That would be a-m-a-z-i-n-g. Private game servers, fan remakes of shows and movies, I would be over the moon.
Too bad it won’t happen
Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch
Submitted 5 days ago by zaxvenz@lemm.ee to technology@lemmy.world
https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/13/jack-dorsey-and-elon-musk-would-like-to-delete-all-ip-law/
Comments
OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
VolumetricShitCompressor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
Disney has entered the chat
sdfric88@lemmy.sdf.org 5 days ago
You know, Disney is an awful mega corporation, but wow would I love to see them turn on this administration with their full ire. The mouse v swasticars
VolumetricShitCompressor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
Yea, that’s what I was thinking about as well.
qaz@lemmy.world 5 days ago
A real nuisance for all those AI datasets, huh?
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
I don’t think so, it seems they are already immune to it
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
That’s probably better than what we have now, but still very short of ideal. Here’s my proposition:
- keep trademark law as-is
- cut patents to 5-7 years, with a one-time extension if the holder can demonstrate need
- cut copyright to 14 years (original 1790 Copyright Act duration), with a one-time explicit extension, approved based on need
- have existing patents and copyright expire at their original term, the above (for works patented/copyrighted within the term), or half the above (for works copyrighted outside the term), whichever is shorter
That would solve most of the problems while keeping the vast majority of the benefits.
4am@lemm.ee 5 days ago
Also, patents shouldn’t be filable once prior art exists.
Aka Nintendo patenting game mechanics 30 years after the fact to try and sue Palworld.
Also game mechanics and UI features being tied to existing functionality (Amazon’s “one click”, Apple’s “swipe to unlock”) should not be considered novel.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
Also, patents shouldn’t be filable once prior art exists.
That’s the case today, it’s just that the patent office accepts far more patents than it should. Those patents absolutely don’t hold up in court, but it really shouldn’t get to that point either.
Unmapped@lemmy.ml 5 days ago
This is the way.
merc@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
I see the value in trademarks because it prevents people from selling knock-offs. In some cases (medicine, machine tools) using a knock-off could be deadly.
For patents, I don’t think it should be one-size-fits-all. A modern drug takes a lot longer to develop than some e-commerce thing like one-click ordering. Different categories of thing could get different lengths of patent protection. Also, IMO, the clock should start once something is available in the market. Again, I’m thinking of medicine. Something might be working in the lab so it’s patented, but going from lab to store shelves is not quick. If the clock starts immediately, then that mostly benefits huge and rich pharma companies that can move extremely quickly.
I strongly believe that if we have copyrights, they should be short with an optional renewal that’s also short. Too much of our culture is locked up by companies like Disney. They shouldn’t be able to hold onto it for more than a century. That’s absurd. For the most part, media makes the vast majority of its money in months. 14 years gives the creator not only the most lucrative period, but also the vast majority of the tail of the distribution. It would also be good if corporate-owned copyright had a much shorter term than copyrights owned by individuals. And, we also need to have a way for people to get their own creations back, by say cancelling the copyright assignment.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
A modern drug takes a lot longer to develop than some e-commerce thing like one-click ordering.
Sure, that’s what the one-time extension is for.
The way they use patents, however, is completely abusive. In general:
- patent the process to make the drug
- release the drug
- around the time the patent is set to expire, patent a slightly different process, and get authorities to ban the old one
- repeat
Patents last 20-25 years, which is just ridiculous for pretty much anything. Here’s how I envision the process for medicines:
- patent the process to make the drug
- struggle to get through approval process w/ FDA - can take years
- renew patent and release drug -> approved because you obviously haven’t recouped your costs
- after 5-7 years, you have recouped your R&D money and established your brand, so the patent is no longer important (i.e. most people still buy name-brand Tylenol because it’s trusted, despite cheaper alternatives being just as effective)
For something like a phone:
- patent the process to make the device
- release device
- file for renewal -> rejected because you’ve already made up your R&D costs and no longer need a monopoly
14 years gives the creator not only the most lucrative period, but also the vast majority of the tail of the distribution
Agreed, as well as with your point about corporations. I used 14 because it has precedent, but honestly 10 years is more reasonable. It needs to be long enough that a work that didn’t get mainstream attention in the first few years but gets it later doesn’t get sucked up by a competitor, but short enough that it’s still relevant culturally when it expires.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
I would still keep patents at about 20 years. There’s some nuance that needs to change to prevent, say, Nintendo from retroactively patenting Pokemon after Palworld comes out, but yeah patent law needs a colonic.
