I think we should take this to PM after this if we keep going. I have a bad tendency to veer too far off topic in threads.
I was just clarifying the nuance behind your earlier statement that once you have acquired an object, people shouldn't tell you what can or cannot do. It is not a blanket right to do whatever you want. If for your personal use and learning and testing even reverse engineering, you are correct. Nobody prevents that. If that includes rights to reverse engineer so you can bring out a clone or incorporate that technology in competition to the one you reverse-engineered then you are violating any protected IP rights. That distinction is important.
Oh in that case, sure. But the commentary I present was my preference to how things ought be. I don't have qualms about reverse engineered products being incorporated into clones. I see no issue with this. Now you might say as you have later on about "no protections for new companies tho". We'll get into that right now..
Keep in mind though, we still haven't touched the most problematic portion of IP laws' failure, and that is to establish proper or stable guidelines on what can and cannot be classified as such.
In my line of business of tech startups, having those protections are crucial for startups to even consider going to the market. They wouldn't even get funding if they didn't have suitable protections. So without those protections, the technology would be incorporated quickly by bigger companies that already have a big market penetration and the smaller innovative companies would not stand a chance.
So the thing is, you should know being in the tech startup business. The biggest desire is a buyout. Rarely do tech startups work toward some long term domination goal of the market space. And if you're not working to either of those goals, your investment sources simply cease existing (that's the current venture capitalist paradigm if you seek funding or going public perhaps if you're not bought out earlier).
As for the protections, they don't actually exist, since you're going to get bought out anyway if indeed you have something worth of value. By removing the protections though, you now just cut to the chase on a macro scale (and societal scale where resources need not be wasted by a small company hoarding perhaps a new tech that aims to revolutionize daily life in some significant way perhaps), so either, you show that you've miraculously outdone the competition with something new that can't be reverse engineered for the time being, or just get out-done by larger companies that out-do you either way even with protections (they find a way around your patent to offer basically a similar product that does some new thing, or something better, and comes with a brand-name of a big company).
These IP protections virtually exist only for the sake of larger companies, in hopes they can sue another company that plays tough ball in the same playing field (since they can't be bought, they must be battled in court). IP protection for smaller guys is a silly notion, as nothing will protect you from a buy out if you have anything worth value, or protect you from being litigated to oblivion if you decide to copy their idea in some fashion that gains traction.
This is why patent laws were invented, to help the small inventors. Sure, it is possible to abuse it but you don't throw the baby with the bath water because of it. It is not the definition of laws that need to be fixed but how they are applied and enforced (to avoid silly patent granting, patent trolling, swapping, etc). If this is all you are saying, then I agree with you. But it is a far cry from questioning whether IP laws should exist. Nobody who creates any IP would do that because it helps people that create IP small or big equally.
Nah, that's not why patent laws were created (that is conceptually what was sold as an idea, but it's purpose is now fully revealed as only the passage of time can demonstrate truly, of which I spoke about briefly). But generally speaking, yes that's all I was saying, no one is questioning whether IP laws should exist, but in the form they currently exist, you may as well toss out the whole thing and resalvage parts that make sense in a new model (a model that tracks perhaps innovation quantity or quality over spans of time). Also, since we live in a globalized world. If the major nations can't agree on a model, then having one is silly as we become more interconnected (silly due to the notion of how major corporate players aren't affected by them with respect to companies smaller than them).
There is also a petri-dish to see how it would work without any protection and that is the App economy say for Apple devices. There are small companies and indepedent developers that are trying to bring innovative solutions with limited marketing skills. And then there are vulture companies who wait to see if any of them look like they are taking off, and just copy the features, technology, idea into their product and use the large established they have to drive the small developer out of the market. Zynga was a famous example of this with his CEO's message asking his employees to do this was published. Apple itself has been accused of incorporating things (that were market tested by a smaller company and therefore the market risk removed) into their software driving that small company out of business. And all this is because there aren't good safeguards for protecting software, innovative ideas in software, etc.
The reason there aren't good safeguards is because there are no metrics as what qualifies as a "good safegaurd for innovative ideas in software". Like what would be a "good safeguard" definitionally speaking with an example that always yields pragmatic benefits to society? We're still at the stage where we don't know what can be patented.. What would be "good" with respect to a corona virus vaccine in terms of safegaurds for example? Or what
about copyrighting all melodies, how exactly would things like this be handled in your ideal conceptualization?
