this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2025
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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.”

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

... Delete... all... IP law?

So... just literally make all piracy legal, switch all gaming and tv show and movie production/consumption... to an optional donation model?

Fuck it, why not.

I am both an avid pirate and have a degree in econ, wrote papers as an undergrad on how to potentially reform the DMCA... and uh yeah, at this point yeah no one has any fucking idea how any thing works, everyone is an idiot, sure fuck it, blow it all up, why not.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Yeah except you know it isn't going to be that

They're going to go "yeah but not like that"

They'll just remove consumer protections and make it so you own even less and if you try to fight it, you'll have the full weight of the court system to make you poor

Is musk supports it, that's exactly what he's hoping will happen. The rich will be able to take advantage of it and the poor will either stay the same or get worse

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

also jam in there protections for AI training so they don’t have to deal with those pesky rent-seeking “authors”

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago

Abolish IP for billionaires… not for the poor.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

Free for people that already can afford anything.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 days ago

I mean, I'd like to get rid of IP Law too....

But I actually mean get rid of, not an "Under New Management" sense like Elon The Musky Husky wants

[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 days ago

Honestly, I'm a fan of abolishing IP law too, but for some reason I suspect the implementation of that they support is very different than the one I support

[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 days ago (4 children)

I hate agreeing with these assholes, but I do in this case. IP/patent law is explicitly designed to stifle competition. At most, it should last a few years (if you agree with the "recoup the cost of innovation" argument). Innovation will be done for the sake of innovation if there's competition though. If your opposition innovates and you don't, you're going to be destroyed. The exception is when they agree to not compete, which is already illegal though not enforced as strongly as it should be.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

IIRC the original US copyright law as written by the founders was 25 years or so. The extensions on that have all been in the last 70 years or so due to mega corps like Disney.

The problem with Musk and Dorsey is that they want the copyright laws to apply to them but no one else. "Rules for thee but not for me" mentality of the wealthy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

Yeah, the problem was not the original copyright law which gave incentive for coming up with new ideas by giving you rights to that idea for long enough that you can be profitable, the problem is that it's been extended to the point that the people who came up with the idea are long dead and it's still under copyright for massive corporations.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I hate agreeing with these assholes, but I do in this case.

I guarantee you that neither of these assholes champion any kind of open access to their end works. Elon famously shut down the Twitter API and vexatiously litigated any number of Tesla copycats. Dorsey is only plugging an anti-IP stance because he's got a new AI engine out and wants to get on board the "Stealing everyone's DeviantArt library" gravy train. None of it is remotely sincere.

If your opposition innovates and you don’t, you’re going to be destroyed.

That's simply not true. There are a myriad of historical examples as to it not being true, from the Japanese abolition of the gun during the Meiji Restoration to German telecoms clinging to copper wire data infrastructure despite fiber optics being obviously superior. If you don't innovate because you have an economic incentive to drag your heels, and your economic clout gives you the ability to close out competitors, then you can do perfectly fine "innovating" in the field of anti-competitive trade behavior rather than real tech innovation.

What we have in Musk and Dorsey are two men who have benefited enormously from Silicon Valley insider investing and cheap borrowing. They don't give a shit about other people's IP in the same way Microsoft was more than happy to pillage code and reverse engineer software of its rivals. But if you think they're going to apply that to their own codebase and personal economic interests... well...

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago (3 children)

This is going to be used corporations to take away everything from individuals who are innovating (more than they already are). Nobody will be able to build wealth off a good idea again. Which if we were in a society where wealth wasn't required to live a good life I would be okay with, but we aren't, so I'm not.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

Right? There's no reason Superman and Winnie The Pooh should fall under ANY copyright, everyone involved with the creation of both ins long dead.. The only thing being protected is DC and Disney's bottom line.

And the fact that Tarzan isn't public domain is most absurd

Hell it took forever for Sherlock Holmes to be public domain, and the world he was created in doesn't even remotely exist anymore.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 6 days ago

"Delete all IP law" say people who have never created anything of any value to humanity.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago

Of course they are both lying. As with all capitalists, they will always use the law to seize greater power.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 week ago (2 children)

i'd also like to delete all billionaires

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 days ago

Oh no, this is so... good idea. Yarr! Pirate Party approves.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago

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

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 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.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago

Delete all internet protocol law

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago

Be Weird, Download a Car, Generate Art, Screw Copyrights!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago

Hold on hold on. Don't mention a damn thing

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 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!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago

Can't disagree here, this would be great

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

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!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 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 removed.

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