I’d be okay with 20 or even 30 year copyright terms on complete works, but I would be more open on derivative works and fair use.
I want stricter trademark law. Trademark should be about knowing where your products come from. A manufacturer gets right of way over a mark so that they can defend their own reputation, and I’ll help them defend that mark because I want to know where the goods I buy come from.
It should not be legal to buy a commodity item and slap your brand on it. I see this a lot in the tool market. There seems to be two 6" jointers in production in the world today, the one JET makes, and the one everyone else sells. Wen, Craftsman and Porter Cable among many others sell the same 6" jointer. Speaking of Craftsman, that brand is now owned by Stanley Black & Decker, who also owns Porter Cable, DeWalt, and several others. Most of what they use this for is to sell mutually incompatible yet functionally similar power tools so you have to buy more batteries. They might design or build some of their tools in-house, but many of them they buy from some other company and just put their stickers on. Is it, or is it not, a “Craftsman”?
Then you’ve got Amazon, Temu, AliExpress and other Chinese dropshipping platforms. They make a whole bunch of shit and then register nineteen or twenty bullshit trademarks to sell the same thing under. I would make that illegal; if you have a brand that is suitable for selling a given item, you’re not allowed another for that purpose. Trademarks are supposed to reduce consumer confusion, you’re using them to increase consumer confusion. If I am elected dictator, that kind of behavior will earn you a public trepanning.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
It should not be legal to buy a commodity item and slap your brand on it.
I disagree. However, I do think you should be obligated to disclose the source of that commodity so customers can use reviews of similar products to get an idea of the quality of yours. You’re still on the hook for warranties and whatnot, but you should need to disclose what you did and didn’t design/build.
This goes doubly for where something was made. You can’t just slap a “Made in USA” sticker on something that’s made elsewhere, you need to disclose where things come from. Such as, “Designed in USA, parts made in Vietnam, assembled in Mexico” or whatever.
if you have a brand that is suitable for selling a given item, you’re not allowed another for that purpose.
Would this apply to product segmentation? For example, Toyota owns the Lexus brand, and they segment their products under those different brands. They reuse a ton of parts though, so your Toyota is much more similar to a Lexus than it is to other economy vehicles in its market segment.
Walking that line is quite difficult, and I think it largely misses the point. I’m not confused when I buy a ATHEOTS or whatever BS brand they come up, I know I’m buying cheap knock-off stuff. The problem here is how quickly those brands pop up and disappear, and that should be illegal IMO (you can’t just rebrand when your company gets a bad reputation). But maybe that was your point, I’m just saying it’s less a trademark issue and more company restructuring shenanigans.
To tackle this problem, I’m happy to remove limited liability protections once a company gets above a certain size. But that’s a bit outside the scope of the IP law discussion.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 5 days ago
[deleted]sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
It’s old-school liberal, as in closer to libertarian. Trump courted libertarians, and he claims to be wanting to legitimately downsize things.
Here’s a rough history of Copyright law in the US:
- 1790 Copyright Act under George Washington
- 1975 - Democratic majority in both houses, Republican President
- 1998 - Republican majority in both houses, Democrat President
So it’s pretty easy to see that both major parties support copyright extension.
I doubt he’ll do it, but I could see him doing it just to “own the libs” since Clinton was the last to sign a copyright extension.
primemagnus@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
If Elon agrees with anything… run.
randomname@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
This is the only thing he’s ever done or said that I agree with, even though his real intentions are obvious. We really do need a complete re-writing of IP law, but not from Elon.
Guns0rWeD13@lemmy.world 4 days ago
i came in to say the same thing. IP law rarely benefits the working class. it’s usually a tool used by the likes of disney to bash peasants over the head. it also slows down innovation.
but the problem is, something like this is supposed to coincide with the end of capitalism and implementation of things like UBI.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 4 days ago
yeah i agree with especially the last paragraph. i don’t think abandoning all IP laws today is realistic, as the commercial art/innovation economy still has too much game to gain so it’s gonna take at least 10 more years.
Xenny@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Hold on hold on. Don’t mention a damn thing
Blindsite@lemmy.today 3 days ago
If they did could we use the Twitter bird or Tesla logo all we wanted? I mean yeah let’s get rid of all IP law but get rid of it for everyone. If we want to copy a big corporation then yeah we should do that. Get rid of copyright and trademarks, woo! Publish all that hidden patented material so anyone can produce it. Let’s get creative. You think big corps will get on board with all this?
releaseTheTomatoes@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
I don’t think Elon is that smart to realize what ‘delete all IP laws’ entails. He probably thinks it in the sense of an anarcho-capitalist.
