Our civilization evolved through cycles where old ideas and technologies are the building blocks on which new ones are formed.
E=mc^2 didn’t come out of the vacuum with no prior knowledge of mathematics and physics layed out generations ahead of it.
Our individual lifespan is too short to accomodate the civilization we enjoy today had we insisted not to copy the work and ideas of our ancestors.
It’s who we are as a species, through copying, refining, & building on top of ideas by others, is one of the reasons where we are today.
Yet today, we’re hindering our innate nature for advancement just to cater for this one argument : “why should I put the hard work & resources just to see someone else using my ideas without me benefiting”.
Hussein Al Bayati's blog 
our sense of individuality will be lost as we transition to the information age, and patents and copyrights will be a ridiculous thing of the past. It’s funny how most people today are frustrated with copyright laws yet still selfishly support the idea.
while we won’t need these laws in the future, I think that we couldn’t be making the same advancements today if people didn’t have selfish, egotistical reasons to advance technology.