I previously wrote about An Objectivist Recants on IP. This is just part of the overall phenomenon of growing libertarian rejection of intellectual property (The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism). I get notes quite often from people who have changed their minds on IP. And the latest is Gary Gibson, who in writing against SOPA and copyright, says:

This is still fairly new territory we’re exploring. A couple of years ago, we were far more in the Ayn Rand/Objectivist camp when it came to intellectual property (though not as far as the entertainingly pro-IP libertarian Andrew Joseph Galambos, who reportedly changed his name from Joseph Andrew Galambos so as not to infringe on his father’s claim to the specific name and who dropped a nickel in a box every time he used the word “liberty” to pay the estate of the reputed coiner of the word, Thomas Paine). It’s only recently that our friend Jeffrey Tucker got us thinking — and rethinking — the issue.

(Quoted in my post SOPA is the Symptom, Copyright is the Disease: The SOPA wakeup call to ABOLISH COPYRIGHT; see also Why Intellectual Property is the State’s Latest Taser.)

Update: See also the anti-IP views of Brant Gaede and quasi-Objectivist Shayne Wissler in this SOLO (Sense of Life Objectivists) thread about IP (and “Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Economics and Political Theory,” Liberty in the Pines Conference (March 2013); but see his article An elegant argument against patents).

See also Complete Liberty: The Demise of the State and the Rise of Voluntary America, by Wes Bertrand, discussing the anti-IP (and anti-state) views of Objectivist-influenced Wes Bertrand.

And Timothy Sandefur, “A Critique of Ayn Rand’s Theory of Intellectual Property Rights,” Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 9:1 (Fall 2007), pp. 139-61

James Hughes is also an Objectivist anarchist and IP opponent.

David Veksler.

Sid Smith.

@FabianLiberty

@LiquidZulu

See also others listed in this Facebook thread.

Selfish John is an anti-state and anti-IP Objectivist: “I’m an Objectivist and Anarcho-Capitalist: I integrate reality through reason for sovereign celebration. If I haven’t responded, they blocked me. No matter how annoying they are, I don’t block anyone who adheres to NAP: I accept they do exist.” On IP, see these posts:

“Religion vs. Human Nature,” subsection “The Monopolization of Thought: The War on Creation and Communication”

The Monopolization of Thought: The War on Creation and Communication

 

It is essential to recognize that copyright and patent law—collectively known as “intellectual property” or, more accurately, intellectual monopoly—are not separate battles but the same war waged on a different front. They represent the secular, legalistic extension of the consciousness-primary assault on human independence, applying the same corrosive logic to the realm of production and creativity.

If the war on sexuality, ambition, and doubt targets the individual’s internal faculties, the war waged by copyright targets their externalized output. It is an attempt to control the consequences of a free mind operating in the world. Human cognition is inherently generative and integrative; we learn, we build upon existing knowledge, we transform and combine ideas to create new value. This process is the engine of material and cultural progress. To claim a monopoly over an idea or a pattern is to claim a right to dictate how other minds may use their own property and their own cognitive processes. It is a declaration that the creator’s consciousness has primacy over the existential reality of others.

The Conceptual Corruption:
The system corrupts the concept of property itself. In a reality-based framework, property rights are conflict-avoidance protocols for scarce resources. My use of my hammer excludes your simultaneous use of it. This protocol is necessary for peaceful coexistence and social cooperation.

Copyright attempts to apply this framework to non-scarce goods: ideas, patterns, melodies, narratives. The use of an idea by one person does not exclude its use by another. You reading a book I wrote does not prevent me from reading it. You building a mousetrap based on my design does not stop me from building another. There is no conflict to avoid. Therefore, the very concept of “property” in an idea is a stolen concept—it attempts to use the ethical and legal weight of a principle designed for one context (scarce goods) in a context where its foundational justification is absent.

This creates a floating abstraction: “intellectual property.” It has no perceptual referent in reality. You cannot point to “a copyright.” You can only point to a state-enforced legal claim that threatens people who arrange their own property (paper, ink, computers, raw materials) in a pattern similar to one a monopolist has registered. This is punishment for learning and reasoning.

The Mechanism of Enforcement:
This conceptual corruption is enforced with the full violence of the state, mirroring theocratic punishment for heresy.

• Theocratic Parallel: A theocracy arrests you for blasphemy—for using your mind and voice to express ideas that contradict divine dogma.
• Copyright Enforcement: A corporation, through the state, can seize your property, bankrupt you with lawsuits, or have you imprisoned for infringement—for using your mind and property to express or replicate patterns that contradict their state-granted monopoly.

In both cases, the “crime” is a thought-crime. The theocrat punishes you for wrong belief. The copyright holder punishes you for wrong arrangement—using your property in a way they have decreed, through the state, is their exclusive domain. The mechanism is identical: the use of initiated force to make reality conform to a consciousness-derived decree.