Anarchy for me not for thee.
deathbird@mander.xyz 4 days ago
Now that it interferes with me I’m against it. As soon as it’s absence causes me any grief I’ll be for it again.
theblips@lemm.ee 4 days ago
Can’t disagree here, this would be great
minorkeys@lemmy.world 4 days ago
These people are threats our actual lives.
alphahowler@lemm.ee 4 days ago
Avoiding tax loopholes and fair taxation for billionnaires could also be considered. Just saying. Otherwise I think that the idea of deleting all IP laws is just wishful (and naive) thinking, assuming people would cooperate and build on each other’s inventions/creations.
Given the state the world is currently in, I don’t see that happening soon.
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Otherwise I think that the idea of deleting all IP laws is just wishful (and naive) thinking, assuming people would cooperate and build on each other’s inventions/creations.
Given the state the world is currently in, I don’t see that happening soon.
There are plenty of examples of open sharing systems that are functional.
Science, for example. Nobody ‘owns’ the formulas that calculate orbits or the underlying mathematics that AI models are built on like Transformer networks or convolutional networks. The information is openly shared and given away to everyone that wants it and it is so powerful it has completely reshaped society everywhere on the Earth (except the Sentinel Islands).
Open Source projects, like Linux, are the foundation of the modern tech world. The ‘IP’ is freely available and you can copy or modify it as much as you’d like. Linus ‘owns’ the Linux project but anyone is free to take a copy of the Linux source code and modify it to whatever extent that they would like and form their own project.
Much of the software and services that people use are built on top of open source tools made by volunteers, for free; and most of the useful knowledge and progress for human society results from breakthroughs made in the sciences, who’s discoveries are also free and openly shared.
Telodzrum@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Plenty of chemical syntheses are patented. Biological catalysts and precursors are patented every day. No one owns the rights to orbital calculations, because that would be like patenting the concept of a square root — it’s not novel or even complex within the field.
alphahowler@lemm.ee 4 days ago
I agree with most of what you say, nevertheless I’d like to underline that my context was broader and not limited to Linux and open source, but to a greater extend to topics like inequality, world hunger, wars, access to infrastructure, education and healthcare for example.
mhague@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Well a billionaire commanded we argue about copyright law. I guess we need to expend our energy and build enough momentum so that Musk can grab more power during the turmoil.
Trumpers did their part by arguing about free speech. Time to tap into our issues with IP laws and help Musk too!
drmoose@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Good. I don’t like them but clearly IP law is a net negative on our society and peoppe have been argueing against it forever now.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 5 days ago
Isn’t Hollywood going to unleash armies of lawyers on them?
anindefinitearticle@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
[deleted]JeSuisUnHombre@lemm.ee 5 days ago
I would love those 2 to have the most expensive trial in history
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 5 days ago
Tech companies have more
I really really want them to prove that
Taleya@aussie.zone 5 days ago
Disney vs the tech brats. Jumbish, bring me the popcorn
primemagnus@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
As a creative with many friends in the industry, go fuck yourselves! You can pry my IPs from my cold dead fingers.
verdigris@lemmy.ml 5 days ago
Yeah man, pull that ladder up behind you!
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 days ago
In what sense is a ladder getting pulled up if IP is respected? Anyone can make a new IP, there’s not a limited supply of imagination. You can’t make everyone like what you come up with or buy it, but why should that entitle you to being able to profit off someone else’s work?
Ulrich@feddit.org 5 days ago
Interesting considering the lack of IP law is going to become Tesla’s downfall.
melsaskca@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
Wow. A white guy with money has an opinion. This is getting crazy! /s
void_turtle@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 days ago
The only sensible thing either of these two have ever said. All knowledge belongs to all humankind.
MuskyMelon@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Yeah bullshit they want to delete IP law. Go ahead and copy Square, Xhitter, Tesla, SpaceX, etc and watch them explode.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 5 days ago
Ok. Then you don’t own anything anymore.
I’ll start making Teslas that don’t suck.
CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Honestly at this point, poor people have no form of IP protection whatsoever, even before chat GPT it was commonplace for megacorps to just take other peoples work and profit from and now that LLMs are here its outright routine. So why keep that shit when it only benefits the rich.
