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Intellectual Property Discussion with Mark Skousen

by on February 3, 2024

At Tom Woods’s wedding reception in June 2022, in Jacksonville, Florida, I ran into Mark Skousen and we ended up having a discussion about intellectual property, which we continued later in an email discussion. Gene Epstein was also included since Mark had also made some comments about IP in the aftermath of my Soho Forum debate with Richard Epstein in Nov. 2021 (which Gene Epstein hosts).

I thought my comments to Mark about IP might be of interest to some readers, to show how I sometimes respond to common queries about and arguments in favor of IP, so below I reprint a lightly edited and somewhat cleaned up version of our (casual, informal) interchange (reprinted with Mark and Gene’s permission, ‘natch).

MARK SKOUSEN:

Dear Stephan,

I enjoyed our little debate on Friday night at the Woods’ reception.

Here is the book I was talking about: William Rosen makes a compelling case that the Industrial Revolution occurred starting in England because of the patent law, using James Watt’s steam engine as his ideal example. I highly recommend this book.

The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention: Rosen, William: 9780226726342: Amazon.com: Books

“Hardly a week passes without some high-profile court case that features intellectual property at its center. But how did the belief that one could own an idea come about? And how did that belief change the way humankind lives and works?

“William Rosen, author of Justinian’s Flea, seeks to answer these questions and more with The Most Powerful Idea in the World. A lively and passionate study of the engineering and scientific breakthroughs that led to the steam engine, this book argues that the very notion of intellectual property drove not only the invention of the steam engine but also the entire Industrial Revolution: history’s first sustained era of economic improvement. To do so, Rosen conjures up an eccentric cast of characters, including the legal philosophers who enabled most the inventive society in millennia, and the scientists and inventors―Thomas Newcomen, Robert Boyle, and James Watt―who helped to create and perfect the steam engine over the centuries. With wit and wide-ranging curiosity, Rosen explores the power of creativity, capital, and collaboration in the brilliant engineering of the steam engine and how this power source, which fueled factories, ships, and railroads, changed human history.

“Deeply informative and never dull, Rosen’s account of one of the most important inventions made by humans is a rollicking ride through history, with careful scholarship and fast-paced prose in equal measure.”

Best wishes, AEIOU,

STEPHAN KINSELLA:

Mark,

It was a pleasure to visit with you. As I mentioned, I greatly admire and respect you and your work for liberty, decency, free markets, and related scholarship. I really enjoyed your FreedomFest in South Dakota last year, the first time I’d attended.

As for the case you bring up about Watt, the steam engine, and the industrial revolution, and its possible relevance to the legitimacy of IP law, I don’t believe it makes a coherent or compelling argument for any form of intellectual property. You seemed surprised by my opposition to IP but there is a growing number of libertarians who agree with me now–virtually all Austrians, anarcho-capitalists, Rothbardians, and most left-libertarians as well — see “The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism,” in Kinsella, You Can’t Own Ideas: Essays on Intellectual Property, and Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward (chapter 15 of Legal Foundations of a Free Society [LFFS]; also in Kinsella, You Can’t Own Ideas).

I believe I could explain the basic reasons why and I would be happy to give you a detailed response to the idea that the Watt/steam engine case shows that IP is justified, if you would be interested in reading it, but I would not want to take the time to do it if you are not interested in pursuing this matter further to understand why most modern libertarians oppose IP. If you find this topic of enough interest then we could perhaps at some point discuss it for a podcast or maybe you could have a presentation or debate about it at a future FreedomFest. Just a thought. Let me know if you’d be interested in hearing more elaboration on this matter, and if so I’d be happy to provide a more detailed response with supporting data and links to relevant arguments.

Incidentally, for more on the growing anti-IP view among libertarians (including proto-libertarian Benjamin Tucker, then Sam Konkin, Wendy McElroy, then Tom Palmer and a growing number of others), see “The Origins of Libertarian IP Abolitionism” and “The Four Historical Phases of IP Abolitionism,” in Kinsella, You Can’t Own Ideas: Essays on Intellectual Property. For just a sampling of some studies about the empirical or utilitarian effects of IP, see “The Overwhelming Empirical Case Against Patent and Copyright” and “Legal Scholars: Thumbs Down on Patent and Copyright,” also in Kinsella, You Can’t Own Ideas. Again, I can provide a more coherent overview of all this and how it would respond to your Watt case if you are interested in it.

Best, Stephan

GENE EPSTEIN:

Mark, am not familiar with the book you mention, but have you read Matt Ridley’s How Innovation Works & Why It Flourishes in Freedom? A comprehensive & highly readable history of innovation including a chapter titled “What Watt Wrought” & others on Thomas Edison & Louis Pasteur.
Toward the end of the book, Ridley endorses Stephan’s viewpoint, altho he doesn’t cite Stephan by name.

As ever G.

SKOUSEN:

Dear Gene,

I find it incredible that libertarians would deny basic property rights for authors and inventors. Without IP rights, authors and inventors are clearly denied income from their entrepreneurial efforts. Benjamin Franklin never took out patents on his inventions, but that’s because he was already wealthy.

I highly recommend William Rosen’s book on the industrial revolution and the positive role of the English patent law that encouraged inventions like James Watt’s steam engine.

Rosen also has a great quote from the top official at the US Patent Office that said the number one challenge facing inventors is finding venture capital to invest in their invention, completely contrary to Deirdre McCloskey’s claim that money is never a problem if an inventor is worthwhile.

Best, AEIOU,

KINSELLA:

I find it incredible that libertarians would deny basic property rights for authors and inventors.

Mark, You may disagree with us, but surely you recognize there is a long history of libertarians who oppose IP, and their numbers have grown significantly in the last couple decades. Virtually all Austrian (or at least Misesian and Rothbardian) libertarians, virtually all ancaps, and many left-libertarians, now oppose IP. The remaining defenders of IP seem to be utilitarian moderates, Randians, and constitutionalists. See e.g. “The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism” and “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward”; also Kinsella, “The Origins of Libertarian IP Abolitionism” and “The Four Historical Phases of IP Abolitionism,” all in Kinsella, You Can’t Own Ideas. Your side is losing. You may want to investigate why. Calling something a property right does not make it so. After all, slaves were property at one point, they could be bought and sold. This did not make it legitimate. Many people who get welfare benefits or social security believe they have an entitlement or property right to this stream of income; they do not, no matter if it’s called a property right or not.

As for your citing the Rosen book and the Watt/steam engine and its relevance to the industrial revolution, and whether this had to do with IP or whether it supports the case for IP, I believe this is a flawed example, for several reasons. First, I think it is just wrong. Second, it is irrelevant to making a general case for IP or showing that the benefits are greater than the costs.

As for the former, see Arthur M. Diamond, Jr., in “Seeking the Patent Truth Patents Can Provide Justice and Funding for Inventors,” Independent Review, which points out: “Sean Bottomley finds support in Allen 2009 for the importance of patents in the development of steam power (2012, 16–18). However, Michele Boldrin and David Levine (2008) argue that Watt’s patent for his steam engine slowed the progress of steam power in Britain during the Industrial Revolution.”

In particular, see ch. 1 of Boldrin & Levine’s Against Intellectual Monopoly, which considers the case of the B&W patent on the steam engine (1775–1800); according to the authors, using historical findings from other applied researchers it is actually reasonable to argue that the B&W patent retarded the industrial revolution of a decade or two.

***
In fact, by associating patents with the industrial revolution you make a mistake already noted by some scholars. For example, see George Basalla, The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge, 1988), at pp. 57 et seq., which argues that there are three basic reasons that too much weight is given in attributing innovation to individual genius inventors:

“Despite evidence to the contrary, there is widespread support for the idea that inventions are the result of revolutionary upheavals in technology brought about by individual geniuses. The sources of this outlook are threefold: [1] the loss or concealment of crucial antecedents; [2] the emergence of the inventor as hero; and [3] the confusion of technological and socioeconomic change.

I think you are engaging in the third mistake here. I quote from this book at more length here: Desrochers, “Excludability, Creativity and the Case Against the Patent System”, but will provide below some excerpts related to the third source of the mistake, with some bolding of my own for emphasis:

“The final source of the revolutionary explanation for technological change is the confusion of technology with its social and economic ramifications, best exemplified by the title Industrial Revolution. In the early nineteenth century, it meant a series of crucial inventions that transformed industry. The revolution was assumed to have occurred first within technology and then spread to industry. This meaning persists in modern usage in phrases such as the “Second Industrial Revolution” and “Third Industrial Revolution,” referring to fundamental changes in industry caused by the introduction of electronics and computers. A second meaning, and one that has a wider currency, defines the Industrial Revolution as a major alteration in society brought about by technology. That is how Friedrich Engels used the term (1845) when he wrote that a revolution had “changed the entire structure of middle-class society” in England.

According to the first definition the technological-industrial change is revolutionary; according to the second it is the social and economic changes that are so. Because in current practice these two definitions have been merged, it is not always clear precisely what has undergone a revolution.

The industrial changes of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were truly revolutionary in the ways they affected the lives and fortunes of the people of Great Britain. Yet the machines, and the steam engines that powered them, were the outcome of evolutionary changes within technology. Neither marked an abrupt break with the past. The economic and social consequences of these developments, on the other hand, were so far-reaching that they transformed the social order.
Upheavals in the social and economic spheres have all too often been interpreted wrongly to signify revolutionary changes in technology. The establishment of the first industrial society in Britain was a change of such magnitude that it overwhelmed the techno- logical continuity on which it was based and helped to perpetuate the view that technology advances by leaps from one great invention to another.

The confusion between technology and its consequences joined the myths of the heroic inventors, the ideas of material progress, nationalism, and the patent system and furthered the discontinuous explanation of technological change. Only a close study of artifacts can demonstrate the inadequacies of that outlook and the relevance of the continuous argument.”

***

Another point to consider here: even if you show that in a given case patents resulted in something good (the steam engine; which played a crucial role in the industrial revolution) that does not show that (a) the current patent system is good, (b) copyrights are good, (c) that the gains of the patent system in this case were greater than the costs imposed by the patent system (lost innovation etc.), and certain (d) that the gains of the patent system now are greater than the costs imposed, just because it resulted in a one-off benefit over 100 years ago.

In other words, you would need to show (1) that the patent system results in net innovation and related wealth gains (that is, it stimulates innovation that we would not have, or stimulates it to arrive earlier; and that the value of this extra innovation is greater than the innovation that the patent system stifles), AND (2) that this alleged wealth gain is greater than the immense costs of the patent system. I explain this in “There’s No Such Thing as a Free Patent,” in Kinsella, You Can’t Own Ideas, and this is a well-known perspective. For example see Mario Biagioli, “Weighing intellectual property: Can we balance the social costs and benefits of patenting?,” History of Science, Vol. 57(1) (2019): 140–163: “The scale is the most famous emblem of the law, including intellectual property (IP). Because IP rights impose social costs on the public by limiting access to protected work, the law can be justified only to the extent that, on balance, it encourages enough creation and dissemination of new works to offset those costs.” (from the Abstract). Or Desrochers, “Excludability, Creativity and the Case Against the Patent System”: “Patents therefore correct this market failure by providing a temporary monopoly to the inventor. Even though monopolies typically involve a misallocation of society’s resources, any welfare losses due to the restrictions in disseminating an invention are outweighed by the incentive to invention they provide.”)

I believe neither (1) nor (2) is true; as for (1) I believe the patent system distorts innovation (as recognized by Friedman and Rothbard and many others — see Milton Friedman (and Rothbard) on the Distorting and Skewing Effect of Patents) and reduces or impedes overall innovation; and (2) we are paying a lot in costs (see “Costs of the Patent System Revisited” ) — just to have reduced innovation, so it’s adding insult to injury. No one has shown that the benefits outweigh the costs; they don’t even attempt to give estimates of the numbers (see the links to the empirical studies below), except for dishonest, ridiculous assertions such as saying IP contributes trillions to the economy–why? Because lots of industries use IP! See e.g. USPTO/Commerce Dept. Distortions: “IP Contributes $5 Trillion and 40 Million Jobs to Economy”.

Another crucial point here is that it is quite obvious, and widely recognized, that the patent system as well as copyright derogate from the free market for the purpose of stimulating innovation; so the burden of proof is on those who advocate this fix to “market failure”. (See, e.g., Desrochers, “Excludability, Creativity and the Case Against the Patent System”: “One of the few topics over which free-market proponents often radically disagree is the relevance of the patent system. According to some, without patent protection an inventor has no incentive to invest time and money into something that can be easily copied by its competitors without incurring significant R&D costs. Patents therefore correct this market failure by providing a temporary monopoly to the inventor. Even though monopolies typically involve a misallocation of society’s resources, any welfare losses due to the restrictions in disseminating an invention are outweighed by the incentive to invention they provide.”)

