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Intellectual Property in Outer Space

Most people do not understand that IP law is domestic only, which is why it is nonsensical to say that China is “stealing” western “IP”.1 Most countries have IP protection, primarily because of Western, primarily US, IP imperialism and bullying, mostly at the behest of Big Pharma (patents) and Hollywood and the music industry/RIAA (copyright) which have forced other countries to adopt American-style IP, to their detriment.2 But any country that chooses not to have IP rights and does not protect inventions and and artistic works does not violate others’ property rights, any more than insecure property rights in North Korea violates property rights in Texas. (IP supporters do not understand that this is a difference between real property rights and fake IP rights, since if your property right in material resources in a given jurisdiction are secure–in your home, in your body, in your car–then what other people do in some lawless regime simply cannot violate your property rights; yet they somehow think “China” can “steal” Western property rights by failing to enforce them locally. This alone shows that IP rights are not “similar to” real property rights. But let this pass.)3 [continue reading…]

  1. The China Stealing IP Myth; Stop calling patent and copyright “property”; stop calling copying “theft”; Copying, Patent Infringement, Copyright Infringement are not “Theft”, Stealing, Piracy, Plagiarism, Knocking Off, Ripping Off. []
  2. The Mountain of IP Legislation. []
  3.  The Structural Unity of Real and Intellectual Property. []
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The Patent Holocaust

[From my Webnote series]

From Recent tweets:

[continue reading…]

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Reisman on Patents, Competition, and Declining Prices

For my friend George Reisman, I have hosted his Program of Self-Education in the Economic Theory and Political Philosophy of Capitalism lectures as well as his Pepperdine lectures on my site and youtube until he can get his old site Capitalism.net refurbished. He’s Objectivist so is in favor of IP (see Capitalism, excerpts below). Naturally, we disagree on this issue; see Trademark Ain’t So Hot Either…; Trademark and Fraud; Discussion with George Reisman; Trademark and Fraud; also The Problem with “Fraud”: Fraud, Threat, and Contract Breach as Types of Aggression). From Macro Lecture 14A Inflation I  [mp3]:

He states:

the consequence of that is that Capital will move from the low profit lines into the high profit lines that expands production in those lines in order to find buyers for the additional goods what has to happen to prices play come down when costs fall unless it’s a patented process or a secret technology in fairly short order prices are going to come down to correspondwith the lower costs and so if we had a wage rates broadly falling that would reduce costs and prices would decline commensurately when you have improvements in the productivity of Labor prices also decline and perhaps the most dramatic example in our own experience is the prices of a megabyte or a gigabyte of a hard drive space or of ram what’s happened to these things over the last 20 years prices diminish tremendously  …

[continue reading…]

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Related

Mohamad Albakjaji and Reem Almarzouqi, “The Dilemma of the Copyrights of Artificial Intelligence,” International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development (IJSKD) 16, no.1 (2024): 1-15 (official)

Abstract:

Artificial intelligence (AI) and intellectual property (IP) share some key similarities, such as uncertainty in predictions, processing a massive amount of data, and machine learning. Yet, they also differ from each other. This paper provides background information on how these two domains have evolved over time. It also highlights how Saudi Arabia’s IP system differs from those of other countries. Furthermore, this article explores the relationship between AI and IP and their application in copyright. This study is significant as it helps identify the challenges and opportunities that AI presents with respect to IP in terms of copyright. Finally, this article makes recommendations that will help protect both AI and IP.

[continue reading…]

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Libertarian Party Trademark Assertions and Enforcement

Related:

[continue reading…]

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IP Queries from Jim Cox: On the IP Controversy

Related:

In July 2010 I received the attached Word file via a service I used to use, YouSendIt. I just came across it in a search on my computer. I was unable to find the author at the time. I have confirmed it was Jim Cox, author of The Concise Guide To Economics. I never responded since I didn’t know who to respond to.

[continue reading…]

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Against Intellectual Property Analysis Engine

See the site below based on Against Intellectual Property: Against Intellectual Property: A Stephan Kinsella Analysis: “Exploring how patent monopolies distort markets, stifle innovation, and violate genuine property rights through interactive economic modeling.”

Not sure how to describe it or what it is.

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Mansfield: Patents and Innovation: An Empirical Study

Related:

I have often pointed out that are are no good arguments for IP. They are all absurd.1 This includes principled/deontological/natural rights/”creationist” arguments for IP2 and empirical/consequentalist/utilitarian arguments. [continue reading…]

  1. There are No Good Arguments for Intellectual Property”; “Absurd Arguments for IP”; USPTO/Commerce Dept. Distortions: “IP Contributes $5 Trillion and 40 Million Jobs to Economy”. []
  2. KOL037 | Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Political TheorySuccinct Criticism of Utilitarianism and Libertarian CreationismLibertarian CreationismLibertarian and Lockean Creationism: Creation As a Source of Wealth, not Property Rights; Hayek’s “Fund of Experience”; the Distinction Between Scarce Means and Knowledge as Guides to Action. []
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Sabhlok: The case for two-year patents and copyright

Related:

From Sanjeev Sabhlok:

[continue reading…]

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IP Answer Man: Intangible Disputes and Coordination

[Aug. 9, 2025]

Dear Mr. Kinsella,

I have been touching up on some of the anti-IP arguments that have been raised by libertarian theorists and you alike.

Specifically, I think the argument goes like this. [continue reading…]

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“IP as a Force for Good”: The Banality of Evil

Adapted from a Twitter post:

[continue reading…]

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Anti-IP Bible (Notebook LM)

@witheredsummer has fed a bunch of my and others’ anti-IP writing into Google’s Notebook LM to create an AI to answer IP questions: the Anti-IP Bible. Here’s one example:

 

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Objectivism and the Patent Bargain

The IP clause in the US Constitution authorizes Congress to enact patent law by authorizing it “to promote the Progress of . . . useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to . . . Inventors the exclusive Right to their . . . Discoveries.” The Patent Act does this by the so-called “patent bargain“:

The disclosure requirement lies at the heart and origin of patent law. An inventor, or the inventor’s assignee, is granted a monopoly for a given period of time in exchange for the inventor disclosing to the public how to make or practice their invention. If a patent fails to contain such information, then the bargain is violated, and the patent is unenforceable or can be revoked.

[continue reading…]

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I’ve discussed before the error of libertarian or Lockean “creationism” that underlies one of the main arguments for intellectual property. See: [continue reading…]

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