Infoanarchism is the view that everyone should have the right to copy and share any information with others , unless they have voluntarily agreed not to do so. Copying and sharing (for free or for a fee) books and other types of texts, films, musical recordings, technological solutions, drug recipes, designs for consumer items, etc. should be permitted. All forms of law protecting so-called intellectual property—patent law, copyright law, and trademark law—should be abolished. Infoanarchists justify their view in two different ways. First, they argue that intellectual property law is immoral because it grants certain entities the right to control what others do with their property (moral infoanarchism). Second, they argue that infoanarchist solutions would benefit the development of culture and science (economic infoanarchism).

What is intellectual property?
Traditionally, intellectual property is discussed in positive terms. It is argued that whoever creates information is its owner and, therefore, should have the right to decide how it is disseminated and to profit from its dissemination . This idea has both a “metaphysical” justification—the author of the information has a right to it because they are its creator—and an “economic” justification—the author of the information has the right to profit from it because this provides an excellent economic incentive to create new information.

However, to fully understand intellectual property rights, we must express them in negative terms. Any right we grant to someone necessarily denies rights to others (for example, if an individual has the right not to be the target of aggression, this denies others the right to engage in aggressive behavior). What rights do third parties lose as a result of the existence of intellectual property laws? Granting someone ownership of information means limiting the rights of all others to manage their property to the extent that it could be used to reproduce and share information covered by intellectual property rights. Someone whom the state (or other law enforcement agency) recognizes as the owner of the information has the right to prohibit others from using their property if they wish to use it to copy and distribute the information covered by the intellectual property rights. For example:
– if A has an intellectual property right to a book, then B cannot use his property (e.g. his computer, printer and paper) to create and share with others a copy of this book,
– if A has an intellectual property right to a formula for a drug (this formula has been patented by him), then B has no right to use his property to produce and distribute this drug.

Intellectual property law therefore creates the following legal entities:
(1) The information owner – the person who has the right to freely reproduce and share information with others. Ownership of information is typically acquired by its creator, the person who first patented the idea, the person who acquired this right from the creator or the patenting party (e.g., a publisher or heir).
(2) Information that becomes the object of legal protection – this may take the form of text, a work of art (sculpture, painting, musical piece, film) or a fragment thereof, an idea or technological solution (drug formula, device design, or even a method for solving a problem), the name of a product, or a graphic symbol.
(3) Individuals who lose the right to manage their property to the extent they wish to reproduce (or recreate) and share this information.
(4) The extent of the loss of rights to manage one’s property , which applies to persons who are not the authors of information, and which determines what can be done with the information (often information can be reproduced for personal use, e.g. making a copy of a recording, it cannot be distributed without the owner’s consent) and for how long the information is the property of a given person (how long the patent protection for a given good is valid, how long a work of art or text cannot be reproduced and made available without the author’s consent, etc.).

Intellectual property law can be very diverse and defines in different ways what type of information can become intellectual property, who is excluded from reproducing/sharing that information, how long the information is protected, and, ultimately, what the penalties are for violating it. There is not space here to analyze all the varieties of intellectual property law; suffice it to show that they all rest on the same principle, which is clearly inconsistent with the nonaggression principle central to libertarianism.

Intellectual Property Law and the Principle of Nonaggression:
A person who has legally acquired title to a good has the right to manage that good in any way they choose, provided they do not violate the rights of another person. The right to manage that good (or the right to manage it as they wish) can be lost in three ways:
(1) if we voluntarily relinquish this right (e.g., by selling the good to someone else or signing a contract in which we agree to use the good in a specific way),
(2) if we violate the rights of another person and our property is used as compensation for the violation (e.g., if we damage someone’s car, we lose the right to a certain sum of money that will be used as compensation),
(3) if we violate the rights of another person and those property are destroyed by the victim defending themselves against violence (if we attack someone and, in defense, they destroy something belonging to us).
If none of these situations apply, no one has the right to prevent another person from using their property in any way they choose. It’s clear, then, that intellectual property law conflicts with the fundamental right of every individual to manage their property. By granting one person ownership of information, we deny all others the right to freely manage their legally acquired property. These individuals can no longer do whatever they want with their property—they can no longer use it to copy and share information protected by intellectual property law.

Let’s imagine the following situation: A wrote and published a poem, and the state granted him copyright in it. B, using his computer and printer, transcribed the poem, printed a copy, and sold it to C. Intellectual property law allows A to use state coercion to prohibit B and C from making such a transaction, or if the transaction had already taken place, to fine B (and sometimes C as well) or imprison them. However, we must ask, at what point did B initiate violence against A? Only then would it be morally justifiable to restrict the rights or punish B. The answer to this question seems simple: B did not initiate violence against A. By transcribing the poem on his own computer and making a copy—using his own copier and paper—of it, B did not take from A either the original poem, any copy of the poem, or any other property in A’s possession. A’s material property was not damaged in any way. By copying and sharing the copy, B was solely exploiting his own property and did not cause A to lose control of his property, and therefore did not initiate violence. Instead, A initiated such violence by asking the state to prevent B from controlling his property or to impose a penalty on him.

This means that—according to libertarian moral theory— every person has the right to reproduce and share any information, as long as, in doing so, they do not prevent others from freely using their property . Libertarians therefore permit the copying and free use (including selling) of specific texts, works of art, recordings, as well as ideas or solutions created by other people, without the need to compensate their authors (or those who have acquired copyrights or patents) for the losses they allegedly suffer as a result of the voluntary actions of other individuals. For example, it is consistent with libertarian morality to:
– buy a book (music recording, etc.), copy it and put it on the internet so that anyone can download it,
– buy a book, make copies, print a large number of copies and sell it without paying any fees to the author or publisher,
– publicly perform or reproduce (for profit or not) other people’s works,
– copy product designs designed by other people and use them to produce and sell your own products,
– use technologies or problem-solving methods invented by other people, also for your own financial gain, etc.

Note that consent to infoanarchism does not imply a recognition that completely arbitrary copying and sharing of information created by others is always a morally appropriate action. This consent merely implies a recognition that because the person copying and sharing is not initiating violence against anyone, we must not use violence against them (violence may only be used to defend ourselves against violence from others). It is important to remember that one can simultaneously be an infoanarchist and recognize that copying/sharing carries a moral obligation to compensate the creator of the information for their effort in creating it, provided that individuals should accept this moral obligation voluntarily and not be forced to do so.

