I see no reason to think that galactic law will resemble ours. Extremely vague concepts like “intellectual property” are about as close of an analogy as we’re likely to get.
That was a joke on my part, but one warning against using overly general umbrella terms. Our copyright and patent laws developed as a result of certain historical circumstances, and it is entirely possible that a hypothetical alien civilization would treat sharing and distribution of ideas entirely differently and not resembling any of our historical precedents.
I would certainly hope so! For that matter, I hope future human civilization will treat it differently as well. (I’d like to replace hope with am confident, but alas I’m not quite that much of an optimist.)
Scratch your pessimism by saying that it could well get worse than it currently is. History simply does not bear out things staying the same over time.
I see no reason to think that galactic law will resemble ours. Extremely vague concepts like “intellectual property” are about as close of an analogy as we’re likely to get.
That was a joke on my part, but one warning against using overly general umbrella terms. Our copyright and patent laws developed as a result of certain historical circumstances, and it is entirely possible that a hypothetical alien civilization would treat sharing and distribution of ideas entirely differently and not resembling any of our historical precedents.
I would certainly hope so! For that matter, I hope future human civilization will treat it differently as well. (I’d like to replace hope with am confident, but alas I’m not quite that much of an optimist.)
Scratch your pessimism by saying that it could well get worse than it currently is. History simply does not bear out things staying the same over time.
Quite.