There is a part of the ecosystem that does not believe in any software protections. Many still in the pig-tailed 1960s culture where people do software for the love of it. They get support because IP laws by nature protect the few (the creators) from the majority that would benefit (in the short-term) with no protections. If someone worked hard to create an application that people were willing to pay $10 for, only to see someone make a clone (and so not have to go through the trial and error process of seeing what works and what doesn't, which is the price of innovation) and sells it for $1.99, consumers would benefit and cheer for no protection that would deprive them of those cheap goods. But that would be very short-sighted.
I'd need convincing of this being the case. Seeing as how most things of value that can be owned by a large enough conglomerate are already depriving the market either way even in this current system. Most of the costs involved is all the middle-manning and legal nonsense that needs to be built into the cost (as profit has no limit, thus nothing decentivizes chasing the highest possible by any legal means, or actually illegal if you're big enough to pay the constant fines). I don't see much of a difference to be honest between either system as long as globalized capitalistic economic policy exists. Most IP law is just an annoyance and a legal structure that prevents much change (as all legal systems are and have historically existed for such reason).
Again, this hypothetical you invoke holds no pragmatic water. In the example what would actually occur is the idea would get bought out. So the owner doesn't actually have to do mcuh work after demonstrating a viable Proof of Concept. Socially speaking, the difference is non existent. I also don't hold to the idea innovations are mainly driven by profit incentives (small timers hitting onto big ideas is usually the result of passion projects, and random luck, I've not seen much in the way of innovation from corporate structures to be honest, just refinements in the same way a movie studio can improve production values, but can't really come up with compelling world-building in accordance to stories that writers and artists do. You may hold to the opposite and think the profit motive is the main driver though, so idk what to say on that front without opening up a new debate.
If say Schiit or PS Audio were free to reverse engineer an SMSL or a Topping or an Okto than spend their R&D to make their competing products and rely on brand recognition to flood the market at half the price how would the Oktos of this world survive?
Well in audio you don't have to worry about that, because you can offer them advice on how to get that performance and they still wouldn't take it due to some superstition or another. As for how would Okto survive? They wouldn't if price was the only consideration. Also most people don't take kind to direct copies (not that any IP laws prevent from nearly 90% of DACs all functioning nearly identical and being identical in hardware as well). The way Okto would survive is the same way it survives now, not appealing to mass-market, and forming a community that like it for it's specificity.
Competing products already exist. One could argue the Okto is just a less impressive enclosure of a Matrix Audio SABRE Dac or Element X. IP laws or anti-reverse engineering won't help seeing as how you wouldn't be able to even realize if they reverse engineered it or not (they can change a few things here and their to throw off public perception to the notion).
To solve questions like how Okto would survive, you need to decouple cyclical consumption paradigm from the global economic market that operates on an infinite growth paradigm (suicidal seeing as how we live on a finite planet, finite here meaning resources replenish slower than are depleted). I grant that removing IP laws and holding all else constant would be pretty bad. For something as drastic as removing all IP laws, you would need a complete economic re-imagining. A resource based economy, where companies exist as social well-being mechanisms explicitly, (naturally this is instantly labeled "communist" or "utopian" or whatever other pejorative). Okto as a company doesn't need to survive. But people working at Okto, sure we'd want those people living without threat of starvation, which can be achieved with the economic shift (one which IP laws even if you wanted to use them, would serve no purpose anyway).
It is better to look at imperfections in the system and discuss how to fix them than make narrow (and false) conclusions that it is only enabling the monopolies. The latter may make big news but there is a huge ecosystem in every area that would fall apart if IP laws were weakened with the pretense of some abuses. The people who would benefit are the predators happy to clone/copy for short-term hit and run, consumers in the short-term when clones flood them until no one had an incentive to innovate any more and everyone is waiting for another to innovate so they can copy. No funding, no next startup.
Well sure, as I said, if all else held constant, removal of IP laws is stupid. To remove IP laws as I allude to previously, the entire economic system would need to change (though before this, cultural values would need a change, which in my view is tougher than changing the world economy itself even). If the sole benefit to IP laws is the supposed notion of "protection" of startups and the smaller guy, then you just feed the top players virtually cheap innovation streams since you get bought out anyway. They still benefit the most, while as you say, the majority benefits as well, but not to the same degree, not even close.