Good parody of the stupid “you wouldn’t steal a car” and “you wouldn’t download a car” analogy to “stealing” works protected by copyright, like songs, movies, books.
Update: You wouldn’t steal a… font? Famous anti-piracy campaign from the early 2000s ‘uses pirated typeface’
[From my Webnote series]
Copying and competing is not stealing or theft. The truth is that IP itself is theft.
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.
Regarding Musk and Dorsey: “delete all IP law”
Chamath Palihapitiya tweeted about all this.
Jack: “delete all IP law”
Elon: “I agree”How could this work and where are they coming from? I don’t know exactly but here’s a guess:
In business you can view your knowledge in one of three buckets:
(A) common knowledge
(B) trade secrets
(C) IP (patents, copyrights etc)A…
— Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath) April 15, 2025
In response, I wrote (lightly edited here):
[From my Webnote series]
[TO BE UPDATED… WORK IN PROGRESS…]
Too bad Cuban doesn’t oppose patents, a major cause of high drug prices (he only opposes “stupid” patents, unfortunately https://t.co/TYvuiukaSo — even EFF is totally unprincipled and doesn’t oppose IP or patents, only “abuse” … but stupid patents are not the problem, nor is… https://t.co/nVRqZAL1Wj
— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) January 22, 2026
Trevor Hultner: Patent “Trolls” are Bad. Patents are Worse
EFF does not oppose patents: see Adi Kamdar, Daniel Nazer, Vera Ranieri, Defend Innovation: How to Fix Our Broken Patent System, Electronic Frontier Foundation (Feb. 2015) (“The patent system is in crisis. Patents—particularly software patents—have become a tool for intimidation and expensive litigation, chilling the very innovation the patent system was supposed to encourage. … Since the mid-1990s, software patents in particular have proven to hinder rather than support innovation. … despite recent Supreme Court decisions that have dialed back some of the excesses of the patent system, patent quality remains low. … PART 1 – THE PROBLEM A. The root of the problem: Too many bad patents. … The U.S. patent system has one primary purpose, embodied in the Constitution itself: to encourage innovation.3 The basic bargain is simple: in exchange for disclosing their inventions (so that others may build upon them), inventors get a “limited private monopoly” on those inventions.4… the current patent system isn’t doing a very good job of fulfilling its purpose. The United States Patent Office is issuing far too many weak and overbroad patents, particularly on software. And many of the courts that end up reviewing those patents seem unwilling to second-guess the Patent Office. Instead of promoting innovation, these patents become landmines for companies that bring new products to market. … 2. The Patent Office isn’t helping When the Patent Office reviews a patent application, one of its tasks is to search for prior art (publications and uses from before the filing date of an application) that might show the claimed invention is not new or is obvious in light of what came before. This is a difficult task. … If the Patent Office misses key prior art, it will issue patents on existing or obvious ideas. Unfortunately, the Patent Office doesn’t do a good job looking for prior art when it reviews applications for software patents.”) See Independent Institute on the “Benefits” of Intellectual Property Protection
Social intercourse is facilitated by the use of words, and man uses them with freedom. If by some process it became possible for some favored portion of society to control these symbols, the normal circulation of thought would become disturbed
—Liberty, 1891
https://x.com/breckyunits/status/1914420110346829995
from https://c4sif.org/2022/07/benjamin-tucker-and-the-great-nineteenth-century-ip-debates-in-liberty-magazine/
[From my Webnote series]
Kinsella, “The Problem with Intellectual Property,” Part III.C.2:
Others argue that some form of copyright or patent could be created by contractual techniques—for example, by selling a patterned medium (book, CD, etc.) or useful machine to a buyer on the condition that it not be copied or revealed to others. It is argued that this could somehow bind not only the parties to the contract but even third parties, thus producing restrictions similar to those of patent and copyright law. But this argument is deeply flawed.
Keep in mind property rights are in rem rights good against the world, as opposed to contract rights which are in personam rights only—rights as between the parties to the contract. It is illegal for you to attack my body, invade my home, or steal my car not because we have an agreement but because my property rights are in rem—good against the whole world. By contrast, as I have pointed out before, “Obligations that flow from binding agreements, or contracts, only bind the parties to the contract. The relationship between parties to a contract is like a private law that applies only to them, not to the world at large.”[74] A contract is the “law between the parties” and does not bind third parties, who are not in “privity” with the original seller.[75]
For a contractual scheme to emulate IP rights such as patent or copyright, the contract would have to bind not only seller and buyer, but all third parties as well. The contract between buyer and seller cannot do this—it binds only the buyer and seller. Rothbard argues otherwise, using the following example.
suppose that Brown allows Green into his home and shows him an invention of Brown’s hitherto kept secret, but only on the condition that Green keeps this information private. In that case, Brown has granted to Green not absolute ownership of the knowledge of his invention, but conditional ownership, with Brown retaining the ownership power to disseminate the knowledge of the invention. If Green discloses the invention anyway, he is violating the residual property right of Brown to disseminate knowledge of the invention, and is therefore to that extent a thief.
