AMA: Long-time DU lurker and democratic supporter, know everything there is to know about bitcoin

[Rassah]

109. I meant impossible to defend,

in the same way that P2P file sharing has made copyright impossible to defend. Right now that applies to digital media, with 3D printers that will apply to physical as well. And every time someone tries to squeeze that sharing technology out of existence, it morphs and slips through their fingers, just because people want to share. Napster was killed and was replaced by many central servers like eMule. That was attacked, and got replaced by BitTorrent. Torrent link sharing sites were attacked, so BitTorrent switched to a distributed database system (DHT). Should pressure be put on ISPs to track and ban BitTorrent users, people will switch to anonymous I2P BitTorrent sharing, and maybe even to bypassing ISPs with mesh networks. It's basically a perpetually losing game of whack-a-mole, and at some point it simply becomes cheaper to either closely guard your software and technology, or switch focus to providing service instead. iTunes is primarily successful for holding people's music for them, organizing it, and providing listening suggestions, instead of simply selling it, and Microsoft is viewed as a hero in China, because it reduced their Windows OS prices to $1 or less there, does not harass people for copying their software, and earns money through higher sales and through providing support.

So, in short, thankfully, the patent troll's days are numbered.