The infinite reproducibility of information.
The fact of copying a piece of information—as seen in the example of the poem—does not mean that the person who created it loses access to it. One cannot lose access to information in one’s possession except by losing the medium on which it is recorded. By copying a music CD purchased in a store, I do not deprive its creator of access to that recording or any copy in which they possess it . The fact that we can copy some information without depriving its creator of access to it or the medium on which it is recorded is sometimes referred to as the infinite reproducibility of information . By owning a copy of some information, I can copy it any number of times without compromising the integrity of other copies of that information. The infinite reproducibility of information means that information, once created and released into circulation, can be used without restriction by all who have access to it. Unlike material goods, the fact that one person uses some information does not prevent others from using it. If one person uses a good, no other person in the world can use it. However, if someone uses information, they do not in any way limit the ability of others to use it. This extraordinary property of information is a great blessing for humanity—information is the only good that can be multiplied without limit, bestowed upon others.

Libertarian Attempts to Defend the Idea of ​​Intellectual Property:
A few words are necessary here about a specific theory advanced by some libertarian theorists, which aims to demonstrate that intellectual property law is not inconsistent with the nonaggression principle. This argument suggests that a person who purchases a book (recording, or work of art) implicitly contracts with its author not to copy or share it. Therefore, the obligation to respect intellectual property or copyright is not imposed externally but is a voluntary agreement entered into at the time of purchase. This attempt to reconcile libertarian morality with copyright law, however, has an obvious flaw. Suppose B bought a book authored by A and entered into an agreement with A not to copy or share it. As a result, B can be held liable if he violates this agreement by copying and sharing the book. However, if B lends the book to C, nothing prevents C—who entered into no contract with A—from copying the book. If B wanted to make money copying and selling A’s book, he could simply sell it to C, who is not bound by any contract with A, and C would then proceed with further copying and sharing the book. One could attempt to salvage this argument by pointing out that the sales agreement between A and B could include not only a prohibition on copying and sharing, but also a prohibition on lending or transferring the book to other owners. But what if, for example, someone lost their copy (left it on a park bench) and that copy were found, copied, and released into circulation, or if their copy of the work were stolen and then shared with others by an (anonymous) thief? Would the person who lost the book have to pay compensation for the author’s losses (e.g., a million zlotys)? If that were the case, no one would ever buy a book, as losing it would risk a million-dollar lawsuit. No one would buy a book that they would have to keep in a safe to prevent it from being stolen and copied. So, while it’s theoretically possible to protect information through complex contracts signed before it enters circulation, it seems that no rational person would agree to purchase a copy of such information, given the risks involved in possessing it. Attempting to reconcile libertarian theory with intellectual property theory is doomed to failure. In a libertarian order, intellectual property would be unprotected in any way (which doesn’t mean, as I’ll show, that information authors wouldn’t be rewarded for creating it).

The Metaphor of Theft:
There are essentially two arguments used to justify the validity of intellectual property law. The first is metaphysical or moral in nature and rests on the notion that the person who created the information is its rightful owner, and copying and sharing that information would constitute theft. Since the creator of the information is —in this view — its owner, copying and sharing the information they created robs them of their intellectual property and the potential profits they would have made if they had the exclusive right to sell it. The second argument is economic (more precisely: consequentialist) in nature and argues that the absence of intellectual property law would hinder the development of culture and science, because information creators, unable to profit from it, would lose the incentive to create it . Information, which, thanks to the existence of intellectual property law, is a private good, would become a public good that would not be produced in sufficient quantities due to the free-rider effect .

In the previous paragraphs, I demonstrated why copying and sharing information should be permitted: by copying/sharing information, we do not deprive the author of the right to voluntarily manage their property—all assets in the author’s possession are under their complete control, intact. So what exactly would the theft by the person copying/sharing involve? In most cases, it is argued that it involves robbing the author of information of the profits they would have made if they had a monopoly on trading in the information. The problem is that you can’t rob someone of something they don’t possess. While it’s true that if the author of information were granted a monopoly on sharing it with others, they could reap greater profits than if they didn’t have that monopoly, this in no way proves that not granting them that monopoly (or not enforcing it) is the same as stealing from them. You can’t rob someone of their future profits (profits they would have recorded if favorable legislation had been introduced), because future profits are not a material good; future profits don’t exist. You might as well say that a butcher who opens a shop on a street where a butcher’s shop already exists is robbing the profits of the butcher who was there first, and who, faced with competition, is forced to lower the prices of the products he sells. When we say that someone who copies and shares information robs its author of profits, this has a purely metaphorical meaning, precisely as when Shakespeare wrote that “the moon is a brazen thief who stole her pale light from the sun.” Punishing someone for copying works or ideas is as justified as punishing the moon for shining with reflected light. No one has a positive right to profits from information they have created; granting such a right would be tantamount to denying others a far more fundamental right—the right to freely manage their property.

The Economic Justification for Intellectual Property
The second argument advanced for the existence of intellectual property rights is that if these rights were abolished, creators, scientists, and inventors would lose the incentive to engage in intellectual work. The primary economic incentive for creating goods is the ability to sell them. This ability stems from the scarcity of goods owned by the producer. However, given the infinite reproducibility of information, the problem of scarcity is solved – information once in circulation can be copied without the need to pay its creator. And if this is the case, there is a high probability that consumers will not adequately reward information producers – they will simply copy it instead of buying it. Theoretically, consumers could pay information producers for their efforts even in the absence of intellectual property law, but such concern for the existence of incentives for information producers would constitute a public good. Since withdrawing a single contribution wouldn’t prevent the good from being created, but would instead represent a significant saving for the person avoiding the contribution, the economic incentive to free-ride would be very strong. In the absence of intellectual property rights, information production would become a public good, and due to the free-rider effect, information would not be produced in optimal quantities. Some information producers, not receiving sufficient remuneration, would cease to produce it, resulting in a cultural, scientific, and civilizational crisis. The infinite reproducibility of information would cease to be a blessing and become a curse in an info-anarchist order. Intellectual property rights, by granting information producers a (usually temporary) monopoly on selling it, create appropriate economic incentives to work on producing new information useful to society (to create literature, music, art, research new technological solutions, write textbooks, etc.). In this perspective, intellectual property rights constitute a significant instrument for stimulating the production of information beneficial to society. The whole problem in this approach is how to design intellectual property law so that it maximizes social benefits.

On the surface, the economic argument sounds convincing. However, if we look closely, what makes it compelling is its simplicity, a simplicity achieved by taking for granted a large number of very questionable assumptions.