But despite fallacious correlation=causation arguments and one-off ad hoc examples like you give (which is flawed anyway), your side has never been able to unambiguously demonstrate any net positive utility gains from the patent or copyright system. Again, I point you here: Kinsella, “The Overwhelming Empirical Case Against Patent and Copyright” and “Legal Scholars: Thumbs Down on Patent and Copyright,” both in Kinsella, You Can’t Own Ideas.

***

Again, if you would like to discuss further in any forum, or if you are interested in any more detailed explanations of our position and why we disagree with your argument and assumptions, I’d be happy to do so.

Best, Stephan

SKOUSEN:

Dear Stephan,

I haven’t delved into the IP literature that much. I’ll take a look if you will also read Rosen’s book, and we can compare notes.

Best wishes, AEIOU

KINSELLA:

Dear Mark,
Thanks. I was already familiar with the Rosen work although as I mentioned, I believe others have shown their case to be deeply flawed. Nonetheless I have acquired the book. I will read through the relevant sections to see if there is anything to contradict the contrary takes on Watt/steam in the other references I’ve already cited. To be clear: I am completely pro-innovation and technology and individual creativity and recognize the important of innovation and intellectual creativity. I simply oppose the IP system on both property rights and consequentialist grounds.

If you want to delve into the anti-IP literature, I’ve already given you some scattered suggestions in my previous replies, but the most general case would be

  • “Law and Intellectual Property in a Stateless Society,” in Kinsella, You Can’t Own Ideas (a streamlined and slightly updated version of my Against Intellectual Property),
  • as supplemented by “Intellectual Freedom and Learning Versus Patent and Copyright,” in Kinsella, You Can’t Own Ideas, and
  • “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward,” also in Kinsella, You Can’t Own Ideas

For the empirical case, you might like:

I have many other resources presented at

If you have no time to read lengthy works on this at present, here is a shorter approach (trying to make it as easy as possible for you! 🙂 :

All best, Stephan

SKOUSEN:

So I guess people can download music all they want without permission, and that’s okay too. Not a crime. Under your system there is no property rights. MAS

KINSELLA:

Yes, there simply cannot be property rights in information; all rights are property rights and all property rights just are rights to control scarce (conflictable) resources. Any attempt to grant property rights in information is just a disguised transfer of property rights in other people’s already-owned property (or even their body: see this article about copyright potentially allowing someone to use force to make someone remove a tattoo on their body https://news.artnet.com/art-world/a-photographer-is-suing-tattoo-artist-kat-von-d-after-she-inked-his-portrait-of-miles-davis-on-a-friends-body-2135112)–i.e., all IP rights really grant a non-consensual negative servitude or easement, as I explain in “Intellectual Property Rights as Negative Servitudes,” in Kinsella, You Can’t Own Ideas. See also LFFS, pp. 413–16.
In fact my first prominent article on IP abolition had to do with streaming music – the Napster issue, where Napster was shut down by copyright (an injustice in my view): In Defense of Napster and Against the Second Homesteading Rule, September 4, 2000, LewRockwell.com.

None of this means there are not or should not be ways to make money absent relying on state-granted anti-competitive monopoly privileges. See, e.g.

Or as I wrote in “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward” (also in Kinsella, You Can’t Own Ideas):

IP Rights as Negative Easements[36]

Additionally, I have come to understand that IP rights can be properly classified as non-consensual negative easements (or servitudes),[37] which makes plain exactly how they infringe justly-acquired property rights.[38] All property rights are enforceable rights in material, scarce—conflictable—resources, the type of scarce means that human actors can possess and manipulate and employ to causally interfere in the world. It is not that assigning property rights in information or knowledge is wrong, but that it is impossible. Force cannot be applied to “ideas” or information, but only to scarce resources. Any IP right is just a disguised reassignment of property rights in existing scarce resources. One reason for the confusion here is that people are not careful in distinguishing between motivations and means.

For example it is sometimes said that people “fight over religion.” But this is not accurate. Religion is not a scarce resource over which there can be conflict. Any interpersonal human conflict is always over scarce, material, conflictable resources. If A kills B or takes his land or cows in a religious dispute, the religious disagreement is just the motivation or reason for the conflict or clash, but the clash is always over the material things that are the real subject of property rights. We can explain a given human action by reference to the ends aimed at, and the means employed. One’s motivations and goals factor into the ends; but the actual means employed and the actions taken are what property rights concern.[39]

All rights are human rights, and all human rights are property rights,[40] and property rights just are rights to the exclusive control of certain conflictable resources.[41] In the end, every law, every dispute, boils down to some actor being assigned ownership rights in a given contested resource. A copyright grant gives the holder a partial property right in the printing press and computers of other people. A patent grant gives the holder a partial property right in the factories and raw material already owned by others. Such rights are negative easements that permit the holder to veto or prevent certain uses by the owner. Negative easements are legitimate when consented to, but in the case of IP the state grants these rights to the IP holder without the consent of the owner of the burdened property (the so-called “servient estate”). Thus, IP rights amount to a taking or infringement of property rights otherwise established in accordance with the principles of original appropriation and contract.[42] This insight buttresses the argument in AIP that “a system of property rights in ‘ideal objects’ necessarily requires violation of other individual property rights, e.g., to use one’s own tangible property as one sees fit.”[43]

SK

SKOUSEN:

But there’s a serious difference between gathering information — data — and art, such as writing a book, a novel, poet, etc.

Actually, gathering information can also be creatively unique — look at the Wall Street firms that charge thousands of dollars for their institutional reports. They wouldn’t get paid much if they knew that as soon as they published it, some idiot just reprinted their reports at a cheaper price. They would go out of business pretty fast.

Besides creating an invention or writing a book or screenplay, etc., involved huge amount of time and money/capital, and investors expect a profitable return on their investment. If you allow anyone to copy an invention or a book, the original discoverer/writer see their revenues decline sharply, and is screwed.

Michael Boulton would have NEVER financed James Watt’s high risk invention of a successful steam engine, the first one profitable, if he didn’t have some kind of promise of a return on investment, which the patent gave him. Ditto for any of the Shank Tanks — one of the first questions they always ask to inventor/creator is if they have a patent or patent pending. Otherwise, they say NO. End of the deal. How does that increase innovation???? It does just the opposite.

Best wishes, AEIOU,

KINSELLA:

Mark,

I’ve been a patent attorney for 30 years and general counsel of a high tech startup for many years during that time, where we obtained many patents and we also got lots of investments from VCs. (If you want to see some of the hundreds of high-tech patents I’ve written and helped clients obtain, see here.) It is true that VCs kick the tires and ask if you have your IP locked up, as part of their due diligence, but that’s partly because having a patent is valuable to the holder (I just think that it harms everyone else and is unjust), so if you don’t apply for the relevant patents you are leaving money on the table. In a world with no IP then investors would not ask if you have a patent because no one would have them. Likewise in a world without IP you would not need to waste money hiring lawyers like me to obtain patents or patent litigators to defend you from patent lawsuits. And in a world with no defamation law, if someone defames you, no one would say “why didn’t you sue them?” or “the allegations must be true, otherwise he would have sued!” Lots of things would change in a world with no IP.

VCs also would not ask you to confirm that you have hired patent attorneys to make sure your products are not violating a competitor’s products. For example suppose there is a small startup now that wants to make a new smartphone. VCs would be afraid to fund them because they would be afraid this small company would be killed by the big cartelized oligopolies like Apple, Samsung, Motorola, who have these monopolistic positions precisely because they have a mountain of patents that can be used to bury and kill any small startup competitor. So the existence of patents harms small companies that can’t afford the lawsuits from the established industries with huge patent portfolios, and the investors know this so they don’t invest. So your sword cuts both ways.

Fundamentally, the purpose of law is not to “increase innovation”. It’s to do justice by protecting property rights and then allowing people to find their own ways to prosper on the free market. Further, as the links I’ve sent previously show, there is simply no evidence that the existence of the patent system increases net innovation — or, that the value of this net innovation (which I think is negative anyway) exceeds the immense costs of the patent system (the costs include increased insurance and product costs due to litigation and attorneys’ fees, distorted innovation (as Friedman and Rothbard acknowledged), and indeed many cases where innovation is retarded (for example if company A has a war chest of patents covering a related group of products, then would-be competitors are dissuaded from even trying to innovate since if they make an improvement it might be covered by A’s patents and thus they can’t sell it; so they don’t bother; so they don’t innovate; meanwhile company A is protected from competition for 17 years so during that time it has a reduced incentive to keep innovating and improving).

And trust me, if you actually ever saw the patent office in action–saw the sausage being made–you would find it hard to believe claims that this government-created bureaucracy actually achieves its stated goal of inducing innovation (actually, to be precise, its state goal is to incentivize disclosure of inventions that would otherwise be kept secret, but it doens’t even do THIS — see “The” Purpose of Patent Law. The reason is that you can’t keep most innovations secret since selling the product reveals it to the public anyway; so you are being given a patent in exchange for disclosing, but you would have disclosed anyway, even without the patent incentive, since it’s part of selling the product (for example if you sell a better mousetrap the improved features are obvious to the public). And for the narrow subset of processes and products where it’s possible to keep the innovative aspect secret (for example: you have a new mixing method for chemicals, or an innovative nozzle used to make the chemicals–when you sell the chemical it’s just better or cheaper but the customers don’t know how you made it; so you can use trade secret here and usually you will, even if you could patent it, since the patent expires in 17 years but trade secrets can last forever). The patent office is like any other incompetent, inept, inefficient, corrupt goverment bureaucracy; it doens’t even accomplish the stated goals of patents as stated in the Constitution, or the Patent Act.

SKOUSEN:

Dear Stephan,

Thanks for giving me the inside track on the trouble with patents.

I’m more in sympathy with this doc: “INVALIDATED” The Shredding of the US Patent System – TRAILER

Have you seen this film? They even cite libertarian congressman Thomas Massie.

Best wishes, AEIOU,

KINSELLA:
I just watched that trailer. Mark, I am not sure this is a serious video–I think it may be a spoof, but a fairly inept one. Unless these people are so ridiculous that they seem like unintentional self-parodies. I can’t find the actual movie anywhere so I think this must be a joke, but it’s not clear whether they are spoofing people who oppose patents or people who favor patents. In any case, if you know of a link to the actual movie (which I suspect does not exist) please send to me. BTW yes it shows Massie, but every single Congressman and Senator is horrible on IP. None of them is an IP abolitionist, not even Massie or Amash who unfortunately repeat the same propaganda the IP shills do.

But it does seem like a parody, of sorts, of the typical propaganda by IP special interests I do here, inventors’ groups, etc., always exaggerating and hyperventilating about the patent system being eviscerated by any minor change. I pointed out this tendency here: “Radical Patent Reform Is Not on the Way,” in Kinsella, You Can’t Own Ideas. They scream about any tiny change to make serious change outside the 4×6 card of allowable opinion totally inconceivable–they want to keep the Overton window narrow. NO ONE ever proposes real change which would be: reducing the patent term; reducing the scope of eligible subject matter; abolishing injunctions; abolishing treble damages. No legislative changes no judicial decisions have weakened patent law at all, except Obama’s America Invents Act slightly expanding the prior commercial user defense (The America Invents Act and Patent Reform: The Good, the Meh, and the Ugly), and the eBay decision made it somewhat more difficult to automatically get an injunction against a patent infringer. These are all minor as I explain in “Radical Patent Reform Is Not on the Way,” but most people who hear the caterwauling of the IP shills don’t understand the arcane patent system, and they also are under the delusion that the patent and copyright monopoly privilege grants are “property rights” just because the IP special interests gave it that name, “Intellectual Property,” in a rearguard action to defend it when it was under assault from free market economists in the 1800s; see “Intellectual Properganda”; This was observed by Fritz Machlup and Edith Penrose in two seminal studies:

Those who started using the word property in connection with inventions had a very definite purpose in mind: they wanted to substitute a word with a respectable connotation, “property”, for a word that had an unpleasant ring, “privilege”.

