish
                -1•2 days ago

                I assume that the way that Dorsey and Musk want to ‘get rid of them’ means for everyone else and will be terrible.

                What does that mean? Who is everyone else? You think they only want IP for themselves? No, they don’t want new companies to be able to innovate. Because then they could steal their ideas and apply their wealth to them to make a superior product. Thus no one would be able to compete with them. Pretty rational idea, don’t you think?

                had zero reason to not make something just because someone else cpuld too steal their ideas they’ve invested millions of dollars to create and sell the same product at a lower price, thereby bankrupting the company that made the investment to bring that technology into existence.

                FTFY. Please do not intentionally misrepresent my statements.