First, this model predicts that information production would decline under an infoanarchist order. But how can we be sure this would be the case? We can imagine at least three reasons why the opposite might be true:
(1) The release of information could result in a radical acceleration of cultural and technological development. Even if the free-rider effect were to weaken the incentives for information production to some extent, the amount of information created as a result of this acceleration could still be radically greater than if the intellectual property regime remained in place.
(2) We cannot predict what social technologies entrepreneurs seeking to profit from information production despite the lack of intellectual property rights would invent – ​​it could turn out that these technologies would be both cheaper and more effective than the current, state-enforced intellectual property law.
(3) Society could respond to the problem of weakening incentives by voluntarily supporting promising cultural-scientific projects , which would be all the more likely because the release of information would give society an extraordinary developmental impetus (because more information would be available for free, awareness of the importance of information production would increase).

How do we know who is right – those who believe the amount of information would decrease, or those who believe that rejecting intellectual property law would lead to cultural and scientific development? As it turns out, there is no scientific method that would allow us to resolve this dispute. Economics cannot predict the behavior of people who suddenly find themselves in a completely different form of order, it cannot predict the response of entrepreneurs, and it cannot predict the long-term effects of information release. We cannot lock people in a vast laboratory for a hundred years to see what the fate of the world would be like without intellectual property, and then repeat the experiment a thousand times to eliminate randomness.

Second, is there any unit by which this information growth could be measured? Would this unit be sensitive not only to the quantity but also to the quality of information (imagine that in an infoanarchist order there were fewer cinemas and more theaters than today – could this change be assessed as objectively positive or negative)? Simply asking these questions seems to be a sufficient answer. How could we judge that intellectual property law is beneficial from the perspective of society if the individuals comprising that society have different theories about what is beneficial to them?

Third, even if it could be proven that intellectual property law stimulates information production, this would not be a sufficient argument (at least from an economic perspective) to support such a law. As I have shown elsewhere , it is impossible to prove that any economic intervention by the state is beneficial to the economy. Introducing a law restricting the rights of individuals to use their property would entail a certain loss of utility. How could one prove that these losses would be compensated by an increase in the quantity/quality of information produced? This cannot be done without introducing some external, non-economic norm, a norm that would transform this seemingly economic and objective argument into an expression of someone’s subjective preferences.

So when economists claim that there is evidence showing that intellectual property law supports the production of information, and that the abolition of this law would cause a cultural and scientific crisis, they are (consciously or unconsciously) denying the truth.

A World Without Intellectual Property:
As you can see, both the moral and economic arguments for the existence of intellectual property fail. I will now attempt to illustrate what life would be like in a world without intellectual property rights. First, I will discuss the immediate benefits that a large segment of society would experience as a result of eliminating these rights, and then I will consider how a free society might address the problem of economic incentives for information producers (scientists, inventors, writers, musicians, artists).

Free Information – Copyright.
The abolition of copyright would mean that all texts and works of art ever created would become readily available to everyone. Virtually all books deemed valuable would be quickly digitized and, along with music recordings, films, and television recordings, would—we have reason to assume—be gradually made available online. This would also apply to scientific and popular science texts, documents, historical sources, data, and so on. Computers would provide free and immediate access to a vast portion of recorded human culture from the dawn of time to the present. The long-term benefits of such a turn of events cannot be overestimated. In no other area of ​​human activity (due to the impossibility of free copying) is it possible to increase the quantity of goods as easily as in the area of ​​culture. Once created, cultural goods can be copied endlessly and given to all who deem them valuable. Information is the only thing that is not affected by the scarcity of goods, a fundamental fact of the human condition. Therefore, artificially producing this rarity seems utterly irrational. This problem is particularly evident in the context of patent law. When the first person created fire, all others could imitate it, and the discovery of fire became the common heritage of humanity, elevating it to a new level of civilization. But what would happen if the person who “invented” or “created” fire forbade others from using this discovery? Free, readily available fire would become a rare commodity. There’s something satanic about the idea of ​​limiting the ability to copy the only good we can multiply without limit.

Eliminating the law protecting intellectual property would therefore give all people (for the price of an Internet connection) access to virtually all knowledge and culture created by humanity so far.

How could artists earn money in the absence of copyright?
The vision of a world without copyright, as presented by intellectual property advocates, is truly catastrophic. Since anyone could unrestrictedly copy books or recordings in circulation, publishers would lose almost all their revenue overnight. The day after a title’s release, its electronic version would appear online, and anyone could download it for free, without paying a penny to the publisher. A collapse in the publishing market would mean a loss of income for authors, who live off advances, royalties, and percentages of copies sold paid to them by publishers. No one would worry that authors had lost their source of income. Although people would quickly realize that this state of affairs threatened cultural production, they would count on others to finance it, allowing them to free-ride on their contributions, resulting in underinvestment in cultural production. Writing would become a profession that doesn’t guarantee even minimal profits, books would be written as a hobby, and many outstanding authors would waste their talents pursuing other professions and attempting literary work in their free time. Similar phenomena would occur in other artistic fields – especially those that reach audiences through copies, primarily music and films. Recording studios, unable to generate profits from album sales, would be unable to invest in young, talented musicians, and the film industry would be unable to count on profits from digital releases or paid online film sharing, which would mean reduced revenues and, consequently, lower budgets and a decline in the quality of film production.

However, this picture seems to be painted too bleakly. In fact, artists would have a range of strategies at their disposal to support themselves through their art. First, let’s note that the problems associated with the lack of copyright would affect different art forms to varying degrees . For example, what would be a problem for filmmakers or literary artists (art forms that are primarily made available to the public in the form of copies) would not be a problem for theater, opera, sculptors, architects, and other artists whose works cannot be easily copied. This would mean that some of the profits currently enjoyed by, for example, filmmakers would be absorbed by theater artists (a change that many observers of contemporary culture would welcome). This type of shift from easily reproducible art forms to those that are not easily copied would also occur within specific art forms. For example, musicians support themselves both by selling recordings and by performing live music. If, as a result of the abolition of intellectual property rights, sales of an artist’s recordings were to decline, they might begin to emphasize their concert activities.

The fact that third parties could freely reproduce certain works doesn’t mean that creators couldn’t sell original, authorial copies of their works. Alongside cheap, unofficial copies, more expensive authorial copies would exist on the market, with a note stating that the author would receive a specified sum of money for each copy sold. If people cared about their favorite author having the resources to pursue their creative work, they would choose to support them in this way. We can assume that the number of such people—who would support creators even though it wasn’t legally required—would be quite large.

Creators could support themselves not only by selling original copies, but also by making their work available to the public only after the public contributes a collective fee to the author. This form of financing is known as crowdfunding . Those interested in publishing a work would pay the writer to make it available to the general public. The writer would announce that they would publish their novel if, for example, 50,000 złoty was deposited into their account. Once this amount was deposited, they would post the text online for anyone interested to read (additionally, to encourage more generous donations, they could announce that those who donate above a certain amount would receive a signed copy of the work). Of course, crowdfunding would primarily apply to established authors, from whom audiences expect high-quality work, but it could also include debutants who would encourage donations with interesting projects.

Writers and other artists could also support themselves through donations from cultural foundations. A wealthy society would have enough money to devote some of it to supporting such foundations (a poor society, on the other hand, should not be robbed of the resources needed to allow artists to create their works). These foundations would ensure that the writers they support create works that meet the expectations of the audiences sponsoring these foundations (e.g., that these works place high demands on readers, etc.). We can assume that such foundations could count on strong public support. If many people consider copyright to be beneficial, they should have no problem supporting creators in the absence of such rights. It would be illogical to argue that the same people who support copyright as a means of supporting artists, once the law is abolished, will not support them by funding foundations. In a free society, social pressure would be exerted on those who benefit from culture but avoid financing it to contribute to the costs of information production. This pressure could take the form of, on the one hand, positive snobbery , which would consist in supporting creators who find it difficult to make a living, and on the other hand, ostracism, which could affect wealthy individuals who use culture and avoid supporting it.

Free art, instead of worsening, could improve the situation of artists – easy access to culture would increase public interest in art . A general increase in education and culture would increase the role culture plays in social life and increase the willingness to sponsor it. Moreover, because in a free society, individuals would not be robbed by the state, they would have more money to support cultural creators, thus radically reducing the temptation to avoid paying (the smaller the contribution, the less the free-rider effect).

A free market would create new technologies that would help artists sustain themselves. For example, collective financing and a shift in emphasis from earning money from records to earning money from concerts were the music market’s responses to the problem associated with the increasing availability of counterfeit copies of musical works. We can believe that with the abolition of copyright, new methods will emerge that will allow artists to survive despite the lack of a monopoly on sharing copies of their works. The more serious the problem of art’s functioning in a free society seems to us, the greater the motivation for entrepreneurs to create methods for monetizing it. As Kenneth Goldin points out, the fact that we cannot solve the free rider problem in the context of a public good (we cannot exclude those who pay for it) is as much a problem as our inability to produce certain kinds of private goods (better cars, faster computers, etc.) that we will eventually be able to produce. If the state relieves private producers of the obligation to devise methods to exclude non-payers for a given good, such methods will not be developed, and their absence—artificially created by state activity—will be treated as further evidence of the necessity of such activity. However, if the state were to abandon its efforts to remedy market failures, profit-seeking entrepreneurs would be forced to create products or technologies that would allow them to exclude non-payers and profit from information production.

Finally, the abolition of copyright in a given territory would not mean that it would be abolished worldwide. This means that residents of that territory could—if the thesis that copyright stimulates artistic production were true—free-rider, taking advantage of copyright laws existing in other countries. Let’s assume that as a result of the abolition of copyright, the Polish film industry would run into trouble. Would this mean that Poles would lose the ability to watch films? It certainly wouldn’t, because a huge portion of the films they watch are produced outside of Poland anyway. Note that any potential losses from the abolition of copyright in Poland would be compensated by many times greater profits associated with the ability to freely copy/share works created outside Poland. And since only a small (negligible) percentage of all works created worldwide are produced in Poland, the profits would certainly outweigh the losses .

A World Without Patents.
Let’s now discuss how the abolition of patents would impact the economy. First, the abolition of patent law would result in an immediate economic boost, as a vast array of technologies would become available to entrepreneurs, who would use them to create new, better/cheaper products . Second, the release of patents would have a longer-lasting effect, as the released technologies, once available to inventors, would enable the creation of new inventions . Third, the abolition of patent law would lower the prices of many products currently on the market , whose producers are currently protected from competition by patents. Fourth, the resources currently devoted to patent law would be freed up and could be used by companies to create technological innovations. The costs of patent law are enormous: they include costs for the government (creating patent law, collecting taxes to maintain it, administrative costs, adjudicating patent cases, etc.) and for businesses (the costs of acquiring knowledge about the current patent situation, the costs of obtaining patents, the costs of patent disputes with other companies, and finally, the costs related to the fact that patents are often used not to produce goods but to prevent others from producing them). Instead of spending money on research, companies spend vast sums on armies of lawyers dedicated to patent law. Fifthly, it should be noted that the socialist lament about corporate rule and the tendency towards monopolization that supposedly characterizes the free market seems incomprehensible when we realize that one of the main reasons for the existence of large corporations is state regulations, among which patent law plays a significant role : (a) obtaining patents requires large capital outlays that small companies cannot afford, which favors large corporations from the outset, (b) once corporations obtain patents, their advantage over other companies on the market is further strengthened, (c) these corporations are very often beneficiaries of various forms of cooperation with the state, e.g. public procurement, which further strengthens their position.

How should work on inventions be financed in the absence of patent law?
Nevertheless, one must ask whether the abolition of patent law would not result in entrepreneurs losing the economic incentive to work on inventions? Because innovation is associated with significant costs, and in a free society, producers could freely copy inventions created by others, there would be a strong incentive to free-ride on technology investments made by other companies. The existence of patent law is therefore usually justified by the need to ensure a temporary monopoly for the entity that created a given technological invention, so that the inflated profits associated with the lack of competition would compensate for the losses associated with investments in a given area.

It seems we shouldn’t fear that the abolition of patent law would cause a radical decline in the number of inventions. First, even in the absence of patents, the company that introduced a product to the market first could gain an advantage over the competition. Before the competition has time to determine whether a given investment is profitable, purchase the technology, produce, test, and advertise the product, the company that invested in the invention will have captured a large share of the market (this effect will be reinforced by a certain inertia in consumer behavior) . Moreover, because a technology once invented can be improved (an invention is rarely the final word in a given field), there is a high probability that improvements will appear quickly after the creation of the initial invention, which puts the innovator in an even better position than the copying company – the process of overtaking the competition will be permanent, and the innovating company will always be one step ahead of the others.