[Fritz Machlup & Edith Penrose, “The Patent Controversy in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Economic History 10 (1950), p. 1, 16]

While some economists before 1873 were anxious to deny that patents conferred “monopolies”–and, indeed, had talked of “property in inventions” chiefly in order to avoid using the unpopular word “monopoly”–most of this squeamishness has disappeared. But most writers want to make it understood that these are not “odious” monopolies but rather “social monopolies”, “general welfare monopolies”, or “socially earned” monopolies. Most writers also point out with great emphasis that the monopoly grant is limited and conditional.

[Fritz Machlup, U.S. Senate Subcommittee On Patents, Trademarks & Copyrights, An Economic Review of the Patent System, 85th Cong., 2nd Session, 1958, Study No. 15 (text excerpt)]

If you want to know what real changes would be–I propose some here: “How to Improve Patent, Copyright, and Trademark Law”–but trust me, the system is not “shredded” or being eviscerated or under assault.

Far from it. To the contrary, the US continually uses its world influence and hegemony to twist the arms of other countries to continually ratchet up their own patent and copyright systems to match the more extreme US type protections and enforcements (For more on this see various posts collected under the tag IP Imperialism).

Best, SK

KINSELLA:

Okay now I see that this video is not a spoof, it is actually serious, which is not to its credit since it’s so ridiculous.
https://www.amazon.com/Invalidated-Josh-Malone/dp/B07G2WGTK6

SKOUSEN:

Dear Stephan,

No, it’s not a parody at all. It a real film addressing a serious problem. It came out in 2018: Invalidated and has won many awards, including Best Documentary at the Anthem Film Festival.

It addresses real stories of people who have been ripped off by the Chinese etc. You really need to stop demonizing people who don’t agree with you. It’s unbecoming. Let’s just debate the issue.

Best wishes, AEIOU,

KINSELLA:

I am sorry but the trailer looks like amateur hour to me, and makes eyerolling claims and exaggerations. No one can say I don’t debate the issue.

The trailer makes the same old tired claims that politicians now repeat ad nausem—that China is “stealing our intellectual property” which is not true since it is literally impossible; it’s now how IP works. American patents are enforceable only within the US. It is impossible for anyone outside the US to violate a US patent. So the whole claim is incoherent. What they mean I think is one of two things, (a) China doesn’t have a draconian an IP enforcement system as the US does. Fine. Almost no countries do. But that doesn’t mean they are stealing out IP. or (b) they are talking about how China doesn’t have a free market, so when a foreign company wants to set up a factory in China they need to get permission, licenses; and the local or regional governments require the US firm to do a joint venture with a local Chinese firm as the condition of getting the license. When you do this, the “partner” firm or even your own local Chinese employees will leak trade secrets and proprietary information. So eventually you start seeing knockoffs of your products being made by other Chinese firms. This has nothing to do with patents or copyright, however, but only with the realities of the difficulty of keeping proprietary information secret, especially when you deal with Asians.

I’ll try to watch the film, if I can bear to slog through it. Sad that they keep it paywalled.

BTW if you are yourself interested in some videos arguing the other way (most of them are short):

SKOUSEN:

The trailer starts out with the balloon invention that was clearly ripped off. Are you saying they don’t have a leg to stand on? That it’s okay that somebody stole their invention, and took away sales? How is that amateur?

The Chinese are famous for creating parallel businesses, creating another factory that imitates everything the US companies spent millions creating in China. I guess that’s okay in your book, but it’s a sure way to lose business and is unethical.

Have you ever taken a class in logic? One of the false arguments in debate is to resort to ridicule instead of arguing the issue.

Best wishes, AEIOU,

SKOUSEN:

Dear Stephan,

I just watched the cartoon, “Copying isn’t theft.”

But just saying so doesn’t make it so. Copying somebody’s material does have consequences — causing the creators to lose business, and maybe causing them to go out of business.

BTW, using your smear technique in debate, I could say this cartoon was very “amateur.” 🙂

KINSELLA:

The trailer starts out with the balloon invention that was clearly ripped off. Are you saying they don’t have a leg to stand on? That it’s okay that somebody stole their invention, and took away sales? How is that amateur?

I’ll have to watch the whole video to assess.

The Chinese are famous for creating parallel businesses, creating another factory that imitates everything the US companies spent millions creating in China.

Yes, this is called “competition.”

I guess that’s okay in your book, but it’s a sure way to lose business and is unethical.

I am simply saying it does not infringe US patents or copyright for a Chinese firm to do anything. US patents only cover the US. If a US firm wants to be able to stop competitors in other jurisdictions they need to file international patents based on the US patent in other countries, but it’s expensive. But if you get a Chinese patent you can enforce it in Chinese courts. By the way it’s incorrect to talk about “stealing” ideas or IP; even the Supreme Court has explained that terms like “theft” simply do not apply. It is copying, and maybe “infringement,” but it’s not stealing or theft. See Reminder 1: Copyright Monopoly Infringement Isn’t Stealing (Says The US Supreme Court), and MPAA Banned From Using Piracy and Theft Terms in Hotfile Trial:

“In the U.S. Supreme Court case Dowling vs United States, the Supreme Court explicitly valued whether copies could be regarded as stolen goods under the law, and held that they could not.

Instead, “interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: ‘[…] an infringer of the copyright.'”

But to return to your comments:

Have you ever taken a class in logic? One of the false arguments in debate is to resort to ridicule instead of arguing the issue.

I honestly thought it was a spoof at first. I am not saying its arguments are wrong, just because it is low budget. I will watch the full video and revert.

But as a note: Nina Paley is actually a celebrated artist–creator of the amazing Sita Sings the Blues. She became anti-copyright when she faced insane obstacles getting decades old music for her soundtrack. In any case, I think her video does in fact show that copying is not theft–it’s copying. You can oppose copying, but it’s simply not theft; even the Supreme Court has recognized this. Copying can be an act of infringement of patent or copyright rights, but it is not theft. It’s important to be accurate. Using loaded and pejorative terms like “theft,” piracy, ripping off, stealing, for copying, is trying to smuggle in something we all agree is wrong in order to show that copying is also wrong, even though it is not literally theft.

SKOUSEN:

Chinese parallel businesses may not be illegal in China, but they are unethical. It’s not just “competition” when they deliberately hide their parallel factories to avoid getting caught.

I have a friend who made barbells (XXX, they’re a big company) in China and Taiwan for a number of years, and the unauthorized making of his signature barbells was so egregious, and their accounting methods so dishonest, that he finally left and now makes his barbells in the good ol’ USA, which has a more ethical business attitude.

KINSELLA:

Chinese parallel businesses may not be illegal in China, but they are unethical. It’s not just “competition” when they deliberately hide their parallel factories to avoid getting caught.

I don’t know the details of a particular situation, we could examine it. It could be they want to avoid getting caught because China enforces IP law too, so they are forced to hide. I don’t know; it depends. I mean drug dealers have to hide too, because there is an unjust law to worry about. In any case I am simply pointing out that the common claim that “China is stealing our IP” is simply inaccurate.

I have a friend who made barbells (XXX, they’re a big company) in China and Taiwan for a number of years, and the unauthorized making of his signature barbells was so egregious, and their accounting methods so dishonest, that he finally left and now makes his barbells in the good ol’ USA, which has a more ethical business attitude.

I don’t know the details but it sounds to me like possibly, some kind of trademark infringement, but more likely, breach of contract and fraud and dishonesty with respect to your friend. Definitely not patent or copyright. If you would like to discuss any particular issue in detail, I’d be happy to. It’s sometimes useful to unpack these things–for example I often find it necessary to help clarify and untangle distinct issues–not only the 4 main types of IP (patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret) which people often conflate; but separate issues that get mixed in or confused with them, such as: fraud; contract breach; plagiarism; attribution, most of which have nothing to do with IP rights. [Kinsella, “If you oppose IP you support plagiarism; copying others is fraud or contract breach,” in “Hello! You’ve Been Referred Here Because You’re Wrong About Intellectual Property” (C4SIF)] In the case of your friend, if the Chinese company committed fraud on some consumers, that should be prohibited. If they breached a contract with your friend, or defrauded them, he should have a cause of action. I completely agree. But these have nothing to do with patent or copyright, or IP at all really. If they did not breach a contract or commit fraud, I don’t see why they shouldn’t be allowed to do this, even if it’s kinda slimy (again, I don’t know the details). If you are slimy and shady, you will lose business, as seems to have happened here.

N.b., I did work for the Taiwanese as General Counsel for 10 years and as outside counsel for another 10, and am well aware of differences in culture and ethics between the US and China/Taiwan. I am not surprised by accounting dishonesty or contract breach. But that has nothing whatsoever to do with IP.

Again, my previous point in objecting to the “China is stealing our IP!” refrain is that it’s simply false, as a purely legal matter. No actions in China can violate a US IP right. IP rights are domestic! It’s like saying that someone in China has trespassed on your property in Maine. It’s not possible to do it in China. And if it infringes a Chinese copyright or patent held by an American firm, then it’s up to China’s legal system how efficient its courts are in enforcing these claims. But we can’t complain if China doesn’t have a local patent law since that’s their business. (But they do! All commie countries have IP rights just like socialistic western democracies do. No surprise, since IP is socialistic.) We don’t have moral rights in the US like some European countries do; they don’t have protections for “boat hull designs” like we do. It’s not “stealing IP” for one country to have different IP systems than others. Italy and Switzerland didn’t even have drug patents until the late ‘70s, and they were some of the leading creators of drugs. (See on this Boldrin and Levine, Against Intellectual Monopoly, ch. 9.) They were not “stealing IP” by not having pharmaceutical patents for those decades. Likewise if China is more lax in enforcing its own IP law, this is also not stealing American IP. The claim is simply dishonest or misinformed; at the least, it’s misleading. I think it’s also unwise for us to continually insult the honor of China by repeatedly calling them a nation of thieves!

You may find it of interest that perhaps one reason China doesn’t enforce western-style IP rights, that we have foisted on them for the benefit of our three big special interests and their lobbying groups (Hollywood/movies/television and the music industry, in the case of copyright; and the US pharmaceutical industry in the case of patents), with quite as much vigor as we do–in other words, IP infringement is perhaps more widespread in Asia than in the US (OTOH, tons of Americans “pirate” music, movies, books too)–is because the notion of owning ideas is more alien to their culture (to their credit, in my view): see “To Steal a Book is an Elegant Offense” —Chinese saying

Cheers, Stephan

SKOUSEN:

I’ve finally figured out the libertarians who are opposed to IP rights — you remind me of the Physiocrats in 18th century France who thought that only physical goods like agricultural products were property and added value to the economy! 🙂

KINSELLA:
Mark,

Thanks. I know this is tongue in cheek, somewhat, but I’ve heard other, similar criticisms over the years–e.g., if you don’t support property rights in ideas, you are anti-ideas, or a “communist,” or you don’t “value the mind” etc.

I think this mistake here is one of failure to appreciate the necessity to distinguish different domains of life and inquiry. In short, it is a conflation of description and economics, on the one hand, with prescription, values, norms and law, on the other. Allow me to elaborate (as is my wont).

Mises himself distinguishes these realms–the economic (descriptive) vs. the juristic (normative, prescriptive):

“Ownership means full control of the services that can be derived from a good. This catallactic notion of ownership and property rights is not to be confused with the legal definition of ownership and property rights as stated in the laws of various countries. It was the idea of legislators and courts to define the legal concept of property in such a way as to give to the proprietor full protection by the governmental apparatus of coercion and compulsion, and to prevent anybody from encroaching upon his rights. As far as this purpose was adequately realized, the legal concept of property rights corresponded to the catallactic concept.“

Human Action, Ch. XXIV, sec. 4. https://mises.org/library/private-property

Mises elaborates in Socialism:

“Regarded as a sociological category ownership appears as the power to use economic goods. An owner is he who disposes of an economic good.

“Thus the sociological [i.e., economic] and juristic concepts of ownership are different. This, of course, is natural, and one can only be surprised that the fact is still sometimes overlooked. From the sociological and economic point of view, ownership is the having of the goods which the economic aims of men require. This having may be called the natural or original ownership, as it is purely a physical relationship of man to the goods, independent of social relations between men or of a legal order. The significance of the legal concept of property lies just in this — that it differentiates between the physical has and the legal should have. The Law recognizes owners and possessors who lack this natural *having*, owners who do not have, but ought to have. In the eyes of the Law ‘he from whom has been stolen’ remains owner, while the thief can never acquire ownership. “Economically, however, the natural having alone is relevant, and the economic significance of the legal should have lies only in the support it lends to the acquisition, the maintenance, and the regaining of the natural having.”

