Yue – Freelectronicmusic

… “And this is where your anti-intellectual property stance is
revealed to be just anti-business!” Bill Gates would certainly be
thinking at this point. You see, without any intellectual property
protection brave inventors will try out expensive new things, while
parasitic imitators will sit out, letting the experiments run their
course, and then imitating only successful practices. In this way, as
the RIAA constantly reminds us on their anti-piracy web site, “The
thieves […] go straight to the top and steal the gold” bringing the
poor recording company to economic ruin.

This argument may sound smart and “oh-so-common-sense”
right when you hear it the first time – but pause for a minute, and
you will realize it makes no business sense. Picking only winners
means waiting until it is clear who is a winner. Well, try it: try
getting somewhere by imitating the leaders only after you are
certain they are the leaders. Try ruining the poor pop star by pirating
her tunes only once you are certain they are big hits! Excuse us, we
thought that “being a hit” meant “having sold millions of copies.”
Try competing in a real industry by imitating the winners only when
they have already won and you have left them plenty of time to
make huge profits, establish and consolidate their position – and
probably not leaving much of a market for you – the sleek imitator.

from Against Intellectual Monopoly – Michele Boldrin, David K. Levine