I do think that corporate price gouging is a huge problem that does need to be addressed. But especially with smaller business types — creatives, et al— I still haven’t gotten any grownup answers about what would compel people to get professionally good at something and innovate in the complete absence of copyright: the vastly better business model would be waiting for someone else to do something new and interesting, stealing their work, and then undercutting them in the market because you don’t have R&D/et al costs to recoup. You can’t say that wouldn’t happen because it’s exactly what the AI companies did to billions of people, scoffing at any protest. And ironically, they’re now whining about the Chinese doing it to them.
But yes, the reason brand name drugs are drugs are more expensive than generics is due to intellectual property, both the patent and the trademark.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/prizes--not-pat...