So in this realm of inquiry, Mises is a sort of dualist: the economic-descriptive realm is distinct from the juristic-normative-prescriptive one.

Mises was also a dualist about human action: he distinguished human behavior (the motions of the body, governed by causal laws) from human action—purposive behavior, characterized by purpose, choice, ends, means, i.e., teleology. That is, he distinguished the causal from the teleological realms of inquiry.

And this is mirrored in his praxeology, where he characterize human action as an actor employing scarce means, but guided by knowledge. These are the two ingredients of any action and you need both access to scarce resources (things you can manipulate and control–yes, physically–to causally interfere with the course of events and change the future that is coming–your “end”) and knowledge of causal laws and other knowledge, to know what ends to pursue (what is possible) and what means to employ (causal and technological knowledge). Both ingredients are essential to successful human action: scarce means/resources, and knowledge to guide your actions. But the scarce (conflictable) resources are the ones that there can be conflict over, and thus property rights emerge to allocate these resources to particular owners so that they can be used peacefully and cooperatively and without conflict. But the knowledge that guides our action is not of this kind and can be replicated and learned and spread; this is why the human race advances. As I explain in “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward” (in in Kinsella, You Can’t Own Ideas):

The Separate Roles of Knowledge and Means in Action

The purpose of property rights is to permit conflict-free use of resources, the scarce means of action that humans employ to causally interfere with the course of events, in an attempt to achieve their ends. But this applies only to conflictable resources. Human action also implies the possession of knowledge by the actor—knowledge of what ends are possible and knowledge of what scarce means might be employed to causally achieve the desired end. Thus all successful human action requires two separate components: the availability of scarce means or resources, and knowledge to guide one’s action.[52] Property rights apply only to the scarce means or conflictable resources that humans employ, but not to the knowledge or information people possess, which guides their behavior, since anyone can use the same or similar knowledge to guide their own actions without conflict. In fact, it is the accumulation of this technological knowledge over time that enables increasing material prosperity. Property rights are needed to permit conflict-free use of scarce resources, but imposing restrictions on the emulation, learning, and use of knowledge, which is what IP attempts to do, impoverishes the human race.[53]
[53]For elaboration, see Kinsella, “Hayek’s Views on Intellectual Property,” C4SIF Blog (Aug. 2, 2013) and “Intellectual Property and the Structure of Human Action,” discussing Hayek’s comments about how the accumulation of a “fund of experience” helps aid human progress and the creation of wealth. See also Kinsella, “Tucker, ‘Knowledge Is as Valuable as Physical Capital,’” C4SIF Blog (March 27, 2017).

The point is, we do not disparage the crucial role of knowledge, the intellect, etc., or even labor, by recognizing that law does not cover these things. If I think my wife cannot be owned or my love for her cannot be owned, this does not mean I do not love or value my wife.

We believe creation is only a source of wealth, but not property rights. Again, from “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward”:

Lockean Creationism[44]

In the “Creation vs. Scarcity” section of AIP I pointed out that one mistake made by many proponents of IP is the notion that creation is a source of property rights. But it is not. I have elaborated on this topic in subsequent writing, pointing out that creation—i.e., production, transformation, or rearrangement[45] of existing resources—is a source of wealth but not a source of property rights. After all, transforming a set of input resources into a more valuable output product requires that the input factors already be owned. The resulting product is thus owned according to standard property rights and contract principles.[46]
Property rights in one’s body are based in one’s direct control over one’s body.[47] Property rights in external, previously unowned scarce resources, come from original appropriation, or homesteading—first use and transformation or embordering—of an unowned scarce resource, or by contractual transfer from a previous owner.[48] Production or transformation of existing, already-owned resources may increase or create wealth, but is not a source of rights. This is a common confusion among libertarians, especially Randians and those influenced by the confused labor theory of property and the related labor theory of value, as can be seen in nonsensical sayings like “you have a right to the fruits of your labor.”[49]
[46]See also the section “Creation of Wealth versus Creation of Property” in Kinsella, “Intellectual Freedom and Learning Versus Patent and Copyright,” Economic Notes No. 113 (Libertarian Alliance, Jan. 18, 2011) (also published as “Intellectual Freedom and Learning Versus Patent and Copyright,” The Libertarian Standard, Jan. 19, 2011); “Law and Intellectual Property in a Stateless Society,” “Libertarian Creationism” section, at pp. 27–30; and “KOL012 | ‘The Intellectual Property Quagmire, or, The Perils of Libertarian Creationism,’ Austrian Scholars Conference 2008,” Kinsella on Liberty Podcast (Feb. 6, 2013).

So your physiocrat comment is not quite apropos. We do not say that the only valuable thing is physical, material things. As noted above, many valuable things cannot be owned, like love, memories, children, whatever. Saying something valuable is not ownable is not to slight it. Not all things are ownable. Other people are not ownable (if we abolish slavery) yet we value other people. We value society. Etc. And as noted above, the human intellect, passion, creativity, innovation, art, and so on, that lead to more and more technological knowledge (“recipes”) or a greater Hayekian “fund of experience” that each generation can dip into to make more efficient and productive use of resources, are great things and essential to human flourishing and life. But this doesn’t mean property rights apply to ideas or knowledge. To believe this mistakes the nature and function of property rights, which is to allocate scarce, “conflictable” resources to particular owners so that they can be used peacefully, cooperatively, and productively, and without violent conflict. We actually believe that laws that pretend or attempt to assign property rights to ideas or knowledge simply undermine and undercut and erode property rights in scarce resources, and this harms the human race since, again, we need both ingredients for successful human action and flourishing: access to and unimpeded control of scarce means of action (for which property rights are appropriate), and a growing knowledge base of “fund of experience” to rely on to guide our actions. By not applying property rights to the latter we respect the rôle of each in human action.

Stephan

EPSTEIN:

“There is simply no sign of a “market failure’ in innovation waiting to be rectified by intellectual property, while there is ample evidence that patents & copyrights are actively hindering innovation.”

“There is no evidence that there is less innovation in areas unprotected by copyrights.”

“None of the following technologies were patented in any effective way: automatic transmission, power steering, ballpoint pens, jet engines, magnetic recording…”

Mark, before you dismiss Matt Ridley as a “physiocrat,” I encourage you to read his comprehensive book on the history of innovation, especially the section, “When the law stifles innovation: the case of intellectual property.” Ridley, How Innovation Works & Why It Flourishes in Freedom

KINSELLA:

Yes; Ridley is not bad. And this is what he wrote in The Rational Optimist, ch. 8:

“there is little evidence that patents are really what drive inventors to invent. Most innovations are never patented. In the second half of the nineteenth century neither Holland nor Switzerland had a patent system, yet both countries flourished and attracted inventors. And the list of significant twentieth century inventions that were never patented is a long one. It includes automatic transmission, Bakelite, ballpoint pens, cellophane, cyclotrons, gyrocompasses, jet engines, magnetic recording, power steering, safety razors and zippers. By contrast, the Wright brothers effectively grounded the nascent aircraft industry in the United States by enthusiastically defending their 1906 patent on powered flying machines. In 1920, there was a logjam in the manufacture of radios caused by the blocking patents held by four firms (RCA, GE, AT&T and Westing house), which prevented each firm making the best possible radios. …“In the 1990s the US Patent Office flirted with the idea of allowing the patenting of gene fragments, segments of sequenced genes that could be used to find faulty or normal genes. Had this happened, the human genome sequence would have become an impossible landscape in which to innovate.”

See also my transcript to KOL364 | Soho Forum Debate vs. Richard Epstein: Patent and Copyright Law Should Be Abolished:

“Boldrin and Levine looked to a poll of the British Medical Journal’s readers on the top medical milestones in history, and found that almost none had anything to do with patents. Penicillin, x-rays, tissue culture, anesthetic, chlorpromazine, public sanitation, germ theory, evidence-based medicine, vaccines, the birth-control pill, computers, oral rehydration theory, DNA structure, monoclonal antibody technology, and the discovery of the health risks of smoking — of these top 15 entries, only two had anything to do with patents.“
“nothing on the US Centers for Disease Control‘s list of the top ten public-health achievements of the 20th century had any connection to patents. And even a review of the most important pharmaceuticals reveals that many came about without the motive and/or possibility of acquiring a patent, including, for example, aspirin, AZT, cyclosporine, digoxin, ether, fluoride, insulin, isoniazid, medical marijuana, methadone, morphine, oxytocin, penicillin, Phenobarbital, prontosil, quinine, Ritalin, salvarsan, vaccines, and vitamins.“

SKOUSEN:

Yes, very interesting. I’ll check out Ridley’s book. This is an area I have not studied much, so my comments are just my gut reaction and experience. MAS

EPSTEIN:

Thanks for your note. Confirms that my friend Mark is a guy of sterling character.

I do want to repeat my point about where we place the burden of proof when we focus on the consequentialist issue: The main issue for libertarians is that IP interventions by the state are an inherent abridgment of freedom by the state.
If you want to abridge human freedom via state intervention, you bear a very heavy burden of proof that it’s in the service of some overriding objective.. But if you feel there is a market failure in a free society–not enough innovation–you can surely raise billions in privave philanthropy to promote it.

Philanthropists love innovation.

KINSELLA:

Here are the comments from Brink Lindsey, cited by Ridley. From Brink Lindsey & Steven M. Teles, The Captured Economy: How the Powerful Enrich Themselves, Slow Down Growth, and Increase Inequality (2017):

“IN OUR ROGUES’ GALLERY OF case studies, copyright and patent laws are the wolves in sheep’s clothing.

… copyright and patent laws are regulatory responses to what economists call “market failure.” … [This is] a plausible argument with only one problem: the facts on the ground don’t provide much support for it. The market failure theory suggests that vulnerability to copying and imitation creates serious disincentives for would-be artists and inventors, such that only exclusive rights over reproduction and use can create the proper incentives for cultural production and technological innovation. Yet we regularly see robust, ebullient creativity and innovation even where intellectual property protections are absent or increasingly porous. The empirical evidence that intellectual property rights stimulate creative expression and innovation is remarkably weak.

“Even if innovation can sometimes thrive in the absence of patents, it may still be the case that patent protection boosts overall levels of innovative activity and thus stimulates technological progress. After all, the extra returns accruing to inventors because of the temporary patent monopoly can be seen as a subsidy for innovative activity, and when you subsidize something you generally get more of it. Despite what would seem like a powerful incentive, economists have struggled to find evidence of patent law’s positive effects, in either the United States or elsewhere. Josh Lerner undertook an impressively comprehensive survey, examining 177 different changes in patent policy across 60 countries over a 150-year period. His striking finding was that changes to strengthen patent protection didn’t even lead to increased patenting. “This evidence,” he concludes, “suggests that these policy changes did not spur innovation.” Meanwhile, a study of the 1988 Japanese patent law reform found no evidence that this strengthening of intellectual property protection increased either R&D spending or innovative output. A study of Canadian manufacturing found that firms that use the patent process intensively are no more likely to produce innovations than those that don’t. Here in the United States, where patent protections have been broadened and strengthened significantly since the 1980s, one survey of the results led to this muddled conclusion: “Despite the significance of the policy changes and the wide availability of detailed data relating to patenting, robust conclusions regarding the empirical consequences for technological innovation of changes in patent policy are few.7 [7. Adam B. Jaffe, “The U.S. Patent System in Transition: Policy Innovation and the Innovation Process,” Research Policy 29 (2000): pp. 531–77.]

… The evidentiary record on patents is thus mixed. Some findings describe positive effects, yes, but there is no convincing confirmation that patent systems as a whole work as intended. Overall, we find ourselves agreeing with the assessment offered nearly 60 years ago by the economist Fritz Machlup, a pioneer in the study of the emerging information economy. “If we did not have a patent system, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge of its economic consequences, to recommend instituting one,” Machlup wrote. “But since we have had a patent system for a long time, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge, to recommend abolishing it.”

… The copyright and patent laws we have today therefore look more like intellectual monopoly than intellectual property. They do not simply give people their rightful due; on the contrary, they regularly deprive people of their rightful due. If there is a case to be made for the special privileges granted under these laws, it must be based on utilitarian grounds. As we have already seen, that case is surprisingly weak, and utterly incapable of justifying the radical expansion in IP protection that has occurred in recent years. Therefore, it is entirely appropriate to strip IP protection of its sheep’s clothing and to see it for the wolf it is, a major source of economic stagnation and a tool for unjust enrichment.”