The result is a deliberate stifling of human creativity and communication. It creates a culture of permission, where every act of creation must be pre-approved by existing rights-holders, a logical and practical impossibility that leads to a perpetual state of guilt and legal peril for creators. The filmmaker, the writer, the musician, and the inventor must operate in constant fear that their independent, value-creating mind might unconsciously replicate a pattern already claimed by a monopolist.

This system does not protect the “little guy”; it protects the established and the litigious. It creates a modern priesthood of lawyers and corporate executives who derive their power not from productive genius but from the ability to navigate and weaponize a byzantine system of state-granted privileges. It encourages rent-seeking and legal warfare over innovation and production, precisely as the Watt patent stifled the development of steam engine technology for a generation.

Furthermore, it severs the causal connection between value creation and reward. In a free market, an artist profits by producing a value that others voluntarily choose to purchase. Under copyright, a corporation can profit primarily by preventing others from producing values people clearly want (e.g., fan edits, adaptations, competing implementations). The business model shifts from creation to control, from production to prohibition.

Copyright is the ultimate expression of the war against human nature because it attacks the bridge between the mind and the world. It says: You may think, but you may not act on your thoughts if they resemble ours. You may learn, but you may not build upon what you have learned without our permission. You may be inspired, but you’re not going anywhere from the patent holder. It is a tax on inspiration, a fine for integration, and a prison for the creative process.

It is a perfect example of a consciousness-primary system: it places the alleged “rights” of a consciousness (the original creator) above the existential reality of all other individuals, forbidding them from acting with their own property according to their own judgment. It creates a manufactured guilt around the very act of learning and building, ensuring that creators are made to feel like criminals for the crime of being human. The abolition of intellectual monopoly is therefore not merely a legal or economic imperative; it is a moral one, essential for freeing the human mind from its final shackles and securing the individual’s sovereignty over their thoughts, their actions, and their property.

https://selfishjohn.substack.com/i/170857616/taboos-and-censorship

“Pragmatism is the transformation of meaning into garbage,” the section “My License”:

My License

https://selfishjohn.substack.com/i/172456596/the-monopolization-of-thought-the-war-on-creation-and-communication

This document and all my works are governed by a principle more fundamental than any man-made law: the Primacy of Existence.

Property rights are objective, conflict-avoidance protocols derived from the nature of scarce resources. A right to a thing means the right to use it without physical interference. Ideas are not scarce. My use of an idea—a pattern of information—in no way excludes you from perceiving it, analyzing it, or using it to guide your own actions. There can be no conflict over a non-scarce resource.

Therefore, the concept of “Intellectual Property” is a metaphysical error. It is an attempt to claim a right not to a specific physical object, but to a concept itself—and by extension, to control the actions of others who would use their own property (their minds, their computers, their paper and ink) to replicate that pattern. This is not the protection of property; it is the initiation of force and the foundation of a state-granted monopoly.

In accordance with reason and the objective nature of reality, I make the following declarations:

1. Renunciation of Monopoly Claims: I explicitly renounce all legal claims, past, present, and future, to the patterns of information contained within my work that are falsely known as “copyright,” “trademark,” “moral rights,” or any other form of intellectual monopoly. These claims are invalid and I will not initiate force to enforce them.
2. Grant of Absolute Permission: I grant to any person an absolute, perpetual, and unconditional right to use this work for any purpose whatsoever. This includes the rights to copy, distribute, modify, create derivative works, and use it commercially. This is not a license from me; it is a recognition of a pre-existing right you possess. I am merely formally waiving my own false claim to stop you.
3. Attribution as Choice, Not Duty: The requirement of attribution is a subtle demand for a non-material royalty—a tax on credit. It sustains the romantic notion of the “creator-owner” that underpins the intellectual monopoly ethic.
   Therefore, attribution is expressly waived. You may use this work anonymously, pseudonymously, or attribute it to me. The choice is yours, based on your context and values—whether for honesty, humor, or strategy. The truth of the idea exists independent of its source.
4. The Freedom Clause (Anti-Monopoly Defense): To prevent anyone from using the state’s monopoly machinery to privatize and restrict this work—to turn a free pattern into their own captive property—any derivative work you create must be released under these same terms.
   This is not a restriction on your freedom, but a defense of it. It is a logical extension of the Non-Aggression Principle applied to information. It ensures that the chain of freedom remains unbroken, creating a ever-expanding territory of thought that is permanently liberated from the aggression of intellectual monopoly. It makes the freedom viral, and the aggression impotent.

This is more than a license. It is an anti-monopoly declaration. It is a commitment to the principle that ideas are for using, testing, improving, and building upon—not for fencing in. You have my word, my reason, and my unwavering commitment to this principle. You do not need, nor should you seek, the state’s permission slip to use it.

This ends with a link to LiquidZulu’s youtube: