Sorry if this seems a non sequitur.

The underlying assumption behind the expansion of IP rights, that is,
private rights in information, must be that "rewarding" the innovator with
property rights will so advance the aggregate of knowledge/information over
the aggregate that would result from a failure to so reward that the public
good is better served by this privately owned mass than it would be from
(an assumed) smaller, but freely distributable, one.

The anti-democratic, and somewhat metaphysical, tendency of this assumption
should be examined...any volunteers?

DDeBar