Knowledge wants to be free. Adam Smith considered IP laws to be an unnecessary evil. The Chinese are just being good capitalists. American Superconductor nearly went bankrupt because they couldn't compete on a level playing field.
Do you believe that, without IP law, we'd still have companies invest the amounts they do into creating new technology (particularly in high R&D areas like pharma)?
No. The US Government is 18%-20% of all R&D spending in the US. A lot of that is in the military budget of course.
Which makes perfect sense when you consider the size of the private economy versus the share of government spending that could reasonably go to R&D (versus entitlements, military, infrastructure, etc).
Private corporations are around ~$400 billion of the ~$550 billion per year spent in the US on R&D.
The government R&D figure as a share is higher in the EU than in the US, but not dramatically so. The private sector is simply too large by comparison and can focus its resources more narrowly on things like R&D than what a government could be expected to.
Not only does private industry spend more on R&D, but I'd personally argue that their $400 billion is required to be more effective at a per-dollar level, given the inherent competitiveness and need to create something profitable.
Pfffff, just not pharma. A lion share of genuine new pharmaceutical research is done by underpaid undergrad mules in sweatshops called "captive R&D centres" in places like China and India, that the reality.
hah, I'm all for piracy, but only for personal use - if someone steals ("copies") from me and then makes a profit, I want (and deserve) a (large) chunk of that profit.
Research isn't going to pay for itself just magically.
https://youtu.be/axXTMUmTOyE