Hacker News Reader

Comment by jwcooper | Hacker News Reader

This is a pretty good video (11 minutes) where a video game IP lawyer discusses palworld vs pokemon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkNcV0kpxvg

Mostly surrounding the similarities in pokemon vs pal visual design.

Spoiler...it's complicated.

View on HN

Every day the idea that people (or even corporations!) can own ideas becomes more and more absurd to me.

The more I hear about it the more convinced I am that we should only allow IP to be held by individuals (and make it non-transferrable). Instead of selling your idea to some company you could instead just sell a promise not to sue them for the duration of your claim (which I'd be fine setting to your natural lifetime under this system).

I really just think that repealing the system that imposes artificial scarcity on ideas would be the best at this point. It doesn't encourage creative work. No one decides to make art because they want to own its likeness. Tons of people have certainly stopped or decided not to start because we aren't allowed to stand on the shoulders of previous generations anymore though.

How would that be any different than the current system, aside from the fact that IP rights always dies with the originator?

Can you agree to let the firm renting the rights sue others for using it without contract?

I wish every software developer who talks about "fair use" in software licensing would learn the first point they make in the video - fair use is a defense for infringement, it has to be argued in court.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com