Secondly, producers operating in a given industry who decide that the profit from being first is not high enough can jointly fund research that will lead to innovations in that industry . Producers compete not only with other producers of the same good, but also with producers of other goods. A better method of breeding wheat provides an advantage not only over other wheat producers but also over rice or potato producers. The creator of a more efficient electric motor competes not only with other sellers of electric cars but also with manufacturers of gasoline-powered cars. A film producer competes not only with other film producers but also with sellers of books, ice cream, clothing, foreign trips, and so on. There is no reason why market leaders cannot join forces to create technologies that will capture customers not only from themselves but also from producers in other areas.

Third, if society believed the number of inventions was too low, it could fund research foundations that would award prizes to inventors . Foundations would fund the most technologically promising areas of research, and their results could be used by all producers of the goods in question – thus, the profits from innovation would flow directly to consumers rather than remain in the hands of large companies (which would not have a monopoly on the production of these goods). Such foundations would compete with each other by publishing reports on their activities, listing the innovations created thanks to their efforts. Both crowdfunding technology and social pressure could significantly reduce the free-rider effect in the maintenance of such foundations.

Fourth, some technological innovations arise not as a result of planned innovation research, but as responses to emerging production problems. Indeed, many important technological discoveries that transformed various industries were based on attempts to improve the production process .

Fifth, there’s nothing to stop producers operating in a given area from entering into a mutual agreement that, if one of them creates an invention, the others will refrain from implementing it for one, three, or five years. Ultimately, if patent rights are so important, they could be created in the free market through a mutual agreement between producers .

Sixth, and finally, as in the case of science, there is no reason why areas governed by an info-anarchist order should not benefit from the fact that other areas will be governed by a system based on patent law. Since abolishing patent law in one area would not mean its abolition worldwide—if the thesis that patent law actually increases the number of inventions were true—areas where such law were abolished could benefit from inventions created in other areas. And since virtually all technological discoveries are made outside our country, we could only benefit. (This argument is extremely persuasive, but it doesn’t come up often, as the main discussion on this topic takes place in the United States, which is one of the most important producers of innovation in the world—however, areas that produce far fewer patents would only gain from the rejection of patent law.)

Trademarks and the Problem of Counterfeiting.
The final problem related to intellectual property is the issue of branding or trademarking. If everyone has the right to manage their property as they please, does he also have the right to make shoes, slap a company logo on them, and sell them to others? After all, he produced both the shoes and the logo using his own assets; there’s no evidence of initiating violence. This, in turn, could mean that counterfeiters would flood the market with cheap imitations, damaging the reputation of producers of high-quality goods and putting them out of business. Every time a high-quality product appeared on the market, counterfeits would also appear. These counterfeits would attract customers who would blame the original manufacturer for the defects in the imitations, bearing the cost of the reputational damage. In the long run, this would lead to a decline in the quality of all goods on the market and the elimination of high-quality goods.

Such a course of events, however, is entirely improbable. Someone selling counterfeit goods, while not initiating violence against the manufacturer, does instigate it against the consumer. For example, by selling shoes with the Adidas logo, the seller is implicitly contracting to deliver goods as described, while the logo suggests that the shoes were manufactured by that very company. While Adidas has no reason to sue the manufacturer of counterfeits, any customer who purchased counterfeit shoes without being informed of their presence could do so. This would make counterfeit producers easy prey for individuals or companies who would purchase counterfeit goods and then sue the manufacturer for fraud. The manufacturer of counterfeits would be forced to return the money along with compensation, leading to rapid bankruptcy. If consumers themselves were unwilling to punish the manufacturer of counterfeits in this way, the original manufacturer or a company hired by the manufacturer could do so, purchasing the goods and then demanding compensation. This would make selling counterfeits practically impossible. Counterfeit manufacturers could try to circumvent this problem by informing the customer that the product they are selling is not a genuine product, but a counterfeit.

Two possibilities arise here – either the counterfeit is truly a product of much lower quality, or it differs from the original in quality only in price. In the first case, the manufacturer of the original good does not have to worry about competition from counterfeits, even those significantly lower in price. In the second case, customers will switch to the counterfeit, which is not actually a counterfeit, as it has exactly the same properties as the original product, meaning the consumer is in a much better position than before (they receive the same good at a lower price). Would this mean that clothing manufacturers would stop inventing new designs for fear of their designs being immediately duplicated? Certainly not, because whoever came up with a new design and introduced it to the market would quickly sell large quantities of products, and when others copied (all together?) their idea, they would introduce a new design . It seems that in the case of clothing, the situation would be quite the opposite – the ability to copy designs would require the creation of ever-increasing numbers (this would lower the prices of goods without simultaneously reducing their quality). There’s no reason to deny that the ability to copy would change various markets (probably in different ways), but it’s difficult to prove that these changes would adversely affect the average consumer. On the contrary, the legitimization of copying solutions invented by others should rather make us optimistic – copying would level the playing field for various market players and force them to create ever-new products.

Summary:
1. Intellectual property law violates the fundamental right of every individual to freely manage their legally acquired property. Granting someone ownership of information means that others lose the right to freely manage their property to the extent they wish to copy and share that information. Intellectual property law therefore constitutes an initiation of violence against innocent individuals and should therefore be abolished.
2. Every person has the right to copy and share any information if the information carrier has been lawfully acquired.
3. The fact that libertarians recognize that every person has the right to copy and share any information without compensating its creator for the effort expended in its creation does not mean that such an action must be considered moral in the context of the private morality espoused by specific libertarians. Therefore, one can—and many libertarians take this position—oppose the existence of intellectual property law while simultaneously imposing upon oneself (and promoting this form of private morality) a moral obligation to compensate information producers.
4. The economic arguments presented for the existence of intellectual property are unconvincing – there is no evidence (and there cannot be any evidence) indicating that the existence of such rights is beneficial to society.
5. The abolition of intellectual property rights would have positive consequences (in the subjective opinion of many individuals) related to the release of a vast amount of information that could be used freely by individuals. The entire cultural and technological heritage of humanity would become available at their fingertips. Such a change could result in an extraordinary cultural and technological acceleration.
6. The abolition of intellectual property rights could be associated with the emergence of specific problems regarding the ability of information producers to earn money, resulting from the fact that ensuring the existence of incentives for information production would be a public good. However, there are many methods by which a free society could deal with this problem. The most important include: (a) the creation of new technologies by producers that would allow information creators to earn money, (b) the emergence of foundations supporting information production, (c) collective financing ( crowdfunding).), (d) social awareness of the importance of information production for social well-being (the role of ideology in overcoming the free-rider effect, ostracism, positive snobbery), (e) the shift of artists to those areas of cultural production that will be free from the free-rider effect (e.g. from the area of ​​cinema to the theatre, from the area of ​​music sold in the form of copies to live music), (f) cooperation between producers – voluntary creation of patent law in a given industry or joint financing of research, (g) the possibility of taking advantage of the fact that intellectual property law would exist in other countries – a community living in an info-anarchist order could, by free-riding, freely use inventions and works created in other areas.

