For tax payer funded science:
Me: "/watch?v=C_PVI6V6o-4 ('The Myth of Science as a Public Good (by Terence Kealey)' by Nielsio)
If you haven't watched it already, I suggest you do.
Has this ever actually happened?
The scenario you describe?"
Jacob Spinney: "Absolutely. Just turn on late night TV infomercials. They sell all kinds of very simple items that are super easy to copy. Yet they provide quite a bit of value for the consumer and took quite a bit of money to create."
More from ladyattis: "Two ways to make it profitable come to mind.
1) Distribute the capital costs among many firms. That means for a given product that could be copied easily in the first place you get as many of the firms that would want to sell it to put in some of their own capital even if it's a small sum. This is actually quite common in many fields from my understanding.
2) Trade secret. This may only apply to a select few products that are 'expensive' to create like a recipe for a beverage or sauce, but it's still a viable option to recover losses.
In any case, I don't think you or I could justify an enforced legal monopoly on so-called intellectual property."
