I would like to challenge anyone who's immediate response to this is "China are always stealing our intellectual property" to stop, and really consider whether IP laws are providing a net benefit here.
Sure they provide an incentive to innovate, but they also actively prevent others from innovating. This technology will now be available to many more people, and can now be built on and developed.
It's a very capitalistic view to think that the only motivation to innovate is the profit motive. And it surprises me little that an economy which functions on very different principles also takes a very different attitude to knowledge sharing. Even if we don't wish to emulate this way of doing things entirely, perhaps we all have something to learn from this difference in perspective.
Sure they provide an incentive to innovate, but they also actively prevent others from innovating. This technology will now be available to many more people, and can now be built on and developed.
It's a very capitalistic view to think that the only motivation to innovate is the profit motive. And it surprises me little that an economy which functions on very different principles also takes a very different attitude to knowledge sharing. Even if we don't wish to emulate this way of doing things entirely, perhaps we all have something to learn from this difference in perspective.