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…]
Proponents of intellectual property rights often rely on one of two lines of reasoning. The first is based on the misunderstanding that the frequency or volume of innovations determine economic growth. The second is captured by the question, “So if I spend $1 billion on R&D (research and development) to bring a new drug to market, anyone should be able to copy my drug without compensation?” Both are based on the same fundamental error: assuming that innovation is a matter of production. It is not. Innovation is all about entrepreneurship, and that’s why intellectual property rights do not and cannot help.
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.
The moronic shills at IPWatchdog, including the oafish Gene Quinn, who writes like a 9th grader and used to illiterately list his master’s degree as an L.L.M. (it’s an LL.M, genius) (see here and here), won’t stop their senseless cheerleading for IP:
Despite its longevity, the patent system is often criticized. During the pandemic, accusing eyes quickly turned to patents and voices were raised demanding that patents related to COVID-19 be “waived”. This is not an isolated event: some have argued that we would be better off without patents for various reasons in other crises of the past as well. This raises the question of what a world without patents – as we know them today – would be like. As is often the case, history gives us some valuable insight. In this article, we will look specifically at three risks posed by a world without patents in light of real examples from the past.
Stephan Kinsella, “Letter on Intellectual Property Rights,” IOS Journal 5, no. 2 (June 1995), pp. 12-13. This issue also contains David Kelley, “Response to Kinsella,” IOS Journal 5, no. 2 (June 1995), p. 13; and Murray I. Franck, “Intellectual and Personality Property,” IOS Journal 5, no. 3 September 1995), p. 7.
This was the journal of David Kelley’s Institute for Objectivist Studies, or IOS, which is now The Atlas Society. The letter was a response to Murray I. Franck, “Intellectual Property Rights: Are Intangibles True Property?“, IOS Journal (April 1995). Franck, and later Kelley, argued for IP; I argued against it.
See also a subsequent response from The Atlas Society to my IP criticisms in Marilyn Moore, “Ayn Rand’s ‘Patents and Copyrights,'” AtlasSociety.org (May 28, 2019).
N.b.: some back issues of IOS Journal are archived here.
The purpose of the following study is that of providing a critical analysis of Intellectual Property (IP), with a closer look on copyright, in the context of human rights. My main conjecture is the following : the legal infrastructure stemming from the implications of copyrights which states created has negative consequences if we have a closer look at some human rights specified by The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). For example, copyrights are, in my view, incompatible with the human rights which specify that (1) human beings have a right to freely take part in the cultural and scientific life of the communities which they inhabit and (2) human beings have a right to own property. My main hypothesis is the following : if copyrights are, in fact, more difficult to ground from a moral perspective, then this considerations must trump the provision of the 27th article of the UDHR, which states that creators, be they artists or researchers, have a human right to have their moral and mate‑ rial interests protected with regard to their intellectual products, if this amounts to a justification for a copyright.
This paper explores whether the case against intellectual property can be strengthened by appealing to the work of F.A. Hayek. It strives first to establish a Hayekian research agenda on copyright by providing a unified reading of Hayek’s scattered remarks and positioning them within a broader picture of the contemporary philosophy, politics, and economics of IP. Secondly, exploring peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing and copyright infringement through a Hayekian lens suggests what might be a useful analogy between the ability of torrent downloads and prices to convey information. Last but not least, the paper ends on a skeptical note concerning the moral and economic foundations of copyright by presenting what I consider a more Hayekian alternative: crowdfunding platforms.
The Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (C4SIF) is dedicated to building public awareness of the manner in which so-called “intellectual property” (IP) laws and policies impede innovation, creativity, communication, learning, knowledge, emulation, and information sharing. We are for property rights, free markets, competition, commerce, cooperation, and the voluntary sharing of knowledge, and oppose IP laws, which systematically impede or hamper innovation. IP law should be completely and immediately abolished.
We provide news commentary and analysis and scholarly resources from our unique pro-property, pro-market, pro-innovation perspective.
To the extent possible under law,
Stephan Kinsella
has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to
C4SIF.
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Interesting book by James O. Young, 
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