SKOUSEN:

[From Feb. 2023, after I asked his permission to post this discussion online]

Dear Stephan,

Go ahead and quote me, but do note that I’m just raising legitimate issues from my own experience in business, or from friends in business who have been ripped off by unethical businesses in Asia, etc. I do not consider myself an expert in Intellectual Property rights, and have not read all the literature you have.

Did I tell you the funny story about Harry Browne, the libertarian author and presidential candidate? After attending a seminar by Andrew Galambos in the 1960s, Harry followed his advice and was determined to give credit to anyone who came up with a new idea. According to Galambos, intellectual property rights included one’s thoughts, ideas and actions as “primary property,” and those owners of original ideas should be compensated if someone uses them. After being influenced by Murray Rothbard in his financial books, Harry sent a check for $500 to Murray Rothbard. Murray wrote Harry back and asked what it was for. Harry said, “For your original ideas that I included in my book.” Murray responded, “Well, my ideas are worth a lot more than $500!”

Best wishes, AEIOU,

KINSELLA:

… That is a funny story about Browne/Rothbard. I am well familiar with Galambosian ideas. They were rightly ridiculed and skewered in Tuccille’s It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand. And Rothbard’s pithy response shows how absurd they are: there is no market price for this intangible stuff.

(See also my posts The Galambosians strike back; “Around this time I met the Galambosian.”; Galambos and Other Nuts.)

Followup discussion with Mark after I posted the above:

SKOUSEN:

So, to summarize, you don’t believe at all in patent, copyright, trademark, and intellectual property (IP) rights, is that correct? Did I miss anything?

I have trademarked “FreedomFest” and “FreedomFest, Inc.” but in your view it’s okay for anyone to use our name and create their own conference with the same name, what the Chinese might call a parallel conference? (a serious problem we’ve been having). I call it “stealing.” What do you call it?

Best wishes, AEIOU,

KINSELLA:

Well. To be precise I would not say I don’t “believe in” them–these laws are real. I simply believe all existing forms of IP, and there are many, each one of them is unjust and incompatible with property rights. The absolute worst offenders are patent and copyright, as they are the most artificial, the most pervasive, and do the most damage, with patent law being the worst from a human point of view. See “Patent vs. Copyright: Which is Worse?”. Patent and copyright bear a lot of similarities, as do other types of IP like boat hull designs, database rights, semiconductor maskwork protection, but other forms of IP, like trademark and trade secret, are inconveniently lumped in with patent and copyright and under the IP rubric as a propaganda tactic (see “Intellectual Properganda”) even though these rights are somewhat different from patent and copyright and other forms of IP. As I noted to you earlier, this was observed by Fritz Machlup and Edith Penrose in two seminal studies:

Those who started using the word property in connection with inventions had a very definite purpose in mind: they wanted to substitute a word with a respectable connotation, “property”, for a word that had an unpleasant ring, “privilege”.

The arguments for trademark, and trade secret, are somewhat different, and the criticisms of them are somewhat different. But yes, even these laws are unjust, but for their own particular reasons. Defamation law is also problematic, as libertarians such as Rothbard and Block have recognized, but it is not considered a type of IP, since the defenders of patent and copyright needed to associate these artificial state grants of monopoly privilege with more traditional forms of “intellectual” rights, like trademark and trade secret, to make patent and copyright appear like some type of property right, but the defenders of IP had no reason to include defamation under the IP rubric since their concern is not coherence or intellectual clarity but rather propaganda to shore up the weak case for patent and copyright. But if you are going to include trademark under the IP umbrella, then so should defamation law and reputation rights since the arguments for (and against) defamation law is almost identical to those for (and against) trademark. So what I would say is patent is the worst with copyright a close second, in terms of damage to human prosperity and liberty and rights; with trademark and defamation law being a distant third (let’s call them a tie), with other forms like trade secret law being way down the list in terms of damage caused.

I have trademarked “FreedomFest” and “FreedomFest, Inc.” but in your view it’s okay for anyone to use our name and create their own conference with the same name, what the Chinese might call a parallel conference? (a serious problem we’ve been having). I call it “stealing.” What do you call it?

As a technical matter, when an IP right is infringed, it’s infringement. It’s not stealing or theft; these are legal terms that have a distinct meaning. Copying is not theft, even in today’s IP world. Nor, by the way, is fraud or plagiarism; none of these things are theft, or even IP infringement. So I would concede that the people you are complaining about might be infringing your trademark, but no, of course it’s not “stealing.” It’s trademark infringement.

As libertarians our question is whether a given law is just, not whether some action is “okay.” The question is whether a given action violates someone’s legitimate property rights. Not whether it’s “okay.” I don’t know how to answer the question about whether people “using your name to create their own conference” is “okay” or not, in part, because you didn’t provide enough context, and in part, because it’s not clear what you mean by “okay.” I would say that trademark law is unjust, for reasons I explain in my writing, and I can give you that if you want. The main problem with trademark law is this (summarizing from a draft article I just wrote):

In any case, here is the problem with trademark law: it grants to the trademark holder the right to sue a competitor using a mark that is “confusingly similar” to his, on the grounds that it might confuse consumers. The first problem is that “confusing” a consumer is not the same as defrauding him. Second: if A has a given mark and B uses a similar mark to confuse (or even defraud) consumers—say, B sells knockoff Chanel purses—then one would think it is the consumers who have the right to sue B, not A. After all, B has not confused or defrauded Chanel! A third problem is trademark law does not require the consumer be confused—only a “likelihood” of consumer confusion!

The second ground for trademark infringement is “dilution”: that the trademark owner has a property right in the value or reputation represented by his mark and if someone else “tarnishes” or “dilutes” it, even if they are not confusing consumers, then this violates his property rights. But this assumes property rights in reputations or value, which is contrary to the core precepts of private property rights: that they emerge to solve the problem of conflict, and they are assigned to individual actors in scarce resources by virtue of either original appropriation or contractual acquisition. No one can have a property right in the value of something, as Hoppe has explained. ___[tbd]

So there are two big problems with trademark law from a libertarian perspective. First, for classical trademark law, no showing of fraud is required, but only consumer confusion—and, not even a showing of consumer confusion, but only a likelihood of it. And also, the right to sue for damages is given not to the alleged victims of this fraud/confusion—the customers—but to the original mark holder. If the consumers really are victims, they are doubly victimized by losing their right to sue for damages and having it expropriated by some company who was not defrauded. And second, in trying to root property rights in value or reputation, property rights in real things are necessarily diluted, just as the state inflating the underlying money specie necessarily reduces and dilutes the value or purchasing power of held money.

So, let’s say some Chinese company has ‘FreedomFest.’ No, I absolutely do not think they are violating your rights: you have no contract with them, so there is no contract breach; they are not defrauding you, as you know they are not you! They might “take customers” from you or “profit off of you” whatever that means, but all that means is that some consumers are giving the Chinese company some of their own money; this is none of your business, frankly. At most you could argue that the Chinese company is confusing or defrauding its own customers by making them believe they are endorsed by you. If that is the case, these customers ought to have a cause of action for breach of contract or for fraud, against the Chinese conference organizer. Not you. If you have “damages” it’s only “lost business” but you have no right to this business since consumers have a right to spend their money as they see fit. And frankly I doubt any consumer in the case you sparsely mentioned to me really is being defrauded. If they are, again, let them sue under fraud law or contract law in China; even here, even if they win, this is not a vindication of IP or trademark rights since it has nothing to do with IP. IP has nothing to do with plagiarism or fraud. This is a common confusion, often deliberately and dishonestly spread by those with vested IP interests trying to defend IP law; or by people who are ignorant about the differences yet feel compelled to pontificate on this topic in public anyway.

I don’t blame you for registering a trademark, in today’s IP-ridden world, but yes, trademark law should be abolished and we should rely only on contract and property and fraud law. The fact that you are annoyed some Chinese company is using a similar name you do is no more relevant legally or for political theory purposes than some fifth grade girl who is annoyed that another girl copies her haircut or some parents annoyed that a relative gives their kid the same name as their own.

Again, I can explain all this in detail to you if you want, but it gets tedious having to pick apart every single type of IP since they are all different. This is why the socialistic IP defenders lump them all together, even though they are only loosely related. The free market economists in the 1800s were rising up against the artificial state granted monopoly privileges of patent and copyright, mostly because they recognized patent rights are anti-competitive and contrary to free trade. So various states started to abolish their patent systems. We were on the cusp of abolishing patents, but alas, the tide turned. I discuss this in the notes to ch. 7 of The Anti-IP Reader: Free Market Critiques of Intellectual Property. As I wrote there:

“Free market economists began to object to the patent system in the mid-1800s, leading some countries to repeal or delay adopting patent laws. The primary criticism was that protectionist patent grants are incompatible with free trade. However, the “Long Depression” starting in 1873 turned public opinion against free trade, leading the anti-patent movement to collapse and for modern patent systems to eventually become dominant world-wide.11“

Part of the defense of patent and copyright was that they were not artificial monopoly privileges but property rights (a myth you yourself seem to believe). In response to the criticism that they cannot be property rights since they are not material or tangible, are created only by statute, and they expire after an arbitrary, limited time, the defenders said they were a special type of property, “intellectual” property, that is, property deriving its value from the product of the mind or intellectual creativity, like “other” forms of property that are based on intellectual creativity—like trademark or trade secret. So they lumped patent and copyright in with established (exceptional) property rights like trademark and trade secret, a form of stolen valor, to make them seem like natural property rights. And because of confusion stemming from the entire Lockean notion that labor is owned and this is a source of homesteading (see my Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Political Theory: Transcript), this dishonest framing took hold and now people think of legitimate, western, capitalistic property rights as whatever the state stamps with the imprimatur of “property,” and with things that “have value” or that you can “sell” or that result from “labor or effort” (note how Marxian this idea is that you are entitled to a return on your labor or effort; not a surprise since Marx’s labor theory of value is based on the mistaken Lockean notion of the labor theory of property — which also infected Smith and Ricardo of course — see the previous reference; also “Hume on Intellectual Property and the Problematic “Labor” Metaphor”). But of course there can be no property rights in the value of things but only in the physical integrity of the borders of owned resources (see Hoppe on Property Rights in Physical Integrity vs Value). Likewise no information object, no information, no knowledge, nothing intangible or nonmaterial can ever be “owned”; same is true with thoughts, labor, and actions; we do not own our actions or labor. This is the whole mistake.

And this the logic behind defamation and trademark law: that you own your “reputation” or your “good name” or your “good will”. Or other lies like “well trademark law just stops fraud”. Oh really? Then why does the trademark holder have the right to sue, instead of the allegedly defrauded victim? And why does the trademark law not require showing of fraud? It only requires a showing of likelihood of consumer confusion. Confusion is not fraud, and likelihood is not proof of actual fraud or confusion. Why can Chanel require fake Chanel purses to be seized and destroyed even though the consumers who would buy them know they are fakes and are not defrauded? It’s because the real basis of trademark has nothing to do with fraud but instead is based on the idea that you have property rights in intangible things like value or good will because you “put effort” into building up a reputation. Surely you are aware of Rothbard’s (and Block’s) definitive argument against reputation rights/defamation law in The Ethics of Liberty, the chapter “Knowledge, True and False” (also a chapter in Block’s Defending the Undefendable).

So if I were you, in today’s world, yes, I would file trademark rights and I guess you might feel a need to assert them. In a really free society there would be no more trademark rights, so you would simply have to announce loud and clear that you have not endorsed this Chinese conference and that they are imposters, and count on intelligent consumers to notice this and shun the other conference if they really care about the duplicate name. Which I doubt they would, to be honest.

SKOUSEN:

Another example: My wife has written a popular book about the women in the Bible called “Matriarchs of the Messiah” (Cedar Fort Publishers, 2016). A few years later she discovered at least four books of the same title but with a different name as author selling on Amazon. It turned out the be the exact same book my wife had written, only with a Chinese publisher. When notified, Amazon took it down. Are you saying Jo Ann should not have complained about this IP theft?

Best wishes, AEIOU,

KINSELLA:
Well, again, let’s be clear about this. FIRST, in today’s world of copyright, which you apparently support, THERE IS NO COPYRIGHT IN BOOK TITLES. People are FREE to have movies or books with the same name as others because titles are deemed to be too short to be copyrightable. There are many examples today and in history of novels, books, movies, with the same title, that have nothing to do with each other. So even in your IP world, merely having the same title is NOT any kind of IP infringement.

