Intellectual property is a scam.
Why?
A lot of reason. It has been created recently in response of file sharing.( We are speaking here about ownership of an idea or a set of data, not about copyright.) The very idea of intellectual property is unacceptable, and actually have no roots in legal right.
You have to understand that an idea have no similarities with an object. In term of reproduction, diffusion, ... and never had the same legal status. The use of the term "intellectual property" is used to confuse you, to trick you into thinking that the same laws apply, which has never be the case, and it never SHOULD be the case. Now as a fellow citizen of a democratic country, let me try to convince you of the danger of the movement promoting "intellectual ownership".
First let's think a bit about the necessities of ownership in the material world. The first property of an object that come to mind, is that when someone take it, you don't have it anymore. The second one is that when it is used, it usually degrade in quality. And the last one, is that it have a physical existence.
An idea, or a set of data, is nothing like that. It is only logical that the laws must be adapted. Speaking of ownership of a set of data is therefore a bad idea.
Now what should be the laws? Well let's speak about music. A tune is worth... nothing. It's just a tune. By itself it give you no reason to pay for it. Now a cd, THAT is definitely worth something. And it's only justice that if you sell a cd, the artist get someting, right? Well most of the time it's not a lot. Something between 1% and 5%, but that's something. Now there has been a numerical revolution, the cost of data diminished dramatically. What should we do? NOTHING
Did we forbid printing machine when Gutenberg improved it because it destroyed the price of books? Did we stop the industrial revolution because artisans lost their jobs? No.
The CD technology is obsolete, and the artist no longer needs records company to distribute their work. Will they loose money? Probably not (and the figure shows that no, they don't loose money to file sharing). But even if they do, that's progress. And no, I won't allow that we have to pay the police to enforce a meaningless and useless control over the Internet. Tax the connection or the storage if you must JUST LIKE YOU ALREADY DO, but cut the crap, there is no way to control Internet without destroying it and no reason to do it. If something cost nothing, it worth nothing.Subsidize it if it's important.