The extraordinary property of information is that, once created, it can be used by an unlimited number of people. Just because I use a technological solution or enjoy a work of art doesn’t mean you lose the ability to use it. Once created, there’s enough information to feed all of humanity. Intellectual property law leads to restrictions on this extraordinary property of information. It seeks to limit the ability to copy the one good we can infinitely copy. It is an attempt to control who has the right to treat with antibiotics, soar into the air, admire metaphors and melodies, use the wheel, and strike fire.

23 Comments:

1. Allow me to answer a few questions posed by the author and address a few of his statements. This doesn’t mean I’m saying he’s wrong—rather, that other perspectives should be considered.

   “But what if, for example, someone lost their copy (left it on a park bench) and that copy was found, copied and put into circulation?”

   If a book states that the owner agrees not to copy (distribute) its contents further, no one forces the person who finds the book to take possession of it. They can leave it where they found it.

   ———————————————————————

   Theft metaphor

   “One might as well say that a butcher who opens a shop on a street where there is already a butcher’s shop is robbing the profits of the butcher who was there first and who, faced with competition, is forced to lower the prices of the products he sells.”

   In my opinion, the comparison isn’t entirely accurate. It would be more apt: no one had ever known about cold cuts before, someone invented them, started selling them, and made money from them. Then a second person came along and, taking the first person’s recipe, started making cold cuts, selling them, and making money.

   However, there are aspects (both positive and negative from the perspective of each party):
   – Let’s say the recipe for making cold cuts is secret. Its creator profits from it and has the right not to share it with other entities. However, he is dishonest and, to reduce costs, adds harmful flavorings instead of natural ingredients. Therefore, sharing such a recipe would mean benefits for those who eat these cold cuts. However, this example is completely inappropriate for literary or musical works – why would anyone create a book whose contents would be secret? Or a piece of music that no one would listen to? In relation to music, this could perhaps be compared to sharing a “recipe” for composing such a piece, but literature?
   – Market disruption: let’s say the person who invented cold cuts production cares about quality. They use only natural ingredients, adhere to the production process, etc. Others modify the recipe and start using artificial substitutes. The price drops, but so does the quality. Most people (though perhaps I’m looking at it through the prism of the situation in Poland and the ubiquitous “low prices” ads) will choose the cheaper product, which may not be beneficial to them in the long run. However, this could lead to the creator (the high-quality one) losing customers entirely or switching to an “unhealthy” production method. The market’s deterioration is currently visible in the photography industry. Cameras have become commonplace, and almost everyone now has some kind of device for taking photos. Many people no longer use the services of professional photographers, hiring anyone, for example, to weddings, for cheap. And they accept this shoddy quality. What’s more, this shoddy quality is becoming the accepted standard, and they can’t tell the difference between high quality and low quality. This could be taken further, about deliberate obsolescence and consumerism, but that’s not the point of the discussion.

   ————————————————————————

   “But what would happen if the person who “invented” or “created” fire forbade others from using that discovery? Free fire, available everywhere, would become a rare commodity.”

   She could sell the technology and the rights to use it for, say, 10 kg of fish. So, to get fire, you’d have to put in some effort—not necessarily inventing some new technology, but not for free. This way, the person who invented fire would have guaranteed food, and the time it would take to acquire food could be used to develop new technologies.

   ————————————————————————

   “For example, musicians make a living both from selling recordings and performing live music. If, as a result of the liquidation of intellectual property rights, sales of an artist’s recordings were to decline, they might begin to focus on concert activities.”

   Provided, of course, that the audience would be willing to pay significantly more for a given concert. Such a performance, however, is a significant physical burden, as the artists claim. Furthermore, voice and physical strength deteriorate over time, which may mean the inability to earn money from the concert. Therefore:
   – profits from record sales mean a relatively reliable and steady cash flow, while concerts are relatively one-time events;
   – profits from future record sales would be a kind of pension.

   ————————————————————————-
   “We can assume that the number of such people – who would support the creators even though it would not be forced by law – would be quite large.”

   Unfortunately, this depends on the level of civilizational development in society. But would it be enough? It’s true that some people would be willing to give. Just look at how much the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity (WOŚP) raises – all of these are voluntary contributions. If everyone who donated to the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity (WOŚP) were required to pay the same amount for the year, they probably wouldn’t do it, as it would be coercive. But the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity is a once-a-year event, and the amount – although large – wouldn’t be enough to cover the costs of treatment for the entire year.

   —————————————————————————-
   “A writer would announce that he would publish his novel if, for example, 50,000 zlotys were transferred to his account.”

   However, this leaves room for abuse by dishonest creators. Of course, such fraud could only be committed once, but with a large sum at stake, it could be worth the risk. And again, we return to the level of civilizational development of society. On the other hand, this approach also has its advantages – it would create a work that someone wants to read, so there are people who care about purchasing such a product – such work would not be pointless. This is better than forced publishing and creating books that then sit in bookstores and no one buys them.

   —————————————————————————-
   “Fourth, the resources that are currently devoted to handling patent law would be freed up and could be used by companies to create technological innovations.”

   Hmm – the group of bureaucrats, because they’re probably the ones we’re talking about, are bureaucrats, for example, because they enjoy sitting at work from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., doing relatively simple office work that involves completely uncreative “paperwork” reviewing. Such people wouldn’t contribute to the development of new technologies. Perhaps if they were taught from an early age to be creative and inventive, something would come of it. But generally, the bureaucrats I know have something in common with those gray clerks from Kafka’s “The Castle.”

   ————————————————————————-
   “Moreover, since once a technology is invented, it can be improved (an invention is rarely the last word in a given field), there is a high probability that improvements will appear quickly after the creation of the initial invention, which puts the innovator in an even better position compared to the copying company – the process of overtaking the competition will be permanent, and the innovating company will always be one step ahead of the others.”

