I’ve always had the intuition that copyrights and patents do more harm than good but wasn’t sure if it was a sound claim. Now I’m reading the book “Against Intellectual Monopoly” that makes a convincing case for it. Bottom line: intellectual property is a government grant of a costly and dangerous private monopoly over ideas. The authors make cogent arguments and give lots of historical examples showing that intellectual monopoly is not necessary for innovation and just ends up damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty. Here’s the link to the book, which of course is free and open source. Highly recommend, especially if you’re skeptical. http://www.dklevine.com/papers/imbookfinalall.pdf