As for the case you mention, your example is not really clear. I’m assuming you are saying one of the books on Amazon was a knockoff of your wife’s book, by a Chinese publisher. Presumably using your wife’s name as author. (So, it was not plagiarism; it was just copyright infringement.) Given that a book infringing copyright was on Amazon’s site, it’s understandable Amazon would have a policy against this, both for its own protection (given that copyright is the law) and also because everyone buys into the copyright mentality. How your wife chooses to enforce her existing copyright or other IP rights is a practical or moral question, not one that concerns whether copyright law is justified or should exist. Given the existence of IP law it’s impossible not to have IP rights (copyright is granted automatically; I have one right now in this message I’m typing) and it’s hard to avoid using them and navigating around them. I’ve written a little monograph on ways to try to avoid using IP rights but it’s not possible to avoid them altogether in today’s world anymore than you can drive without using state roads or fly without using an airline subject to FAA regulations. See Kinsella, Do Business Without Intellectual Property (Liberty.me, 2014).

What my argument is, is that copyright should be abolished. In that case, if some Chinese publisher publishes a copy of your wife’s book under her own name, no, it is of course not violating her rights, as it has not committed trespass against her property, it has not breached a contract with her, it has not defrauded her. It has not even defrauded customers, unless it lies to them, and in this case, they have a cause of action, not your wife. I could imagine Amazon having a policy in such a free world, where it takes down “unauthorized” copies unless the “pirate” puts up a clear warning that its copy is unauthorized, and then readers could decide whether they want the authorized copy from your wife or whether they want to save a couple books by buying a cheaper copy. This is free market competition. I don’t think most people would want to buy the knockoff copy because they might not trust it, but it depends on the price differential. Also, there would no doubt be website hosting free downloads so people would only pay for an Amazon version for the convenience or curation or authorized nature or authorized versions; there would no doubt be huge diversity. As there is now, even in a world with copyright. Surely you realize your wife’s book is already available online for free download, e.g. on Z-library or Library Genesis. Copyright cannot stop copying of information, anymore than the drug war can stop drug use.

So, to be clear, what your wife complained about was not IP theft, it was IP infringement, in particular, copyright infringement, plus probably a violation of Amazon’s Terms of Service. Whether she “should have” complained about it I cannot say; I am not in the ethical advice business. I would never do it myself, but to each his own. In fact I released my recent 800+ page book Legal Foundations of a Free Society (2023) under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, meaning people can copy it, reuse it, translate it, or even publish it without my name on it, for several reasons: first, to prove a point, that copyright doesn’t matter, and is not necessary; second, to be consistent and have the courage of my own convictions; and third, because I would never commit aggression against someone even if the law allowed me, meaning I would never sue someone for patent infringement, for copyright infringement, for antitrust violations, for defamation, for violation of rent control (no offense, Nozick), and so on. So if I would never, ever use this evil fake artificial right the state grants me (without my consent) why not just renounce this right and announce that I’ve done so, to set an example? That said, I don’t blame normal people from telling Amazon “hey, this guy is confusing your customers, violating copyright law, and violating your ToS”. That’s fine, though I would not do it. Instead I would promote the knockoff book to show I’m not afraid. For example, see my posts “Oh yeah? How would like it if I copy and publish your book under my name?!”: On IP Hypocrisy and Calling the Smartasses’ Bluffs” and Russell Madden’s “The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism”.

Hope this is all clear. I know my perspective sounds radical to those used to thinking of IP as part of legitimate, western capitalistic property rights, but I can assure you I’m not alone, and I know what I’m talking about and that the anti-IP view is ascendant among many if not most principled libertarians today.

Best, Stephan

SKOUSEN:

Dear Stephan,

Reading your response reminds me why I never wanted to be a lawyer. Such tedious hairsplitting, trying to distinguish between “stealing” and “infringement.” Ha! I join Shakespeare in saying “first, let’s kill all the lawyers.” 🙂

As for the issue of a parallel conference using our trademarked name “FreedomFest,” we’re not talking about a conference in China named FreedomFest, we’re talking about events in the US using our name. And people are confused, and event organizers are taking advance of our well-publicized name recognition.

We do in fact send a polite letter asking the event organizers that we have a trademark on FreedomFest, and ask them to discontinue using our name. We don’t take them to court, which would be expensive. That’s the Coase theorem at work. Most are unaware of our trademark, and comply, but not all. It’s quite frustrating and costly to constantly go after people taking advantage of our good name.

And no, we do not normally send out a public letter to “all concerned” that we have nothing to do with another conference using our name, since we don’t want to give them any publicity. We work behind the scenes with the imitator and try to resolve it quietly.

Best wishes, AEIOU,

KINSELLA:

Reading your response reminds me why I never wanted to be a lawyer. Such tedious hairsplitting, trying to distinguish between “stealing” and “infringement.” Ha! I join Shakespeare in saying “first, let’s kill all the lawyers.” 🙂

I have the opposite view. It is people who try to defend a clearly immoral law, who dishonestly characterize the law as “property” just to shut down disagreement, and to incorrectly and dishonestly refer to IP infringement as “theft” or “piracy” or “stealing” or “knockoff off” or “ripping off” merely because these latter things are negatively perceived, is why we must hairsplit and debunk their dishonest characterizations and “arguments.” If you want to defend patent law, go ahead, but you can’t say that it’s “plagiarism” or “stealing” to compete with or copy someone. It’s inaccurate and dishonest. A more honest argument would be:

“I like the free market usually, but it fails sometimes; because of free rider effects and so on, sometimes the market will result in an underproduction of creative output like technical innovation and artistic works—a suboptimal amount of innovative works. I believe the state can step in and intervene in the market to fix these market failures by granting carefully calibrated temporary monopoly privileges to so to get us closer to a more optimal production of intellectual works.”

This would be an honest argument and in fact it is what some utilitarians argue. The problem with this argument is it makes clear that you are are not a free market person or Austrian and believe in “market failure,” and that you naively believe the state doesn’t suffer from state failure and can fix market failures; it lays bare the nature of these privileges as contrary to the general private property order (which the Founders, like Jefferson, all admitted!); and it robs you of the ability to huff and puff and use moral and pejorative terms like “stealing” and “ripping off” etc. It also would make clear that you bear the burden of proof of showing that there is in fact a net benefit to your IP system, that is, that it does somewhat fix some real market failure problem and that the net results are positive. But of course, they cannot and never have shown this, meaning that if you are utilitarian you ought to oppose IP unless and until one of your brethren finally produces proof that it does what you say it does! See e.g. the material in Part VI of Stephan Kinsella, ed., The Anti-IP Reader: Free Market Critiques of Intellectual Property (Papinian Press, 2023).

As for the issue of a parallel conference using our trademarked name “FreedomFest,” we’re not talking about a conference in China named FreedomFest, we’re talking about events in the US using our name. And people are confused, and event organizers are taking advance of our well-publicized name recognition.

If people are confused, then the Chinese company is potentially defrauding them or maybe breaching a contract with them. Not with you. You are in fact not confused, not that it violates someone’s rights to “confuse” them; and you are yourself certainly not being defrauded.

We do in fact send a polite letter asking the event organizers that we have a trademark on FreedomFest, and ask them to discontinue using our name. We don’t take them to court, which would be expensive. That’s the Coase theorem at work. Most are unaware of our trademark, and comply, but not all. It’s quite frustrating and costly to constantly go after people taking advantage of our good name.

Yes, and given our system where there are trademarks, your approach is reasonable. That has nothing to do with whether trademark law is just. I will note that you seem to recognize here that even though there is state trademark law it does not actually prevent people from using your name!

And no, we do not normally send out a public letter to “all concerned” that we have nothing to do with another conference using our name, since we don’t want to give them any publicity. We work behind the scenes with the imitator and try to resolve it quietly.

That is all reasonable and fine, and I commiserate with you but it does not mean trademark law is just or compatible with libertarian property rights. You might not “like it” if someone lied about you either, but that does not mean defamation law is just. You might not “like it” if a family member can buy cocaine, but that does not mean the drug war is just. You might not “like it” if someone competes with your new pizza restaurant and “steals” “your” customers, but hey, that’s free market competition.

SKOUSEN:
Dear Stephan,

Oh, my, I write a couple of lines, you write a whole monograph of legalize.

To be clear, Jo Ann found at least four examples of her book being published word for word from her book, “Matriarchs of the Messiah” with a different author and publisher. I’m well aware that you can’t copyright a title, which I don’t agree with, but that’s another matter. The fact is that whether there was copyright law or not, they stole her work. It’s unethical to do that, even if you think it shouldn’t be illegal. You can call it what you want — infringement — but I call it “stealing,” plain and simple. If you don’t, clearly we disagree on what is moral.

Best wishes, AEIOU,

KINSELLA:

Another example: My wife has written a popular book about the women in the Bible called “Matriarchs of the Messiah” (Cedar Fort Publishers, 2016). A few years later she discovered at least four books of the same title but with a different name as author selling on Amazon. It turned out the be the exact same book my wife had written, only with a Chinese publisher. When notified, Amazon took it down. Are you saying Jo Ann should not have complained about this IP theft?

Well, again, let’s be clear about this. FIRST, in today’s world of copyright, which you apparently support, THERE IS NO COPYRIGHT IN BOOK TITLES. People are FREE to have movies or books with the same name as others because titles are deemed to be too short to be copyrightable. There are many examples today and in history of novels, books, movies, with the same title, that have nothing to do with each other. So even in your IP world, merely having the same title is NOT any kind of IP infringement.

As for the case you mention, your example is not really clear. I’m assuming you are saying one of the books on Amazon was a knockoff of your wife’s book, by a Chinese publisher. Presumably using your wife’s name as author. (So, it was not plagiarism; it was just copyright infringement.) Given that a book infringing copyright was on Amazon’s site, it’s understandable Amazon would have a policy against this, both for its own protection (given that copyright is the law) and also because everyone buys into the copyright mentality. How your wife chooses to enforce her existing copyright or other IP rights is a practical or moral question, not one that concerns whether copyright law is justified or should exist. Given the existence of IP law it’s impossible not to have IP rights (copyright is granted automatically; I have one right now in this message I’m typing) and it’s hard to avoid using them and navigating around them. I’ve written a little monograph on ways to try to avoid using IP rights but it’s not possible to avoid them altogether in today’s world anymore than you can drive without using state roads or fly without using an airline subject to FAA regulations. See Kinsella, Do Business Without Intellectual Property (Liberty.me, 2014).

What my argument is, is that copyright should be abolished. In that case, if some Chinese publisher publishes a copy of your wife’s book under her own name, no, it is of course not violating her rights, as it has not committed trespass against her property, it has not breached a contract with her, it has not defrauded her. It has not even defrauded customers, unless it lies to them, and in this case, they have a cause of action, not your wife. I could imagine Amazon having a policy in such a free world, where it takes down “unauthorized” copies unless the “pirate” puts up a clear warning that its copy is unauthorized, and then readers could decide whether they want the authorized copy from your wife or whether they want to save a couple books by buying a cheaper copy. This is free market competition. I don’t think most people would want to buy the knockoff copy because they might not trust it, but it depends on the price differential. Also, there would no doubt be website hosting free downloads so people would only pay for an Amazon version for the convenience or curation or authorized nature or authorized versions; there would no doubt be huge diversity. As there is now, even in a world with copyright. Surely you realize your wife’s book is already available online for free download, e.g. on Z-library or Library Genesis. Copyright cannot stop copying of information, anymore than the drug war can stop drug use.

So, to be clear, what your wife complained about was not IP theft, it was IP infringement, in particular, copyright infringement, plus probably a violation of Amazon’s Terms of Service. Whether she “should have” complained about it I cannot say; I am not in the ethical advice business. I would never do it myself, but to each his own. In fact I released my recent 800+ page book Legal Foundations of a Free Society (2023) under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, meaning people can copy it, reuse it, translate it, or even publish it without my name on it, for several reasons: first, to prove a point, that copyright doesn’t matter, and is not necessary; second, to be consistent and have the courage of my own convictions; and third, because I would never commit aggression against someone even if the law allowed me, meaning I would never sue someone for patent infringement, for copyright infringement, for antitrust violations, for defamation, for violation of rent control (no offense, Nozick), and so on. So if I would never, ever use this evil fake artificial right the state grants me (without my consent) why not just renounce this right and announce that I’ve done so, to set an example? That said, I don’t blame normal people from telling Amazon “hey, this guy is confusing your customers, violating copyright law, and violating your ToS”. That’s fine, though I would not do it. Instead I would promote the knockoff book to show I’m not afraid. For example, see my posts “Oh yeah? How would like it if I copy and publish your book under my name?!”: On IP Hypocrisy and Calling the Smartasses’ Bluffs” and Russell Madden’s “The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism”.

