Well, personally I'm not a huge fan of intellectual property (except for trademarks -- a way of reducing fraud), but I wasn't talking about copyright I was talking about patents. With copyright I can't take Microsoft office, but I can reimplement it; with patents I can't do that -- I'm forbidden to do what the patents cover. Imagine patenting the WYSIWG interface. There is a huge amount of value in having code that works so copyright is more than enough for companies to profit off their software.

Now,as I mentioned earlier I don't really agree with copyright, primarily because it lasts too long & its not a voluntary contract between individuals. Everything that copyright covers could be defined in a contract between the buyer and seller and not defined by politicians.