Interesting paper that discusses and relies on my IP work and views on Locke and the labor theory of property:

David Jarrett, “Lockeanism and restitution: What are the implications of a Lockean law of restitution for the contemporary UK?” (Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London, Department of Politics and International Relations, Submitted for a degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 2019).

Abstract: This dissertation sets out a Lockean law of restitution and enquires into some of the implications of this law. It firstly looks into the implications for property redistribution in a case study country – the contemporary UK. It secondly looks into the implications of the law for understanding exploitation in the contemporary UK and historical England until the early industrial era. According to Lockean justice, one owns one’s body and is entitled to fully own previously unowned natural resources one has laboured on. One is also able to transfer one’s property to whom one wishes. We are concerned with the problem of how to address holdings which did not arise in line with Lockean justice. We argue that previous attempts at addressing the problem, including those laid out by Nozick and Rothbard respectively, have been unsatisfactory. We set out a new way of approaching the problem, which we argue is more consistent with Lockean theory. We lay out a Lockean law of restitution inspired by the law of restitution found in the English legal tradition. After laying out the Lockean law of restitution, we look into some implications of the law. Using secondary historical and sociological sources, we argue that all property in the UK is unjustly held according to the Lockean law of restitution and should be redistributed in an egalitarian manner. We secondly argue that wage labour in the contemporary UK is exploitative in Lockean terms, and thirdly, that wage labour can reasonably be presumed to have always been exploitative in England historically. In light of our findings we outline the possibilities for a Lockean approach to property redistribution in the UK.

Related:

• Against Intellectual Property
• KOL037 | Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Political Theory
• Locke, Smith, Marx; the Labor Theory of Property and the Labor Theory of Value; and Rothbard, Gordon, and Intellectual Property

Leonhard Dobusch, “Reflections on Abolitionism: Copyright and Beyond,” in Governance across Borders: Transnational Fields and Transversal Themes, edited by Leonhard Dobusch, Philip Mader and Sigrid Quack (Cologne: Max-Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, 2013)”¹ [continue reading…]

1. The entry is from this blog post. [↩]

The Grotesque Legacy of Music as Property, by Adam Neely.

This is a talk delivered at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, on or around April 6, 2013 by Jan Narveson. Published here for the first time (with permission). See also the entry for Narveson at Classical Liberals, Libertarians, Anarchists and Others on Intellectual Property.

Privacy, Intellectual Property, and Rights

Jan Narveson

Intellectual Property is one of the most important concepts in the world of commerce today. But there are thinkers who seriously challenge the idea. They point out that ideas do not have the property of scarcity that is required for property to make sense: If I know that p, and I tell it to you, I don’t thereby cease to know it. True, and important. On the other hand, somebody has to think up knowledge – it doesn’t fall from the heavens on us all. The work of thinkers, especially when successful, is supremely important. Without them, we would have none of the things that make life so much better for all than it was for the cavemen. The question is, how are those extremely important people to make their livings if they are not credited with what amounts to ownership of those ideas? The essentials to the solution to this problem, I am sure, lie in the distinction between ideas in the head, and ideas in Plato’s heaven. Ideas in the abstract cannot be owned or patented: nobody can own the mathematical fact that every even number is the sum of two primes, but somebody can discover it, and at the time he or she does, his is the only head having that fact in his possession. That’s scarcity enough for him to charge for the discovery. But: ordinarily a property right excludes all others forever. And yet someone else might, a week or a year later, discover that same amazing thing – latches on, as it were, to the same Platonic form. Because property is individual, there is a serious question whether the newcomer is properly excluded by the first discoverer’s right. I argue not, with some further observations on patents and copyrights. [continue reading…]

Interesting book by James O. Young, Radically Rethinking Copyright in the Arts: A Philosophical Approach (2020). He recognizes many absurdities of copyright law, and recommends many changes, but can’t quite bring himself to push for abolition.

From Mises Wire:

Intellectual Property: Innovation Should Serve Consumers, Not Producers

Read more>>

It’s the wrong question to ask, the wrong way to frame it, and of course, wrong and pro-IP as usual. It’s sad the Federalist Society keeps pushing this.

Oh well, at least they allowed a sane voice at least one time: KOL235 | Intellectual Property: A First Principles Debate (Federalist Society POLICYbrief). But as noted there,

overall the Federalist Society has presented basically the pro-IP side (More defenses of IP by the Federalist Society; Federalist Society Panel: Undermining or Preserving Property Rights? The New Administrative Patents). I pestered them over years to include more balanced treatment in their bibliography, to no avail (Anti-IP Material Needed in the IP Section of the Federalist Society’s “Conservative & Libertarian Legal Scholarship: Annotated Bibliography”).