… A common objection runs as follows: all right, it would be criminal for Green to produce and sell the Brown mousetrap; but suppose that someone else, Black, who had not made a contract with Brown, happens to see Green’s mousetrap and then goes ahead and produces and sells the replica? Why should he be prosecuted? The answer is that, as in the case of our critique of negotiable instruments, no one can acquire a greater property title in something than has already been given away or sold. Green did not own the total property right in his mousetrap, in accordance with his contract with Brown—but only all rights except to sell it or a replica. But therefore Black’s title in the mousetrap, the ownership of the ideas in Black’s head, can be no greater than Green’s, and therefore he too would be a violator of Brown’s property even though he himself had not made the actual contract.[76]
Rothbard’s argument is flawed. First, it presupposes knowledge can be owned, which is question-begging and also simply false. As argued above (see Part II.B and Part III.A.3), all property rights are rights in scarce, conflictable resources. The means of action are distinct from the knowledge that guides action. Rothbard himself, as quoted in Part III.A.3, clearly recognizes the importance of knowledge in guiding actions; without technological ideas, plans, or “recipes,” the actor could not act to transform “iron into steel, wheat into flour, bread and ham into sandwiches, etc.”[77] He observes that he uses his knowledge and technological ideas to tell him how to use and rearrange scarce means.[78] But, as Mises pointed out, “[m]eans are necessarily always limited, i.e. scarce, with regard to the services for which man wants to use them.”[79] But this is not true of knowledge that guides action.[80] There can be no property rights in knowledge.
Let us grant that Green uses his knowledge of Brown’s mousetrap to make replicas, and that this somehow imparts to Black the knowledge of the mousetrap’s design: either he buys a copy from Green, or he observes Green’s replica, or perhaps Green just tells Black or posts the information on the internet.[81] Rothbard says that “the ownership of the ideas in Black’s head, can be no greater than Green’s.” But Black does not need to “own” ideas to use them; in fact, ideas and knowledge cannot be owned; knowledge only guides action. In this case, it could guide Black in making his own mousetrap. Not only does Black not have a contract with Brown (or even Green), he might not even have ever bought or even touched a copy of Green’s replica. He might only have observed it. Or maybe Green told White, and White told Black. When Black uses knowledge he possesses (but does not own!) to make a mousetrap, he in no way violates any contract or property rights of Brown.
As another example I have given before to show the absurdity of the IP-by-contract argument, suppose an author sells physical copies of his books on Amazon, and Amazon requires any buyer to agree not to use or copy the book that he buys, and further, to agree to make any subsequent buyer of the book sign a similar agreement. It is hard to imagine such a practice being viable, for a couple reasons. First, to ensure compliance, the contract will have to impose some kind of penalty payment on the buyer in the event he breaches the contract.[82] Now if it is small penalty, such as one dollar, then many buyers will simply pay the “fine” and copy the book. So the penalty needs to be large to deter buyers from making copies.
But few buyers would pay $20 or so for a book and also obligate themselves to potentially millions of dollars of liability if they copy or impermissibly use the book. Instead, in a world without copyright, where “pirated” books are readily available, the buyer would simply avoid Amazon and its onerous contract and just obtain a cheaper or free copy online or from some other publisher. Obviously, this kind of business model is impractical.
But let’s assume the business model somehow works and there are many buyers of the book who have agreed not to copy it. Still, if one of them copies it an uploads a copy to the internet, third parties could download the file and print and sell copies of it, since (a) they have no contract with Amazon or the author (or the buyer) and (b) they do not need anyone’s permission to do this since knowledge and information cannot be owned.
In rem intellectual property rights cannot flow from contracts.
***
Also: Penner on Intellectual Property, Monopolies, and Property: recognizes IP rights as protected by law are “not rights in personam, but rights against the whole world“—i.e., in rem rights.
[From my Webnote series]
From a twitter post. Kinsella on fie-ya.
This is why I use conflictability (or rivalrousness) instead of scarcity,1 since the latter term is ambiguous and has different connotations. In common usage it just means lack of abundance. In terms of praxeology and property rights it means the opposite of…
— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) April 19, 2025
In the wake of Jack Dorsey’s and Elon Musk’s recent criticism of intellectual property (IP) law,1 it’s no surprise the usual suspects—vested interests, IP attorneys—are pushing back. Case in point is a Bloomberg Law article by Christopher Suarez, an IP litigator with Steptoe, “Musk and Dorsey’s Call to ‘Delete All IP Law’ Ignores Reality,” Bloomberg Law (April 18, 2025). But it’s of the same old confusions and myths and provides no coherent argument in favor of IP law, especially its two most harmful forms, patent and copyright.