   Unfortunately, this depends on resources. If the inventing company is small and the copying company is large, the copying company will overtake it.
   There’s another reason why the creator can fall behind the copying company. After creating something, the creator is tired. They lose inspiration, etc. After completing a certain stage, you need to rest, take a break, and reset your mind. And whoever takes over the finished product would have fresh energy. It can be compared to renovating a room – you scrape off old paint, plaster, renew the electrical system, fill in the gaps, apply plaster, sand it, paint, and lay the floor. Do you immediately start renovating the next room after that? Probably not – you’ll rest. And then someone with renewed energy comes in and creates another room or decorates what you’ve done. The final recipient only sees the decorative effect, and in a sense, the decorator reaps all the glory for the work.

   —————————————————————————-
   And now some thoughts.

   In the second paragraph of the section “Intellectual Property Law and the Non-Aggression Principle,” it seems to me that you’re sneaking in permission to copy. “By typing the poem on his own computer and executing it—using his own copier and paper.” The impression left after reading it is supposed (?) to convey the feeling that B isn’t a total slacker and thief, but that he put some work into creating the copy. Since he worked hard, let him have it. OK, B made a copy, no matter how; it’s already known as a copy. The rest of the article doesn’t mention copying on his own (the way B did), but rather copying.

   And what about computer science? Besides the closed world (i.e., distributing software in binary form, where one of the license terms prohibits disassembly), there’s also the open, or free, world. Here we have the GPL (and a whole host of more or less GPL-like licenses, such as BSD, X11, LGPL, and the newer versions of GPL v2 and v3, among others). The GPL’s main principles:
   – the freedom to analyze the source code;
   – the freedom to distribute an unmodified copy of the program;
   – the freedom to modify your copy (presumably to improve
   the program)
   and distribute your own improvements.

   However, publishing a program under the GPL is my choice, and no one is forcing me to do so. I can do so under a commercial license and only release the resulting binary form. If I’m a taker (meaning I take GPL-based source code) and further develop it, I must also publish my work under the GPL (this makes sense – if I’ve used someone else’s work, I release my own under the same terms). You can make money under the GPL: for example, you can take someone else’s code published under the GPL and sell the service of maintaining it, fixing bugs, or sell a nicely packaged media containing the program with binary versions compiled for various operating systems. And there’s a nuance: the GPL, by definition, means free, but not necessarily free (the English “free” means both). This means I can release something under the GPL and charge a fee, but I don’t have to. And publishing something under the GPL doesn’t waive copyright.

   There’s the GPL, but there’s no obligation to use it. It’s good that there’s a GPL and there are people who dabble in it – with the emphasis on “people who dabble in it.” Because in many cases, it’s a hobby, created after hours, as programmers say, “for the love of programming.” Thanks to that, we have Linux and a bit of freedom. The operating system code is available, and it’s known that it’s free of any viruses, tracking programs, etc. In Windows 10, under the name of “advanced telemetry,” user tracking and data transmission to Microsoft have been smuggled in. I haven’t been able to find what data is being transmitted – and it probably won’t be easy, because only Microsoft knows what it’s sending. But using an internet search engine, you can easily find many articles analyzing network traffic between the user’s computer and Microsoft servers. It’s a bit like what I wrote earlier about the evil butcher who invented cold cuts but is dishonest and adds harmful substances. Microsoft has a large market share, a lot of software, especially commercial software, runs on this system, and it’s clear the company won’t invest in migrating the entire infrastructure to Linux. Now they’re offering
   Windows 10 for free, but later they’ll stop supporting earlier versions of Windows and have everyone under their control. Linux makes me feel free, but on the other hand, I haven’t had the time to contribute to this software (unless it’s through donations), and I feel a certain shame that I haven’t.

   Would I be in favor of abolishing copyright? Probably not in this society, or even society as a whole. It’s too greedy and profit-driven. You give it away for free? Great, I’ll take it and I don’t look back. And they’d probably keep ripping off that person for as long as they could. If they fell, they’d find another one. Unless it could be done within a limited community of people who wanted to get involved but also adhered to moral principles. Something like local currencies supporting the local economy, like the Bristol pound. The argument of civilizational development is most compelling to me – for example, if it weren’t for patents on electric cars held by companies linked to the oil industry, the automotive industry would have reached a more advanced stage of development long ago. Only now, when half the world is obsessed with global warming and environmental pollution, is something starting to break through. But this is an exception, and the business power of corporations and their global expansion seem to point in the opposite direction.

   Answer

   1. “If a book states that the owner undertakes not to copy (not distribute) the contents further, then no one forces C, who found the book, to take possession of it. He can leave it where he found it.” Of course, no one forces him – one should rather consider whether any law prohibits him from doing so. The book is still the property of the person who bought it, and perhaps no one should touch it (unless it restricts someone’s freedom in a similar way to, say, a car parked on the sidewalk or in someone else’s driveway). But we don’t really know what the owner’s intentions are – he probably would like someone to keep his property safe, inform him of the find, and return it to him. The finder, therefore, has the right to make this assumption and proceed accordingly. So, we already know that there are certain actions that can be taken regarding someone else’s property that is lost, but does copying the information it carries count among them? It’s hard to say, because many people scour content carried by found media, trying to discover its owner. What about, for example, a radio transmission that penetrates my property (body, home, or various movable objects, including a radio with a recording function)? In that case, I don’t have to manipulate any of someone else’s found property or agree to any terms in order to access the transmitted music. Perhaps I could even accuse the radio station owner of burglary (although I think this would only be justified if the waves were causing me some harm).
      I’m glad you raised the issue of privacy (in connection with free software)—it’s another, even more important, issue related to the right to reproduce and distribute information. Do libertarian principles provide adequate protection for this? Of course, breaking into someone’s home to spy on them or viewing their private notes without consent are prohibited by them, as they involve violating property rights over tangible property. But what if, for example, someone eavesdrops on someone’s conversations remotely or otherwise obtains sensitive information about them, but without interfering with that person’s property? We could be talking about moral damages here, an insult to someone’s dignity, something for which compensation from the perpetrator is also due. What if someone takes a photo of another person without their consent, but the photo contains no information about them, merely capturing information they share publicly with others (especially their clothing)? Perhaps this is similar?
      And a third information-related problem that occurred to me: hacker attacks. Anyone who connects their computer to the internet allows others to send various types of data to it. However, they may not be aware that the software they use contains bugs that cause it to behave in a way that, upon receiving a certain sequence of data, disadvantages them and benefits the hacker. One could argue that the attacker is innocent – ​​they sent someone a certain amount of data, and how their computer interpreted it is their business. But this problem can also be solved – when interacting with another person or their property, we are usually certain of the consequences. A perpetrator of a beating would likely not escape punishment by claiming they believed their fist, aimed at the victim, would deflect off the force field they created – just as a hacker should be punished for violating property rights.

