From an old discussion thread on Ed Ucation, “Intellectual Property: As usual, Rothbard gets it right,” Economic Policy Journal. Comment by Conza (Michael Conaghan):
The latest Rothbard commentary on IP outdating all of the above. Note the intellectual honesty. Note the admission of seeking further commentary. Note the request for more information. Note the shattering of your position that Rothbard saw copyright in perpetuity. [continue reading…]
This Term’s alignment of rights in trademarks and copyright with traditional rights in real property is a welcome baby step (indeed, two steps) forward for the Court, which in recent years has refused to put other intellectual property rights on par with real property. One can only hope that the Court will soon explicitly tie the intellectual property rights to the law of real property. One also hopes that while doing so, the Court will take a third step in the right direction by again treating patent rights on par with real property.
—Gregory Dolin, M.D., “Intellectual Property in OT 2022: Two Baby Steps in the Right Direction,” Cato Supreme Court Review 2022–2023 (hat tip Jeff Tucker)
Well, Taco is at it again. This is sad. This joker, or the editor of that review, seem oblivious to the fact that one of their former top scholars, Tom Palmer, was at the forefront of the battle against IP (before he softened his stance since many of Taco donors are Big Pharma, that is).1 No wonder they disinvited me from an IP panel discussion (Disinvited From Cato). (And I guess it’s further confirmation I was right back in 1999, when Cato approached me about heading up their Supreme Court Law Review, to immediately say “not interested, thanks.”)
Dolin also refers to copyright infringement as “stealing,”2 which is sloppy and inaccurate, and typical of the emotivist and dishonest way IP proponents argue—by simply labeling copying as stealing, theft, piracy, “ripping off,” and other inaccurate terms. Even the Supreme Court has observed that IP infringement is not “theft.”3
E.g., in Dowling vs United States, the Court held that copies could not be regarded as stolen goods under the law:
Instead, “interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: ‘[…] an infringer of the copyright.’”
But Dolin and his socialistic comrades who favor abolition of private property rights in real resources in the name of the evil, murderous utilitarian bullshit of patent and other forms of IP law4 like to denigrate copying and free market emulation and competition and freedom of speech as “stealing.”
[continue reading…]
From “KOL420 | There Ain’t No Intellectual Property: The Personal Story of a Discovery (PFS 2023)” (Sep. 24, 2023).
My book Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023) has just been published. It has several chapters dealing with IP, to wit:
Good article: Sue Donimus, “Disproving Intellectual Property.” Text pasted below.
See also Sue Donimus, “How The Free Rider & Leaker Benefit The Author” and this quote from Rothbard:
“… the free-rider argument proves far too much. After all, civilization itself is a process of all of us ‘free-riding’ on the achievements of others. We all free-ride, every day, on the achievements of Edison, Beethoven, or Vermeer.”
Murray Rothbard, “The Myth of Neutral Taxation,” also in Economic Controversies, p. 478 et pass. Discussed in KOL415: Commentary on Larken Rose, “IP: The Wrong Question”: Part 1. [continue reading…]
I’m so sick of American politicians and reporters droning on about “China is stealing our intellectual property!” without even knowing what the hell they are talking about.
From some Twitter posts:
what a crime against humanity that China is trying to … grow improved food crops. (See Aleks Phillips, “Iowa Farmers Accuse China of Stealing American Seeds,” Newsweek (Aug. 4, 2023).)
This moron on Fox News reporting on this said they were stealing “secret, patented modified seeds.” Uh, patents are public, not secret, moron. [continue reading…]
Le sigh. Almost no one can ever get quite right even their criticism of copryight. This guy opposes copyright, because he thinks this would lead to “socialized copyright” and he’s in favor of socialism, just like he’s in favor of socialized medicine. No no no. Because he’s not a libertarian, and thus has no coherent understanding of the function and nature of property rights and justice, and because he’s apparently economically illiterate (otherwise he would not favor socialized medicine), he simply can’t get the analysis right.
