> consensus is that you can steal intellectual property
There isn't even consensus around the legitimacy of the notion of intellectual property (I'm happy to represent the position that it is not legitimate), let alone the notion that it's proper to use the same word that we use for larceny of physical objects to describe copying it.
In any case, this isn't an intellectual property issue, but a privacy issue. The question is whether this data was properly being kept private, or whether it belongs in the public domain in the first place. There doesn't appear to have been any announcement of what data was accessed, so it doesn't seem to be something we can know at this time.
Yes, there is a consensus. Throughout history and every subject of study, ideas have been attributed to one or a small number of individuals. This is what intellectual property is.
Eastern minds don't believe in it because they don't believe in individual accomplishment or identity. That's why "dissenters" are locked in prison camps or disappeared.
> There isn't even consensus around the legitimacy of the notion of intellectual property.
There is, though. That's why the vast majority of nations have laws protecting intellectual property.
A different position held by a minuscule minority does not make it less of a consensus.
> In any case, this isn't an intellectual property issue, but a privacy issue.
Articles states:
> U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech said on Wednesday that documents related to development of their COVID-19 vaccine had been “unlawfully accessed” in a cyberattack on Europe’s medicines regulator.
And if it is related to the development of their vaccine -- and something for the European Medicines Agency to review, no less --, I'd argue it's nearly impossible that it isn't intellectual property of Pfizer/BioNTech.
> That's why the vast majority of nations have laws protecting intellectual property.
Let's be clear on this one: the vast majority of nations have these laws because the US forced them via trade agreements, and the US has them because the entertainment corporations lobbied the hell out of them. Individuals almost never benefit from these laws.
Individuals consistently benefit from these laws - how do you think so many 'tech millionaires' exist? They had an idea, claimed it as theirs, and profited from it. Individuals don't benefit when these laws are taken away, because there is no incentive to create and all incentive to steal (re: China).
There isn't even consensus around the legitimacy of the notion of intellectual property (I'm happy to represent the position that it is not legitimate), let alone the notion that it's proper to use the same word that we use for larceny of physical objects to describe copying it.
In any case, this isn't an intellectual property issue, but a privacy issue. The question is whether this data was properly being kept private, or whether it belongs in the public domain in the first place. There doesn't appear to have been any announcement of what data was accessed, so it doesn't seem to be something we can know at this time.