3d ago

Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch

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.”

Technology @lemmy.zip

Sunshine (she/her) @lemmy.ca

3d ago

Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’

techcrunch.com /2025/04/13/jack-dorsey-and-elon-musk-would-like-to-delete-all-ip-law/

Flippanarchy @lemmy.dbzer0.com

hemko @lemmy.dbzer0.com

3d ago

Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk named honorary anarchists

techcrunch.com /2025/04/13/jack-dorsey-and-elon-musk-would-like-to-delete-all-ip-law/

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337 comments

Do it., but also ensure that all work enters the public domain and is free for anyone to use, modify, commercialize, or basically whatever the GPL says.
- Nonono, see, they will have punitive contracts with employees that will nail them to the wall if they leak source code.
  They like rules as long as they’re the one writing them.
- “I don’t think so. Whatever is yours is ours, whatever is ours stays ours. Thank you for understanding.”
  —Microsoft et al.
- That's what would happen if copyright doesn't exist. If a company releases something, it's immediately public domain, because no law protects it.
  GPL
  The GPL is very much not the public domain.
  
  It's an interesting point that without any IP law, GPL would be invalid and corporations could use and modify things like Lemmy without complying with the license.
  
  Exactly. They wouldn't be obligated to contribute back at all, so someone like Meta could just rebrand Lemmy into something else and throw ads everywhere.
  
  They already could. Lemmy's users are not the ones who run the software. It's like Google's usage of Linux. They can keep their changes to themselves.
  
  They can only keep them to themselves if they don't distribute the changes. Since Google distributes Android, they need to release their changes to Linux on Android under the GPL. Since they don't distribute their server code, they don't need to share their changes.
  
  But then corporations could not stop anyone from modifying their modifications to things like Lemmy.
  
  Well, they wouldn't need to release those changes publicly.
  
  But then anyone could take them anyway.
  
  The GPL is basically trying to make a world without copyright. The GPL basically only has teeth in a world where copyright exists. If copyright didn't exist then everything would be in the public domain and the GPL would be toothless, but that's fine because it would no longer be unnecessary.
  
  No, the GPL very much requires copyright to work. The whole point is copyleft, which obligates changes to the code remain under the same license and be available to everyone.
  Without copyright, companies just wouldn't share their changes at all. The whole TIVO-ization clause in the GPL v3 would be irrelevant since TIVO can very much take without giving back. Copyright is very much essential to the whole concept of the GPL working.
  Just think, why would anyone want to use Linux if Microsoft or Apple could just bake Linux into their offering?
  
  No, the GPL very much requires copyright to work
  That's what I said.
  
  If copyright didn’t exist then everything would be in the public domain and the GPL would be toothless, but that’s fine because it would no longer be unnecessary.
  I'm saying it is necessary to achieve the aims of the GPL.
  If it was just about ensuring the source is free, the MIT license would be sufficient. The GPL goes further and forces modifications to also be free, which relies on copyright.
  
  I'm saying it is necessary to achieve the aims of the GPL.
  Until copyright no longer exists and everything is in the public domain, as I said.
  How are you going to enforce the GPL in a world where copyright doesn't exist?
  
  How are you going to enforce the GPL in a world where copyright doesn’t exist?
  And that's what I'm saying, you can't, therefore the aims of the GPL cannot be achieved. The GPL was created specifically to force modifications to be shared. The MIT license was created to be as close to public domain as possible, but within a copyright context (the only obligation is to retain the license text on source distributions).
  If everything is public domain, then there would be no functional changes to MIT-licensed code, whereas GPL-licensed code would become a free-for-all with companies no longer being obligated to share their changes.
  
  I'm saying it is necessary to achieve the aims of the GPL.
  Which would make GPL toothless, but that’s fine because it would no longer be necessary.
- So basically the bluesky source code is now public domain?

337 comments