But, it’s to his credit he somehow dimly senses that copyright is bad.
Shownotes: “The soapbox I’ve been on for 15 years, now summarized in 17 minutes with clipart. Probably the most important video I’ll ever make. ⚠️ Rough/incomplete math warning. ”
But his argument is totally confused. He wants to “relax” the enforcement of copyright and replace it with an “automated royalty system” “managed” by the government. He proposes we phase out copyright in 5 years—but not patent, trademark, or impersonation rights! (Why not? Patents do even more damage than copyright, you unprincipled hack.)1 And then, you cancel your spotify, netflix, disney.com, and find it all at a government-managed content server, “media.gov,” for free. Wow, the government giving us approved content! What could go wrong?
And the cost is low! He tallies up the cost of all these various services by looking at the revenues of various copyright-related industries: the royalties paid by or costs incurred by Spotify, Youtube, Netflix, Disney, the book publishing industry, to artists and creators, and so on. He comes up with $148B paid out to creators, amounting to $881 for every tax filer annually.
I mean he gets it 10% right or, being generous, 1/3 right. Not bad compared to most people but still… pretty sad. I mean at the end he says he wants a self-driving flying car. Yet he still supports the patent system, which impedes and distorts and blocks and slows down new technological innovations.
One would think a soi-disant “libertarian” would actually read up on, you know, libertarian critiques of IP,2 before weighing in on it in public. But alas, in this Internet age, everyone wants to be an expert without putting in the intellectual work.
Adapted from the notes for “Fritz Machlup, The Patent Controversy in the Nineteenth Century (1850–73),” chap. 7 of Kinsella, ed., The Anti-IP Reader: Free Market Critiques of Intellectual Property (Papinian Press, 2023). [continue reading…]
I’ve discussed in previous writing the harmful effects of patents, for example on the pharmaceutical industry. (See below.)
I just came across a couple of fairly recent pieces on this topic at Mises.org:
Both worth a read.
For some of my own commentary on this, see: [continue reading…]
My friend David Koepsell, an attorney and philosopher who serves on the Advisory Board of C4SIF, has written and spoken a good deal on patent and copyright. Below I collect some of his essential work in this regard:
[From my Webnote series]
Some dashed off comments to some friends. I may clean this up later but for now, the informal comments—
In some of my talks I have made this proposal. Not sure if it’s cockamamie. But here it is:
People say we need patents (for pharmaceuticals) b/c the FDA process is too expensive and you have to recoup your costs. (See Kinsella, “Are Patents Needed to Make Up for FDA Kneecapping?” (July 2, 2011). also KOL341 | ESEADE Lecture: Should We Release Patents on Vaccines? An Overview of Libertarian Property Rights and the Case Against IP; Patents, Pharma, Government: The Unholy Alliance )
Update:
Here is my proposal.
Abolish patents.
Now some company (#1) spends $300M doing trials and getting FDA regulatory approval. This temporary monopoly (even without a patent) lets them charge high prices. It lasts a couple-few years at least, normally.
Now suppose a competitor #2 comes along. They could not afford the $300M investment, or maybe they were just unable to create the new drug. So now they get the FDA approval for a lot cheaper since no clinical trials, no huge R&D cost, etc. Once the FDA ensures drug 2 is chemically adequate and the same as the original, they grant the second FDA approval to #2, but on the condition that they pay a pro-rata share of the total expenses originally incurred, by reimbursing #1 for half the expense #1 incurred but that #2 got to avoid. So basically, #2 pays half of $300M = $150M to #1. So now each one has paid about $150M roughly. [continue reading…]
From Wendy McElroy, Oct. 8, 2010:
An intriguing anti-IP argument
One of the most intriguing arguments against intellectual property — that is, the claim to owning a copyright or patent on any basis other than contract — was first presented to me by the science fiction writer Victor Koman. It is simple but profound.
