I have mixed feelings on IP. Intuitively, I don't really believe in it. Economically, it depends on the supply/demand curves of the particular industry whether IP protection is a win or not. Giving the creator a monopoly encourages creation of works, but it also discourages use, since the monopoly price is above marginal cost (copying cost), so people who value the work at above copying cost but below the monopoly price won't use it.

For example, I think that in the music industry, IP is bad, b/c people will make music whether or not they get paid for recordings (to sell t-shirts, tickets to concerts, and just b/c making music is fun). In the movie industry, IP is probably good, b/c people aren't going to spend tens of millions on a movie unless they can recover it w/ ticket sales.