i understand ownership, but software and code are so easy to copy, transfer and modify that it would be stupid not to do it. it's not like stealing a car. arrr

in other words: ownership of immaterial goods is mostly a scam

It wouldn't be stupid not to. It would be ethical not to. You can do it, but you'd better hope you live in a world where most people don't do it.

Would the world definitely be a worse place if the laws were amended to say "any software developer owns equal IP rights to the code they create as part of their jobs along with the company, so either party can do anything they want with it"?

I'm not sure it would - although it disadvantages the companies compared to the current situation, it's not like they would choose to stop hiring devs to work for them - and that's just a legalisation of the currently unethical behaviour that you think is definitely a worse situation to have?

It's interesting to think about, at least!

It massively disadvantages the company. Why pay for software to be built that can just be taken by your software engineers, who form a new company and run a competing product?

Well if that were the situation for all companies, the answer to why pay is the same as it is now - even if it doesn't provide so much of a moat, they have a business need for certain code so they pay in order to have and run that code.

(I'm not sure if it would be better or worse myself, I suspect it might not make much of a difference when everything balances out.)

Because that won't happen unless you massively mismanage the company. The coordination problem between the company employees is very hard to solve.

Why not? Why as a developer wouldn't I go to a VC and say "I have the source and rights to this premade product - fancy giving me some cash to take my team and run it?"