Property rights are not derived from anything. They don’t have a source. They are norms, quite useful norms, and norms that can be justified–but hardly need to be as most people already accept their utility and justification. Who that uses property they homesteaded, or purchased…
— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) May 31, 2025
[From my Webnote series]
From my various posts and writing.
Related:
Remembering Tibor Machan, Libertarian Mentor and Friend: Reflections on a Giant:
To provide an insufficient summary, Tibor basically tried to argue that there are ontologically various kinds of “things” that “exist”—poems, trucks, etc. And since “The tangible-intangible distinction is not a good one for what can and cannot be owned”, then we need to focus on “intentionality”–things we intentionally create or produce, whether they be “tangible” or “intangible.” Indeed, that intangible things like poems, computer games/programs, novels, songs, arrangements, etc. are more completely “intentional” and “created” than are tangible goods. I.e., Tibor’s theory seems to be that any “ontological type of thing” that we can identify, and that was intentionally created or produced by man, is owned by man.
I think this is flawed for a number of reasons, as I have pointed out elsewhere.1 Naming a thing conceptually does not prove there is some “ontological type of thing that exists and can be owned”; this would be to conflate concepts adopted for conceptual utility with real, existing things. It would be a type of reification. But I also don’t think Tibor thought he had figured this issue out completely. Again, he was sincerely struggling with a difficult issue—trying to figure things out, trying to find out the best way to understand liberty and rights.
[continue reading…]
Every legal system has some type of property rights scheme.
As I point out in my book, “Protection of and respect for property rights is thus not unique to libertarianism. Every legal system defines and enforces some property rights system. What is distinctive about…
— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) May 28, 2025
This pro-IP dude “Rock” says sarcastically “Yes because property rights are totally socialist”. My reply: [continue reading…]
Makes a non-rigorous distinction between “invention” and “innovation” (much like some people make non-rigorous distinctions between “discovery” and “invention” (Ayn Rand, if I recall) and between “ideas” and “expressions of ideas” or “particular instances of/instantiations of” ideas1 ), but still interesting.
See also:
Today, we’re talking about the book How Innovation Works. And breakdown a list of 11 cross-industry innovations (when one industry borrows an idea from another industry).
How does innovation work?
Well, I’m the wrong person to ask: the most innovative thing I’ve ever done is ask McDonald’s to put Big Mac sauce on my McChicken burger. [continue reading…]
A friend pointed me to novelist Scott Sigler’s podcast episode DEEP CUTS Episode 49: Should Copyright be Abolished? In it, he discusses Musk and Dorsey’s suggestion to abolish copyright. As a novelist, naturally he is pro-copyright. I tried to listen but could only bear it for about 20 minutes. Almost ever other sentence was confused nonsense, providing yet another example of Brandolini’s Law. I can’t even.
So I got ChatGPT to do it. See below. [continue reading…]
I recently had a twitter conversation with economist Sanjeev Sabhlok (@sabhlok). See, e.g.:
Thank you so much. Look forward to learning more about this complex and highly contested issue. https://t.co/O3HvbAWnOB
— Sanjeev Sabhlok (@sabhlok) May 13, 2025
He wrote me that he had looked into the issue further . See e.g. his tweet: [continue reading…]
I found some interesting commentary in James E. Penner, The Idea of Property in Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). (Ironically, this treatise is quoted favorably by pro-IP libertarian law professor Eric R. Claeys, Natural Property Rights (Cambridge U. Press, 2025), §4.2, p. 77. ) I will provide some quotes and then some takeaways. I have omitted footnotes; note the bolded text in particular: [continue reading…]
Someone on Twitter posted this document (pdf).
Hi Stephan, I know you are a big objector to Intellectual Property. And I would be glad if you would review my argument against the existence of Intellectual Property. I formulated an argument with formal logic (using modal operators and model theory). (1/2)
— franco (@catalaxiaaa) May 22, 2025
Not sure I can follow it as I have never liked or found symbolic logic useful at all, esp. for arguments like this which I believe require words and the richness of language and concepts. But here it is FWIW. [continue reading…]
I asked both versions of Grok (Twitter/x version and Grok.com) to prepare a summary and analysis of The Problem with Intellectual Property (Papinian Press Working Paper #2). They are somewhat different so I paste them both below (after asking Grok to prepare an HTML version for me to preserve formatting that is otherwise lost when I copy and paste). [continue reading…]
Below is the first draft of a working paper published under the Papinian Press Working Papers series. I expect a version of this to be published later this year as “The Problem with Intellectual Property,” in Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics, 2nd ed., Marianne Thejls Ziegler and Christoph Lütge, eds. (Springer, forthcoming 2025; Robert McGee, section ed.). This is a totally new piece which replace my contribution in the first edition of the Handbook, Stephan Kinsella, “The Case Against Intellectual Property,” in Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics (Prof. Dr. Christoph Lütge, ed.; Springer, 2013) (chapter 68, in Part 18, “Property Rights: Material and Intellectual,” Robert McGee, section ed.)
Files: pdf; word. Here is quick-and-dirty and unedited epub converted automatically from the word file.
Related:
O’Keeffe is right to call for scaling back patent protection as real solution here, as they are a primary driver of absurdly high drug prices. Given that patents exist and cause the price of pharmaceuticals to be higher than market prices, however, I am not sure that a government price control (which I do not see clearly being proposed by Trump’s Executive Order anyway)1 would have the same effects as price controls of market prices.
And since Big Pharma lobbies for and takes advantage of the state’s patent system, I would not shed tears for them being subject to antitrust or other regulations. After all, the state hands out patents to allow companies to charge monopoly prices but then schizophrenically penalizes monopoly prices with its antitrust laws. Hence, the patent grant comes with a sort of built in limitation: don’t take too much advantage of this evil patent right we are giving you, or we might come after you. The fact that they are selling drugs in other markets at a fraction of the cost, and still at a profit, presumably, is a good indicator that they are, indeed, “abusing” the patent right they are given.
What the state should do is:
I’ve been on Matt Sands’s podcast a few times, e.g. KOL450 | Together Strong IP Discussion (Matthew Sands of Nations of Sanity feat Econ Bro). Here are his group’s stance on IP (permalink because these groups tend to come and go and disappear):
After people have grasped what the NAP (Non Aggression Principle) is and understand the basic implications of establishing this principle as law it is not hard to see what of our current society would remain the same and what would change. [continue reading…]
Coming around a bit, perhaps?
I’ve not had time to study the topic fully, but will now follow @NSKinsella
My previous notes at: https://t.co/gpayLZgJY6
Overall I agree that IP is greatly overhyped but I’d not agree (at this stage) to abolish it entirely. Also, drawing a theoretical link between obesity and… https://t.co/OghrUyjip3
— Sanjeev Sabhlok (@sabhlok) May 12, 2025
See his post Sanjeev Sabhlok, “Against intellectual property? – a placeholder post,” Sanjeev Sabhlok’s blog: Thoughts on economics and liberty (Oct. 26, 2016), and also the pro-IP post by Rogan that he links. Both below.
“Does the Law Support Inventors or Investors?“, New York Times (Oct. 10, 2012):
Introduction
In a report in The New York Times this week, judges, scholars and executives said that in technology fields, “the marketplace for new ideas has been corrupted by software patents used as destructive weapons.” But certainly the protections for intellectual property – like pharmaceuticals, movies and other inventions – also fuel creativity, in part by giving investors enough confidence to open their wallets.
On balance, does intellectual property law encourage or discourage innovation?
This debate includes 6 debaters: [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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