Doing a complete fisking would merely illustrate Brandolini’s Law, so I’ll just mention a few things. [continue reading…]
I have written an article to summarise what has happened over the past 3 years with the oppositions Arthur van Pelt and I have been doing against 3 of Craig “Faketoshi” Wright’s patents. The score is 3-0 but will this change on appeal? We have to wait to find out.
Link below. pic.twitter.com/t0ekXWcP9o— Tufty Sylvestris (@tuftythecat) April 18, 2025
It is easy to see that the patent for invention is a privilege and an industrial monopoly, of the same family as those of the Middle Ages which were abolished immediately after 1789.
Il est facile de voir que le brevet d’invention est un privilège et un monopole industriel, de la même famille que ceux du moyen âge qu’on a abolis immédiatement après 1789. —Michel Chevalier
From Stéphane Geyres’s tweet:
Il est facile de voir que le brevet d’invention est un privilège et un monopole industriel, de la même famille que ceux du moyen âge qu’on a abolis immédiatement après 1789.
Michel Chevalier
(@NSKinsella : a gift from long ago) pic.twitter.com/G0llX610ME— Stéphane Geyres (@StephaneGeyres) April 18, 2025
From Michel Chevalier et les brevets d’invention (Treaty of Invention Patents and Industrial Counterfeiting); Traité des brevets d’invention et de la contrefaçon industrielle, précédé d’une théorie sur les inventions industrielles; Gallica version. See also: Michel Chevalier (Wikipedia); Louis Rouanet, “Michel Chevalier’s Forgotten Case Against the Patent System,” Libertarian Papers 7 (1) (2015): 73–94.
Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (10.8MB)
Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 460.
I mean the title says it all. I kept getting interrupted by calls and deliveries. Oh well, what you gonna do.
Excerpt from this 2009 article:
Control freak
One striking feature of Objectivism is it outspoken support of intellectual property. A key scene in Atlas Shrugged is where metallurgist genius Hank Rearden is compelled by the government to hand over his intellectual rights to his innovative metal alloy, and Ayn Rand acted in kind. She passionately used the copyright on her works to bar people from forming “John Galt Societies”, citing that the name John Galt is her creation and her intellectual property.For a person bent on propagating her ideas to the maximum extent possible, this would seem eerily counterproductive. Stealing an object from someone is obviously depriving the original owner of his property, but copying it isn’t. It may or may not be harmful to potential income, but that income remains potential, in the realm of the unprovable. This is a debate that incites extreme passion.
While Objectivists, libertarians and conservatives strongly agree on the principle of physical property rights, the picture is much more divided when it comes to ‘intellectual property’, a catch-all phrase for several different items, including patents, copyright and trademarks. In a landmark essay by Stephan Kinsella, Against Intellectual Property, argues that ‘Intellectual property’ is not only meaningless and harmful, it is in direct violation of the general principle of private property, and primarily constitutes a state-sanctioned creation of artificial scarcity, leading ultimately to poverty, not job creation and wealth.
The wider libertarian movement accepted the argument, put it into action (see www.mises.org/books) and moved on. Objectivists, on the other hand, maintain that what Ayn Rand spoke and practiced on the subject remains the unalterable truth.
A commentary on and summary of Contre la Propriété Intellectuelle, a French translation of Against Intellectual Property, by Marius-Joseph Marchetti, has been published here: Contre la propriété intellectuelle : un essai éclairant [Part 1], and Part 2. The Google auto-translation is appended below, with light edits.
By Marius-Joseph Marchetti
August 7, 2019
Let’s dive into a quality libertarian work: Against Intellectual Property by N. Stephen Kinsella (and translated into French by Stéphane Geyres and Daivy Merlijs). The 76-page book aims to fulfill several roles, which it fulfills very well. It is divided into four parts, each essential for having an overall vision of intellectual property. [continue reading…]
Re Examples of Ways Content Creators Can Profit Without Intellectual Property and Conversation with an author about copyright and publishing in a free society … God I tire of this. It’s a never-ending littany or series of questions. It never ends. No one can think in principled terms.
As I noted previously,1
Just one follow up question: If you can, could you give an idea of how the “creative industries” might operate in a world without copyright and intellectual property? I.e. how would things like films and television, which require significant capital investment, be funded and ultimately constitute a profitable enterprise outside the current paradigm where copyright owners profit from selling copyrighted material/from royalties? Would the “creative industries”, as we know them today, even exist?
To me that seems to be the sticking point for many people — they might admit the principled objections to copyright and IP, but can’t get their head around how cultural content would be made without copyright. I’m not sure I fully grasp it myself. [continue reading…]
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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