You like your physical properties to be protected right? If I stole something from you, would you consider it normal for me to get away with it because you haven't made me sign a contract? WTF dude ?!?
It's not a question of whether IP should be protected or not, it's only a question of where to draw the line. If I create something I want full rights on it, regardless of the ease with which it can be copied and my desire to be in control of the results of my work should supersede your desire to get free stuff ;)
If you steal a bike from me, I have lost a bike. If you "steal" a design from me, I am still free to write code from that design, but with the added benefit that if I don't want to bother, others can do so also. I don't want to have to sign a waiver every time I give some advice.
Yes it sucks that you got ripped off. But you should have had a contract before undertaking a paid project. There's a reason it's called contract work.
Yeah, but the work I did was useless to me, and I couldn't resell it.
So something was stole from me, and that's the precious time I invested in it.
And I totally understand their decision to go to someone else, but then that someone else ripped-off my work. Sorry, but that shouldn't be legal ... the world is full of jackasses that don't give a shit about your needs or about the endless hours of work you've put into it.
The alternative to having laws that protect your property is anarchy ... making your own justice ... here's your software, it's DRMed, it regularly phones back home with logs of your activity, and I can shut it down with the push of a button. Enjoy!
Don't get me wrong ... 100 years of copyright is a lot. 10 years of protection would be much more appropriate. I'm not advocating against changes for the good of the public ... but having a healthy copyright law also encourages content-authors. So IMHO, all I'm saying is that we need copyright, not that it doesn't need changing.
If I own a chair and someone take it without me ok:ing it first, then it obviously isn't ok, since I wouldn't have any chair left.
If, on the other hand, I had made a chair and someone looked at it and made a similar chair, then I would think it ok. This since I would still have my chair.
It's not a question of whether IP should be protected or not, it's only a question of where to draw the line. If I create something I want full rights on it, regardless of the ease with which it can be copied and my desire to be in control of the results of my work should supersede your desire to get free stuff ;)