      Answer

   2. Apparently there are 9 comments on this page (before posting the one I’m writing) – so why do I only see 3?

      Answer

   3. I’ve noticed one more thing: the prohibition against copying the content of a found book would only apply to the finder if the contract between the publisher and the client were structured so that it constituted a kind of joint property (or property of the publisher alone, but allowing the client to manage it extensively – except for copying, of course). Only then could copying it be considered a violation of the rights of the producer, not just the client, who doesn’t care about no one copying its content. But even in this case, this would only be possible if this form of obtaining information were deemed unlawful.
      Another problem arises here, one that could be addressed in a separate article – the rules that apply when someone else’s property is found. Misappropriating someone else’s property is considered theft, but no one thinks that way about picking up a penny off the ground. It may have been lost by someone else, but would it be worth their while to search for it? And would they even know they’d lost it? Even if it were a poor person, they probably wouldn’t have found their lost item – it would have been easier and more profitable to beg (perhaps they could also recover their lost coin this way?). Therefore, it’s difficult to answer the question of whether finding someone else’s lost book entitles the finder to copy its content. On the one hand, it can be treated as a secret shared by the author, publisher, and customer, but what kind of secret is it that we entrust to millions of people?
      I’ve also encountered the view that the copying ban should only apply to software, for example, and not to music, books, films, etc., as these are elements of humanity’s cultural heritage.

      Answer
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6. It is also worth paying attention to specific examples of pathologies resulting from the extension of property rights to intangible entities:
   1) the phenomenon of copyright trolling
   http://www.infor.pl/prawo/prawa-konsumenta/konsument-w-sieci/700843,Copyright-trolling-wezwanie-do-zaplaty.html
   2) patents preventing farmers from sowing fields with their own seeds

   By the way, I was recently summoned to the criminal investigation department (!) as a witness in the case of an illegal T-shirt with a car brand logo that I bought for a friend on Allegro. If I didn’t voluntarily turn myself in, the police would send two reports and ultimately resort to forcible arrest (they handcuff me, and if it happens to be a Saturday, they’d hold me in custody for two days).

   Answer
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13. An interesting mechanism for voluntary protection of intellectual property rights emerged with the development of apps, for example, for Android. When people sell knowledge in the form of a paid app, it’s technically more difficult to copy (it’s more time-consuming compared to copying a PDF, for example), and often complicated by additional application functionality.

    Similarly with Netflix or Spotify – combining access to songs with additional functionalities is a way in which creative entrepreneurs are already solving, before our very eyes, problems that arise as a result of states promising to enforce intellectual property rights but failing to do so in reality.

    Answer

    1. “When people sell knowledge in the form of a paid application, firstly, for technical reasons it is more difficult to copy (it is more time-consuming compared to copying, for example, a PDF), and often everything is complicated by additional functionalities of the application.”

       Honestly, I don’t really understand.

       “Similarly to Netflix or Spotify – combining access to songs with additional functionalities”

       I didn’t quite understand this either.

       Answer

       1. My primary point is that excluding free riders is also an area open to entrepreneurs, where they can generate entrepreneurial profits. For example, Spotify likely generated some of its profits, among other things, because it created a mechanism to exclude free riders. These are all new phenomena, and although I’m not an expert in this field and don’t follow scholarly work on such topics, I have a loose suspicion that scientists struggle to keep up with describing these mechanisms. Such observations may prove useful for libertarians trying to predict solutions to various problems in market conditions.

          Spofiy is an incredibly popular platform offering a vast array of music. Instead of paying for a specific album, you pay for access to the entire database. All of these tracks can, of course, be downloaded for free [at this level, the state doesn’t enforce intellectual property]. People still buy access to the platform – why?

          Spotify offers something more, namely certain additional features – an algorithm that suggests songs based on anticipated tastes, the ability to share these songs with friends, the ability to create playlists and play them on various devices. Spotify negotiates access with the artist [at this level, the state enforces intellectual property].

          Access to the platform cannot technically be “copied.” By combining something that can be copied, i.e., a database of songs, with functionalities that cannot be copied, a service is created that is also financially impossible to copy. This largely eliminates free riding in the current market and has already solved the problem, once heavily publicized by the artistic community, of “people not buying records” without the need to send the police door-to-door to check what we store on our laptops. This is simply an interesting example of how complex and unpredictable solutions to various problems can be.

          Another example of profiting from free-riders is Android apps – they can significantly inflate the cost of copying content. For example, someone developed a database of exam questions called LEK and sells them as presentations. Of course, these are easy to copy, so a lot of free-riders will quickly appear. Someone else also developed these questions, but instead of writing everything down in a single document, they included them in a paid app as comments that can be expanded on each question.

          Answer

          1. “My main point is that excluding free riders is also an area for entrepreneurs to explore, where they can generate entrepreneurial profits, for example, probably some of the profit for the Spotify platform was generated, among other things, because it created a mechanism to exclude free riders.”

             Yes. But there are other methods, too. For example, combining the provision of a public good with positive value for the consumer with a private good with negative value for the consumer but positive value for the producer. The simplest example is radio advertising. You can listen to the radio for free, but you have to listen to it with ads.

             “Spotify offers something more, namely certain additional functionalities – an algorithm that suggests songs according to anticipated tastes, the ability to share these songs with friends, the ability to create playlists and play them on various devices. Spotify negotiates access with the artist [at this level, the state enforces intellectual property].”

             The last sentence points to the weak point of this solution. Under infoanarchism, Spotify would be competing with a similar portal that did NOT pay artists.

             “Someone else also developed these questions, but instead of writing everything down in one document, they put it in a paid app as comments that could be expanded on for each question.”

             I’m sure someone will eventually put it all together and publish it for free, huh?

             Answer
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16. The level of nonsense and absurdity used as arguments for the groundlessness of copyright is so enormous that I am surprised that anyone dared to sign under this gibberish.

    Answer

    1. However, an emotional outburst is a very strong argument 🙂

       Answer