Life Musings

Revisiting my previous post...

Somebody alleged that the rampant piracy and copyright violations in China is simply "building off someone else's work." That's just a plain foolish perspective. It's not building off previous work; rather, it's completely ripping it off.

Innovation already builds off the work of other people. What the Chinese do is entirely different. Constructing an entire fake Disney theme park, for example, is hardly as innocent as building off the work of others.

As I said, the Chinese attitude toward intellectual property is bound to hinder true innovation. Why innovate when you can copy someone else's work? Conversely, where is the strong incentive for people to innovate when they know that others can simply duplicate the fruits of their labors without the R&D investment?

I'm not saying that every single Chinese person is like this. I'm not saying that they are a nation of "one-billion rip-off artists." What I am suggesting is that when a nation does not adequately promote and protect intellectual property rights, people will have less incentive to innovate. There will also be less of a cultural push to break off from the crowd and do something different.