Hope this is all clear. I know my perspective sounds radical to those used to thinking of IP as part of legitimate, western capitalistic property rights, but I can assure you I’m not alone, and I know what I’m talking about and that the anti-IP view is ascendant among many if not most principled libertarians today.

Best, Stephan

KINSELLA:

Oh, my, I write a couple of lines, you write a whole monograph of legalese.

I … apologize?

To be clear, Jo Ann found at least four examples of her book being published word for word from her book, “Matriarchs of the Messiah” with a different author and publisher.

Ah. Different author. Well that’s odd. I thought you implied one of them had her name on it. In any case, it’s rare in my experience to change the author’s name, since usually that results in lower sales. For example if I upload a copy on Kindle of Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, I am not being dishonest about the author nor am I violating copyright (it’s public domain), and might sell a few copies. If I say “Romeo and Juliet by Stephan Kinsella,” then I would assume (a) no one will buy it because they know I’m not the real author and they will wonder what else I might have changed in the text, if I changed the author’s name; or (b) people will assume it’s a new interpretation or something new and then sue me for a refund, contract breach, or fraud after realizing I’ve duped them. In any case, in this situation I have not violated Shakespeare’s rights. And in your wife’s case, whether her name is, or is not, on the book, they have infringed her copyright, but have not violated her actual, natural rights.

I’m well aware that you can’t copyright a title, which I don’t agree with,

I don’t think you know enough about copyright law to understand why this makes sense. Should no one be able to ever publish a book called “Jaws”? What about a book about actual jaws?

but that’s another matter. The fact is that whether there was copyright law or not, they stole her work. It’s unethical to do that, even if you think it shouldn’t be illegal.

It’s arguably unethical to publish her book with a fake name on it, although the only reason they do it is because there is copyright law and they are trying to avoid getting caught. Without copyright law they would not have to hide it. In that case your wife made the book public and can’t complain if others copy it. If you want to keep information to yourself, keep it to yourself, as Benjamin Tucker wrote (see LFFS, p. 668). Suppose you publish your own Kindle version tomorrow of Huckleberry Fin. Is that unethical? Or an older version of The Bible. I don’t see why. Without copyright your wife’s book would be as public domain as they are and as long as they do not misrepresent anything—such as, that they were endorsed or authorized by your wife, or that they are your wife, which would be dishonest and immoral, I agree—then there is nothing unethical about it, any more than after Apple came out with the iphone it was “unethical” for competitors to come out with their own touch-screen smartphones.

You can call it what you want — infringement — but I call it “stealing,” plain and simple. If you don’t, clearly we disagree on what is moral.

You can call it what you want but this is not an argument. Moreover, the question is not about morality it’s about aggression, trespass, property rights, and what the law should be.

That’s how I see it in any case.

SKOUSEN:

Sorry, Stephan, but I won’t play legal games with adjectives. Let’s call a spade a spade: taking someone’s written work and copying it and putting another person’s name on it is called plagiarism and a form of theft. If you don’t think so, we are living on two different planets.

One of my friends just spent three years writing a book. He asks, “If I can’t protect my intellectual property then someone else could just copy my book and sell it without compensating me in any way.” Clearly to him and me, that’s dishonest. That’s theft. That’s plagiarism. What do you call it?

Best, AEIOU,

KINSELLA:

Reading your response reminds me why I never wanted to be a lawyer. Such tedious hairsplitting, trying to distinguish between “stealing” and “infringement.” Ha! I join Shakespeare in saying “first, let’s kill all the lawyers.” 🙂

I have the opposite view. It is people who try to defend a clearly immoral law, who dishonestly characterize the law as “property” just to shut down disagreement, and to incorrectly and dishonestly refer to IP infringement as “theft” or “piracy” or “stealing” or “knockoff off” or “ripping off” merely because these latter things are negatively perceived, is why we must hairsplit and debunk their dishonest characterizations and “arguments.” If you want to defend patent law, go ahead, but you can’t say that it’s “plagiarism” or “stealing” to compete with or copy someone. It’s inaccurate and dishonest. A more honest argument would be:

“I like the free market usually, but it fails sometimes; because of free rider effects and so on, sometimes the market will result in an underproduction of creative output like technical innovation and artistic works—a suboptimal amount of innovative works. I believe the state can step in and intervene in the market to fix these market failures by granting carefully calibrated temporary monopoly privileges to so to get us closer to a more optimal production of intellectual works.

This would be an honest argument and in fact it is what some utilitarians argue. The problem with this argument is it makes clear that you are are not a free market person or Austrian and believe in “market failure,” and that you naively believe the state doesn’t suffer from state failure and can fix market failures; it lays bare the nature of these privileges as contrary to the general private property order (which the Founders, like Jefferson, all admitted!); and it robs you of the ability to huff and puff and use moral and pejorative terms like “stealing” and “ripping off” etc. It also would make clear that you bear the burden of proof of showing that there is in fact a net benefit to your IP system, that is, that it does somewhat fix some real market failure problem and that the net results are positive. But of course, they cannot and never have shown this, meaning that if you are utilitarian you ought to oppose IP unless and until one of your brethren finally produces proof that it does what you say it does! See e.g. the material in Part VI of Stephan Kinsella, ed., The Anti-IP Reader: Free Market Critiques of Intellectual Property (Papinian Press, 2023).

As for the issue of a parallel conference using our trademarked name “FreedomFest,” we’re not talking about a conference in China named FreedomFest, we’re talking about events in the US using our name. And people are confused, and event organizers are taking advance of our well-publicized name recognition.

If people are confused, then the Chinese company is potentially defrauding them or maybe breaching a contract with them. Not with you. You are in fact not confused, not that it violates someone’s rights to “confuse” them; and you are yourself certainly not being defrauded.

We do in fact send a polite letter asking the event organizers that we have a trademark on FreedomFest, and ask them to discontinue using our name. We don’t take them to court, which would be expensive. That’s the Coase theorem at work. Most are unaware of our trademark, and comply, but not all. It’s quite frustrating and costly to constantly go after people taking advantage of our good name.

Yes, and given our system where there are trademarks, your approach is reasonable. That has nothing to do with whether trademark law is just. I will note that you seem to recognize here that even though there is state trademark law it does not actually prevent people from using your name!

And no, we do not normally send out a public letter to “all concerned” that we have nothing to do with another conference using our name, since we don’t want to give them any publicity. We work behind the scenes with the imitator and try to resolve it quietly.

That is all reasonable and fine, and I commiserate with you but it does not mean trademark law is just or compatible with libertarian property rights. You might not “like it” if someone lied about you either, but that does not mean defamation law is just. You might not “like it” if a family member can buy cocaine, but that does not mean the drug war is just. You might not “like it” if someone competes with your new pizza restaurant and “steals” “your” customers, but hey, that’s free market competition.

SKOUSEN:

I was thinking of the clever title, “The Worldly Philosophers,” by Robert Heilbroner. It’s the best title I’ve ever seen for a history of economic thought. I’ve envied it for years. But I would never take that title and make it my own. Instead, I’m stuck with the bland title “The Making of Modern Economics.” For me to replace it with “The Worldly Philosophers” would be unethical.

KINSELLA:

I disagree strongly with you here. There is nothing unethical whatsoever about it. And you would not be “taking it” or “making it your own.” I think it might be unwise because the title is so common that it would confuse people. But this is not always the case, for more obscure and/or common titles. I recall George Lucas whined about Reagan’s SDI being called Star Wars. Too bad buddy. There is literally nothing inherently unethical about using a similar or the same title. In fact it’s very common. See e.g. 10 Films With The Same Title That Are Not The Same Movie or 7 Books That Share the Same Title. There is a reason even our insane overbroad copyright law doesn’t do this. It would probably be such a restriction on speech that it would violate the first amendment, which is the same reason for the merger of ideas and expression doctrine that limits the scope of copyright: if there is only one or a limited number of ways of expressing an idea then a copyright on that expression would in effect be a copyright on the idea itself, or a fact. So therefore it’s prohibited; similar reasoning lies behind the idea that you can’t get a copyright on a very short title, it would block too many uses of language to describe some idea.

***

I’m about to let you have the last word! I think we’ve gone far enough. I think I’ve been as explicit as possible here yet you still seem unable to believe I really want to abolish all forms of IP and think there is nothing immoral about copying and using public information! Trust me, I really do! 🙂

***

I think we’ve gone around enough on this. If you want a last word have at it. I think at this point, unless you really want to drill down into this and do some reading and have some further questions, I think I’ve said all I can say to you as I’ve been very explicit and will probably have to start repeating myself.

All best, Stephan

KINSELLA:

I take it this is a summary of your views:

“I would call it free market competition. There is nothing wrong with copying, using, building on, remixing, emulating, or competing with others. If someone publishes a novel, I can copy it (unless I have a contract not to). If someone releases a new innovative product into the world, I can emulate and copy it and compete with them. By making information public you can’t complain if others copy or learn from it or compete with you. It’s not unethical in the slightest; to the contrary, this emulation and learning and competition is how the human race prospers and grows and thrives.”

I see nothing wrong with writing a book or article that agrees or disagrees with someone else’s work or ideas. But you always need to give credit or to cite the source of the work or the idea.

I think it’s generally a good idea but no, not always. Many books don’t have footnotes, and not everyone remembers the source of every idea. I think no one shoudl be dishonest and you should give credit where feasible. There are standards of academic scholarship and plagiarism for this reason. None of this has anything to do with copyright law. This would all be true in a world without copyright. In fact I would say there would be less plagiarism in a copyright free world, since people would not be afraid of admitting “sure, I got this idea from him; sure, I copied this guy’s product and improved on it.” As it is, people are afraid of IP infringement liability so they try to hide it sometimes. IP encourages plagiarism and dishonesty. Likewise, without defamation law, defamation would have less power. In today’s world everyone things that if you lie about someone, then the “victim” has a right to sue for defamation, so if they don’t, it must be true. I.e., the very existence of the right to sue for defamation, gives defamatory statements more potency. In a free market where people have the right to tell lies about others, that is, defame them (which, yes, I would agree is immoral, as dishonesty is as a general matter), then people would take such statements with a grain of salt, since they know the speaker has no legal liability. Thus, people would count much more on reputation. Given your conventional and mainstream–and unlibertarian–views on IP, my guess is you probably also agree with blackmail law, defamation law, and so on. Probably taxation too, and the occasional “justified” war. I would hope you at least oppose, I don’t know, the drug war, antitrust law, the minimum wage, sedition law, and so on.

You also need to get permission from the original author of a work to publish it on your own if the author is still alive and you can get his permission.

I completely disagree. If someone makes something public, they have no right to complain if others copy it. You cannot own information, Mark. It is literally impossible. I only need “permission” from someone who has the legal right to stop me. He only has this right if he owns the thing. He does not. No one owns patterns of information. It’s not an ownable thing. I’m not sure how much clearer I can be about this. I discuss this in many places in LFFS (anyone interested can search for “ownable”).

For sure, you must not put your name or someone else’s name on the work. That would be dishonest (plagiarism).

Sure. I agree. I’ve already agreed with you on citations, giving attribution, and plagiarism, but these are moral or ethical issues, that have nothing to do with copyright and which would exist without a system of copyright.

As for patents, an inventor may spent millions developing a valuable invention and needs to be compensated. For an imitator to just reproduce his invention without compensation is unethical and should be a theft or fraud under the law.

It is not theft, it is not fraud. This is not how you argue for what laws are libertarian or just; by calling it property or fraud or theft. Fraud has a precise meaning. I discuss this in detail in LFFS, e.g. ch. 9, Part III.E.

Otherwise, there is no incentive to produce the new invention in the first place. That is the main thesis of William Weld’s “The Most Powerful Idea in the World” (English patent law).

You are now simply assuming that the purpose of law and justice, and the way we justify law, is by talking about incentives, and you are also assuming there is market failure because the implicit assumption is there is suboptimal production of innovation in a free market so we need to have state intervention to grant a temporary monopoly to incentives “more” innovation (no matter the cost!). I don’t know what kind of reasoning this is supposed to be, but it’s not Austrian or libertarian.

Imagine pharmaceutical companies spending millions to develop a new drug, and trying to compete with imitators who did not have to finance the development of the drug. Would those miracle drugs be developed with the proper incentives? Not likely.