C126@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
IP is simply a state backed monopoly privilege. This obviously leads to a slowing of innovation and price rises due to lack of (by force) competition. IP is unethical and doesn’t even accomplish what it sets out to do. You don’t need government promises of monopoly rights to create innovation in the marketplace, competition drives innovation.
modeler@lemmy.world 4 days ago
All evidence points to the opposite of your conclusion.
In places where IP laws are weak or non-existent, very little fundamental or expensive research is done by companies - because the result is immediately cloned by 100 competitors. In medicine, companies will not research and develop new drugs to market unless they can get a return on the investment. Even in places with strong IP laws, development of drugs that can’t produce a return in the limited monopoly window is simply not done (eg with a small number of patients or when 1 course of a drug will permanently cure the patient), so many diseases do not have treatments.
In countries where there is strong IP laws, innovation jumps because innovating creates new things that people/companies can sell for profit. A personal area of interest is development of small-arms - every single advance from muskets to modern weapons is documented in patents in the US and Europe; the rate of innovation in the 19th and 20th centuries was incredible - and that is via patents and profit in the free market.
Now, we can have a productive argument about state sponsored research - but unless the state undertakes all research in an economy (which would be staggering overreach), we need IP laws.
We can also discuss patents on software (which IMHO are not needed because companies do fundamental research without patent laws like in the UK).
We can also discuss what is the appropriate time that copyright should remain - the Disney law in the US is a ridiculous overreach. It was 25 years or until the death of the author/artist - that worked very well for centuries.
You do
n’tneed government promises of monopoly rights to create innovation in the marketplace, competition drives innovation.
HalfSalesman@lemm.ee 3 days ago
As much as I also would like IP law to die, I do not think that these two saying such means much.
Jack Dorsey is not in government and worth a 100th of what Musk is worth. And Elon Musk is evil and retarded.
selson@lemm.ee 3 days ago
I’ve been on board with this for fucking years. Our IP system in the USA is so fucked. It’s like “death of the creator plus 40 years” or something and then Disney lobbies to increase it further to protect the mouse.
Let me make Mickey Mouse shirts and let me make money off of them!
Let me stream Nintendo games without a cease and desist!
ArchRecord@lemm.ee 3 days ago
Not to mention the fact that the stronger IP law is, the more it’s often used to exploit people.
Oh, did you as an artist get given stronger rights for your work? That platform you’re posting on demands that you give them a license for any possible use, in exchange for posting your art there to get eyeballs on your work.
Did your patents just get stronger enforcement? Too bad it’s conveniently very difficult to fund and develop any product at scale under that patent without needing outside investor funding into a new corporate entity that will own the patent, instead of you!
To loosely paraphrase from Cory Doctorow: If someone wants a stronger lock, but won’t give you the key, then it’s not for your benefit.
If corporations get to put locks on everything with keys they own, but also make it hard for you to get or enforce access to the keys to the locks on your stuff, then the simplest way to level the playing field is to simply eliminate the locks.
Hadriscus@lemm.ee 5 days ago
And people flocked to this guy’s social network
Ulrich@feddit.org 5 days ago
It is not and never was his social network. And the fact that they upset him so badly that he left is probably a good sign.
Hadriscus@lemm.ee 4 days ago
I really thought it was, will do some reading
dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net 5 days ago
I think Disney might have a few things to say about that.
Along with every other film studio, record company, publisher, video game studio…
…engineering firm, architecture firm…
…pharma company, law firm…
NostraDavid@programming.dev 4 days ago
Disney vs Musk when?
Geobloke@lemm.ee 4 days ago
Disney would smoke Musk
HawlSera@lemm.ee 3 days ago
I was hoping Ken Penders would follow through on his threat to sue Paramount over Locke and Enerjak technically showing up in the Sonic 2 movie. (Characters who aren’t named, but have the same role as Locke and Enerjak show up… Wouldn’t matter if they were straight up wearing name tags saying “My name is Locke/My name is Enerjak”, the idea that Ken actually won his lawsuits is debunked fiction.)
Seriously, I wanted to see a judge explain to him that no he doesn’t own Knuckles or any Sonic character for that matter. And part of that is that “Settling out of court and being tossed some “Fuck off” money” and “Winning the lawsuit and naming your own terms to be obeyed and altered at your leisure” are two entirely different concepts… With the latter not really a thing outside of deluded day dreams.
S_H_K@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
Be Weird, Download a Car, Generate Art, Screw Copyrights!