A imparts an original idea to B. However, the idea in B’s mind is immediately and, perhaps, radically different from the ‘same‘ idea in A’s mind because B automatically integrates it with every other experience and prior piece of knowledge he has; the idea is filtered through the human being that B is. If the idea is about music and B is tone deaf, then the idea may be retained superficially. If B plays an instrument, then he may immediately apply the idea to the specific one he plays and, so, alter it. But the process need not be conscious. In fact, the vast majority of the process is automatic. The human brain is so constructed as to make most connections, associations, judgments, etc. in much the same way that eyes see without anyone consciously attempting to have vision.
Thus, to tell B he cannot use the now-unique idea that is in his own mind is tantamount to claiming ownership of his body…or, at least, ownership of an aspect of it. A might as well use force (or the law) to prevent B from using one finger or one hand; the principle is the same. In short, enforcing A’s claim is a form of slavery over B. The only proper basis on which A can possibly make such an ownership claim over B is if B agrees to the arrangement — to confidentiality as a condition of employment, for example — and, so, A’s claim derives solely from contract.
I argue against intellectual property being a “natural right” on many other grounds as well but the elegance and originality of Vic’s argument has always impressed me. Of course, I immediately and unconsciously integrated it with Benjamin Tucker’s approach about which I was reading at that time…which is why the topic arose…and, so, the idea I ‘heard’ was different from the one Vic imparted because I filtered it through and into my other anti-IP arguments, my knowledge of psychology, a Randian approach to epistemology, etc. After reading this post, you, too, will hold a somewhat different idea in your mind than the one I am expressing.
See also Wendy McElroy, Samuel Edward Konkin III: Revolutionary Friend (Agorist Nexus, 2024):
By contrast, SEK3 was a rare kindred spirit on IP, as were most of the Anarcho Villagers despite the fact that many were full-time or occasional writers and publishers. I credit the SF novelist Victor Koman with first edging me toward an anti-IP position. At a party where neither of us, fortunately, had consumed too much alcohol to be incoherent or to forget conversations from the night before, we got into a friendly discussion of IP. At one point he asked me, “How can you own something that is in my mind?” Given my deep commitment to self-ownership, I had to answer, “I don’t know.” The question stayed with me for weeks afterward, partly because Vic had put an extra twist on IP. Even if he had a word-for-word memory of an idea I communicated, he argued, the instant the idea entered his mind, it changed by being integrated with other ideas, memories, and convictions he held. It became a different idea that was uniquely his own. This dynamic made my ownership of what was in his mind seem even more unlikely.
Re Konkin: see Copywrongs, and this facebook post from Koman
Finally, someone uploaded a photo of the headstone for Samuel Edward Konkin III (#SEK3). Rest in the Agora, old friend.
[From my Webnote series]
Wendy McElroy, “Copyright and Patent in Benjamin Tucker’s Periodical,” Mises Daily (July 28, 2010), was first published as “Intellectual Property,” in Wendy McElroy, The Debates of Liberty: An Overview of Individualist Anarchism, 1881–1908 (Lexington Books, 2002). The Mises Daily version omitted the endnotes in the book chapter, which contain useful information (it also omitted some italics formatting). I have reprinted below the Mises Daily article, with the missing endnotes and formatting added. See also my post “Benjamin Tucker and the Great Nineteenth Century IP Debates in Liberty Magazine.” [continue reading…]
In Alex Tabarrok’s recent post End Software Patents! (see video below), he argues against software patents. He states:
In an industry like pharmaceuticals, patents make sense. It costs about a billion dollars to develop the average new drug. But a generic imitation might cost just 50 cents a pill. If innovators are not able to recoup their costs of research and development, there’ll be no one left to innovate. But does every innovative idea need a 20 year monopoly? A concept like one-click shopping does not have the same sunk costs of research and development as does a new drug. In industries like software, where innovation costs and imitation costs are more balanced, patent protection isn’t needed to incentivize innovation.
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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