Well, sure, Big Pharma has their propaganda lines they trot out to protect their monopoly profits, but for anyone seriously interested in this issue, I suggest Boldrin and Levine, Against Intellectual Monopoly, ch. 9, or the summary by Jacob H. Huebert, “The Fight against Intellectual Property,” from ch. 10 of his excellent book Libertarianism Today (Praeger, 2010).

SKOUSEN:

I must admit this is an area of libertarian debate that I was not familiar with until we began our discussion and found it quite shocking, to be honest.  My friends I talk to in the business world just shake their heads in disbelief, like this is another crazy libertarian idea.  I’m afraid it would come off the same way if we had a debate on it at FreedomFest.  It would be considered a fringe or extremist view, and contrary to the standard libertarian defense of property rights.
Best, AEIOU,
KINSELLA:
your response that you are shocked, shocked, that any libertarian is anti-IP reminds me of Rothbard’s response to Loren Lomasky for being shocked, shocked at Hoppe’s anarchism:
“[Lomasky] is shocked and stunned that Hoppe is not simply adefender of existing capitalism; his book is “no less than a manifesto for untrammeled anarchism.” Well, heavens to Betsy! Anarchism! One wonders where Lomasky has been for the last 20 years! Perhaps the knowledge has not yet penetrated to the fastnesses of Minnesota, but anarchism has been a vibrant part of the libertarian dialogue for a long time, as most readers of Liberty well know.”

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/10/murray-n-rothbard/hoppephobia/

Now a few comments below —
I’ll check out Ridley’s book, but I can also point to libertarians who strongly support property rights when it comes to books and inventions.
You say this, but I am not aware of any good, solid libertarian arguments for “property rights” in books/inventions. If you can point me to one, I’d like to see it. I have never heard a good argument for IP, rooted in libertarian property rights principles.
  I’m sure you are aware that resort to authority is one of the fallacies we learned in logic classes.  But we all do it anyway.
I thought about this last night.  Perhaps ideas themselves cannot be protected, but when they become a book or article is published, or an invention actually becomes a product or service in the market place, it does become a property right that should defended in law.
But you notice that you are now seeing problems with your initial assumptions, and trying to re-invent a new rationale on the fly, while you admitted previously you don’t know much about this topic. Perhaps you should stop trying to tendentiously argue for IP just because you assume it’s good, and stop and think about it and revisit the basics of libertarian property rights and free market principles and really examine whether you can actually justify IP rights, instead of trying to keep finding yet another way to squeeze it in. I assure you that whatever new thing you stumble across, someone else has already tried, and I have already debunked it.
Mark, I was an Objectivist at first. I was an engineer, then a patent attorney. I am pro-innovation, pro-mind, pro-technology. I believed in IP rights at first for the same reasons you do: they seem to be part of “capitalism”; everyone calls them “property” rights; Rand was in favor of them; and so on. However as I think as you are starting to recognize, the arguments for IP are messy and sloppy and all over the map, and full of holes. This is why you yourself here said “okay okay maybe we can’t have property in ideas, but maybe in application of ideas???” some tendentious desperate attempt to rescue some semblance of your earlier presumptions. Instead of trying to come up with this on the fly after conceding you have not read much on this, and then rejecting arguments from authority while at the same time using it (by saying hey, some of my friends think you are crazy and there are people who argue for property rights in ideas… even after you concede this is problematic) …. why don’t you just adopt a position of humility, admit this is confusing and complex, and that you don’t know, instead of trying to find a way to justify it even though you admit you are not equipped to do so? I myself tried for years to justify IP and I finally came to my position after exploring everything, after thoroughly understanding actual IP law and the utilitarian and consequentialist and deontological arguments for and against IP, and finally had to refine and hone my understanding of the basis of libertarian principles and property rights. This, combined with my understanding of actual IP law, let me to categorically conclude that all IP law is actually completely unjust. You can disagree with me, but you can’t mount a coherent case for IP or a coherent criticism of my position without actually understanding IP law and the nature and basis of just property rights. I have come to conclude that there is no good argument for IP and that, frankly, among libertarian issues, the IP issue is the most clear-cut and obvious case we have, next to the drug war. There may be debate about libertarian issues like minarchy vs. anarchy; abortion; immigration; and so on, but there is no libertarian argument for the drug war, and there is no libertarian argument for IP. You may not be convinced of this but I am, and I think I’m entitled to this view after all the decades of work I’ve put into it and my work in putting out publications, speeches, etc, doing my best to explain this to any willing and open-minded listener.
My point is I tried to justify IP and failed–because it cannot be justified.
  Making it common property sounds more like communism rather free-market capitalism, as a well-respected libertarian wrote me last night.
Actually granting rights in non-scarce objects has to take away or come at the expense of established property rights in scarce resources, just as inflating money supply reduces the purchasing power of existing held money Just as creating positive rights like welfare rights comes at the expense of other rights. NOthing is for free. If you grant IP rights you take away real rights. I have already explaine this in detail. See e.g. Intellectual Property Rights as Negative Servitudes or this section of my book https://www.stephankinsella.com/lffs/ LFFS (which is online for free!) : ch. 15, Part IV.B.
As such, the best solution is for the property owner of the trademark, patent, copyright or IP to have the right to grant permission or not to would-be users and come to an agreement.
Surely you realize that by calling someone a “property owner” of a patent, etc., is question begging, if the question is whether such rights are legitimate.  You might as well say that a slaveowner in the antebellum south owns his slaves and ought to sell them to the highest bidder etc.
For example, a few weeks ago I found a funny cartoon I wanted to reprint in my Skousen CAFE.  I wrote to the cartoonist and he granted me permission at no charge.  It was a voluntary agreement, the way it should work in a libertarian society.
No. In a libertarian society you know that you do not need his permission, since he does not own information so he has no right to stop you.
  But for me to run the cartoon without permission or payment would be a violation of his property rights.
It would be a violation of his legal property rights but not his natural property rights. I am sure you realize that the existence of a positive law does not come with a built in justification of that law.
***
I’ve sent out the link of our debate to a bunch of intelligent libertarians, many of them lawyers, and they have all come back (so far) seeing a legitimate purpose for patents, trademarks, copyrights and IP rights, as an incentive to encourage innovation and a defense of property rights.  I have not gotten permission to mention their names, but you would recognize many of them.
well. Most of my fellow IP attorneys are all in favor patents. Surprise. Most lawyers even most lawyer libertarians are extreme to an extent legal positivists and have been taught to think in utilitarian terms, so again, this is not surprising. They are also good are regurgitating what they are taught in law school and in thinking, at best, in Constuttional terms. I readily admit the Constitution authorizes federal patent and copyright law (but not trademark law, which is why the Lanham Act is in my view unconstitutional; and I also think the the First Amendment has made the copyright act unconstitutional — “Copyright is Unconstitutional”). Anyway earlier you were railing against arguments from authority. So what is the relevance that utilitarian, welfare-maximizing unprincipled legal positivist attorneys agree with yet another statist statute? And if you want to go by authority, name me a single person, in the world, who knows more about IP policy arguments from a free market point of view than I do. Hint: there is no one.
I can understand why you and others see many problems with patent and IP laws, but that doesn’t mean we go to the extreme and abolish all such laws.
My argument is not that we should abolish them because there are ‘some problems,’ so this is a straw man. My argument is that these laws violate property rights and are incompatible with justice, free markets, property rights, and so on. Completely incompatible. It’s like the drug war, Mark. There are no good arguments at all for IP law. None. It’s the clearest case possible of a law that is clearly unjust and unlibertarian, next to the drug war.
  What we’re searching for is the Aristotelian “golden mean” of the right degree of patent, copyright and IP laws, as Matt Ridley notes in his WSJ column.
This is like saying we should have the right degree of poison, as Rand would say, or the right amount of punishment for possessing cocaine.
I could be wrong, but are you an anarchist like Murray Rothbard and Hans Herman Hoppe?
Yes, but my argument against IP does not depend on anarchism. Even a minarchist ought to oppose IP law. I have explained why extensively in my writing.
I think this whole debate really comes down to their philosophy of anarchy, that there’s no legitimate function of government, and so they have justified an extreme position against all such IP laws.  Even Matt Ridley hasn’t gone that far, based on the WSJ column he wrote.
I do not oppose IP in the name of anarchy. There are several arguments against IP. None of them depend on anarchy. They don’t even all depend on being libertarian.
  1. statute and legislation are illegitimate means of making law.  The common law and Roman law–decentralized law making–are superior. You don’t need to be an anarchist or even a libertarian, to believe this. I discuss this in detail in chapter 13 of LFFS. https://www.stephankinsella.com/lffs/. See also on this Bruno Leoni, Giovanni Sartori, and others. You can’t have patent or copyright without IP law. So it is presumptively invalid.
  2. Patent and copyright are clearly anti-competitive and censorial artificial grants of monopoly privilege that restrict natural property rights, censor free speech and freedom of the press, and restrict competition and create monopolies. there is no doubt about this. the courts readily admit it. the ostensible justification is that these temporary derogations from the free market incentives the promotion of intelletual works and fix a market failure. At the very least this means the burden of proof is on the advocates to show that this problem is real, and that the solution works and creates more wealth than the system costs. No one has ever shown this. As an Austrian I would argue they could never show this, but in any case, even following normal econometrics etc. no one has been able to prove this. The evidence against them is overwhelming. See, e.g., Legal Scholars: Thumbs Down on Patent and Copyright” and “The Overwhelming Empirical Case Against Patent and Copyright”.
  3. Patent and copyright are nonconsensual negative easements (Intellectual Property Rights as Negative Servitudes) and thus presumptively unjust. What is the argument for them? The only argument is that if you create something you should own it, or that we have property rights in value, or that the purpose of law is to provide the right “incentives” to remedy a market failure or deficiency or suboptimal condition that would result on the free market. All three of these are confused and wrong, as I have explained ad nauseum.
And there are others. In short, IP rights are contrary to natural property rights that we all agree are just; and as for the utilitarian arguments for them, the proponents have not yet satisified their burden of proof. None of this requires one to be an anarchist, or, frankly, even a libertarian. Just a proponent of justice and property rights, free markets, competition, and so on.
***

As for Ridley: I am not dismissing him. I simply say Ridley has no good arguments for IP, nor does anyone. He is honest and perspicacious enough to see some problems with IP from a consequentialist point of view, that is, he sees errors in the pro-IP arguments advanced by consequentialists and utilitarians. He is not a principled libertarian though so he can’t go “all the way” because that’s not how he’s thinking. If you think he advances a coherent, systematic case for the justice of IP rights, rooted in a solid understanding of Austrian economics and libertarian conceptions of rights and property rights, please point me to it. In fact if you know of anyone who advances such a case, please point me to it, since I am not aware of any. There are no good arguments for IP.

You can make a socialist argument for IP: it’s just another form of institutionalized aggression against private property rights and causes human death and destruction, which is what all socialist-statist policies do. Sure, IP does a good job at reducing human freedom and wealth and prosperity. I don’t regard that as a libertarian or good argument for it, since my goal is human innovation, prosperity, freedom, not death and destruction and stultification.
You could make a utilitarian argument for it, but then you bear the burden of proof. None of them have proved it or made out their case yet. This is almost universally acknowledged. See the link above.
You could argue like a Randian that you should have a property rights in “values” or the “value of things” or the law should “incentivize” to fix “market failures,” but all these arguments are flawed for various Austrian and methodological and principled libertarian reasons.
I have quite literally seen all the arguments for IP and that is being generous because most of them do not qualify as real arguments, but are tendentious claims or regurgitations of unthinking bromides, and the others are all flawed and/or not based at all on sound economics, honest reasoning, or libertarian principles that we all here already claim to agree with. So I think I am solid ground in saying there are literally no good arguments for IP.
Let me be clear. I would not make this claim about the state, or abortion, or the minimum wage, or tariffs, or whatever. I don’t agree with the statist side of these arguments, or the “other” side, but I concede you can make a decent “unlibertarian” argument on some of these issues.  Anarchy vs. minarchy is difficult. Immigration too. You can even advance a passable argument for public education, or for tariffs, or the BIG. But there are no sincere, coherent, libertarian-based good arguments for IP (or for the drug war, tbh). It took me a while to realize this, but this is my view, developed after decades of study, experience, thought, and debate on this issue.
If you are aware of an actually good argument for IP that I’ve missed and not already debunked or redundant with one already debunked, send it on. But merely barking repeated questions like “I don’t see how this would work” or “my friends think this is crazy!” is not an argument. Questions are not arguments nor are appeals to amateur authority.

SKOUSEN:

I think we disagree fundamentally on what is ethical or not. MAS

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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.

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