Copying, Patent Infringement, Copyright Infringement are not “Theft”, Stealing, Piracy, Plagiarism, Knocking Off, Ripping Off

[From my Webnote series]

• Stop calling patent and copyright “property”; stop calling copying “theft” and “piracy”
• All-In Podcast Concern over China and IP “Theft”
• Lacalle on China and IP “Theft”
• Gaius, Theft, and IP Infringement
• Bullard, “Is Intellectual Property Theft?”
• Oklahoma Daily Column: Intellectual Property Is Theft
• TechCentral: But, Apple, copying isn’t theft
• You wouldn’t download a car!
• Trump’s Proclamation World Intellectual Property Day, 2025: Of course these geniuses just repeat the same nonsense about IP being “the same as” property and how infringing IP is “theft” of course they are insinuating China “steals American IP,” all of which are confused bullshit lies and distortions. See The China Stealing IP Myth; The Structural Unity of Real and Intellectual Property; KOL460 | Rant about the “China is Stealing Our IP” Myth
• On “fraud”: For my own view as to the correct way to view fraud, see Kinsella, ““A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), Part III.E, and “The Title-Transfer Theory of Contract,” in David Howden, ed., Palgrave Handbook of Misesian Austrian Economics (Palgrave, forthcoming 2025), section “Some Implications of the TTTC,” subsection “Fraud.”

Actually, Kevin Carson: Intellectual Property is Theft! and Sanchez: Intellectual Property Is Theft

See my post Copying is Not A Tort.

Update: See the Federalist Society forum AI Training vs. Copyright Law: Updates from the Copyright Office and the Courts, where one “Regan Smith,” a JD from Harvard no less, now Senior Vice President & General Counsel at the News/Media Alliance, and previously General Counsel and Associate Register of Copyrights at the U.S. Copyright Office, seems not to understand this at all:

That is what copyright is intended to produce to create the both the creation and the [48:52] dissemination of something. I don’t know why someone would write a book for it to be ripped off, plagiarized, and then [48:59] used to compete against them.”

Uh, no, Harvard, copyright infringement is not stealing, it’s not taking, it’s not theft, it’s not piracy, it’s not “ripping off,” it’s not “taking,” and it’s not plagiarism.