≡ Menu

Can You Copyright a Vibe?

More copyright insanity. All a predictable result of unnatural, evil IP law. I can’t show this whole article, because of … evil copyright law. But a few choice nuggets

Can You Copyright a Vibe?

One influencer is suing another, accusing her of copying her minimalist aesthetic on social media. It turns out there is a lot of gray area in shades of beige.

The oversize beige cable-knit sweater. The center-parted hair. The right knee pointed out, creating a curve at her left hip.

Practically every detail in the photo — right down to the matching short set — looked familiar to Sydney Gifford. So did the woman posed in front of the nondescript white wall.

Days earlier, Ms. Gifford, a 24-year-old lifestyle influencer, had shared a photo with her thousands of followers that was virtually identical. The woman in this new photo was a fellow influencer, Alyssa Sheil, with whom she had gone shopping and done a photo shoot months earlier.

At the time, she thought their interactions had been merely awkward. But as she scrolled through Ms. Sheil’s photos on Instagram for the first time in nearly a year, she said, Ms. Gifford suspected those meetings had been some kind of aesthetic espionage.

… But in the carefully curated world of social media, Ms. Gifford has leveled a perhaps more severe charge against her: stealing her vibe.

Share
{ 0 comments }

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 450.

My discussion/interview by Matthew Sands of the Nations of Sanity project as part of his “Together Strong” debate series.

Read more>>

Share
{ 0 comments }

Labor, Value, Metaphors, Locke, Intellectual Property

From a facebook post by David Veksler:

There is no such thing as “intrinsic value” in economics. Value exists only in the eyes of the beholder. The concept of “value” is made possible by being valuable to a specific person, for a particular purpose. The only thing in the universe that is intrinsically valuable is human beings.

TLDR: Stop with nonsense like “Bitcoin has no intrinsic value”

My comment (lightly edited here):

Read more>>

Share
{ 1 comment }

Decouple Trade and IP Protection

My latest article: Stephan Kinsella, “Decouple Trade and IP Protection,” Brownstone Institute (Dec. 4, 2024; perma).

Many of us who support free trade and private property rights tend to look favorably on regional and bilateral treaties that claim to further these goals. There is a vast network of bilateral investment treaties, or BITs, for example, designed to promote foreign direct investment by Western firms into developing nations by limiting the host state’s ability to expropriate the investments.

These BITs aim to strengthen the property rights of international investors in the host state so as to make investment less risky. There are more than 2,500 BITs in force worldwide; the US itself currently has BITs in place with 39 countries. BITs and other measures can benefit both host states and international investors by strengthening local property rights, as I explain in International Investment, Political Risk, and Dispute Resolution.

In addition to investment treaties that concern the property rights of foreign investors in host countries, there is also a global network of bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements ostensibly aimed at promoting trade between nations. Many of us favored so-called free trade agreements like NAFTA even if we would have preferred more radical approaches. Regional, multilateral, and bilateral trade agreements are viewed as incremental improvements even if thousands of pages of regulations could be easily replaced by a couple of sentences or, better, unilateral abolition of import tariffs.

But over time it has become apparent that “free trade” agreements often serve as a pretext for exporting Western intellectual property (IP) law—mainly US-style patent and copyright law—onto the rest of the world. This is what I call IP imperialism. Here’s how it works. First, we are told that intellectual property rights are legitimate, and in fact are part of the reason for the relative success of the industrialized countries in the West. (It’s not. For more on this, see You Can’t Own Ideas: Essays on Intellectual Property.)

Read more>>

Share
{ 3 comments }

A Letter to the Houston Symphony

I sent this recently to the CEO and President of the Houston Symphony, regarding its 2030 Strategic Plan (pdf), which aims to “establish the Houston Symphony as a world-class orchestra.” Pillar 1 of the 2030 Strategic Plan includes the following goal/initiative:

Regularly engage in touring and recording projects:

To establish ourselves as a world-class orchestra, we need to increase our visibility beyond Houston through touring and recording. A comparison with other major U.S. orchestras shows that most orchestras have returned to some touring over the past two years, while Houston has not toured. Additionally, the orchestra has released only three albums in the last five years. To address this, we will prioritize periodic international touring and focus on building our recording identity with unique commissions and performances that showcase Houston’s distinct character. Touring and recording projects are critical for the orchestra’s artistic development, for making our artistry more broadly accessible, and for cementing our reputation as a world-class orchestra.

My letter is below. The copyright mindset runs deep, so it is unlikely this advice will be heeded. Still, I thought it worth a shot.

Update: Jeff Tucker informs me of something I was not aware of in the music industry. Apparently there are modern editions or arrangements or “engravings” of classical, public domain works which the publishers claim copyright in, and modern orchestras usually use the more recent engravings when they record or perform. If this is right, then to be able to release a recording of a classic work into the commons the orchestra might want to use the original score or a later public domain engraving. Still, I see no reason it could not be done.
[continue reading…]

Share
{ 0 comments }

Glyn Moody on Copyright Abolition

In a recent tweet I bemoaned that even many people skeptical of IP still favor it and oppose abolition, and I glancingly mentioned tech journalist Glyn Moody (I have cited him positively many times for his work critical of IP; see his techdirt posts). He replied and said he is actually for IP abolition, and pointed me to his book, Walled Culture, which is also free online and CC0!

The book may not explicitly be anticopyright but the vibe is there. He writes (last few pages of the last chapter): [continue reading…]

Share
{ 1 comment }

Bill Gates: Wrong on Communism and IP

I’ve long noted how the West, primarily the US, uses its leverage to pressure developing nations to adopt and strengthen intellectual property (IP) protections and adopt international IP treaties, primarily for benefit US corporate interests, namely pharmaceuticals (patent) and Hollywood and music (copyright). This is a form of what I call IP imperialism. It is often done by insisting on local IP protection even in agreements that have nothing to do with the local property law of developing nations, namely bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements.1 The purpose of a free trade agreement is simply to lower tariffs and barriers to international trade, but the US and other western powers usually insist on developing nations strengthening local IP law even though this has nothing to do with trade but instead is a matter of local property rights.2 [continue reading…]

  1. I discuss bilateral and multilateral investment and trade agreements in detail in my book International Investment, Political Risk, and Dispute Resolution, 2d ed. (Oxford, 2020). []
  2. See various posts on IP imperialism here. []
Share
{ 0 comments }

Gladish on Galambos at ASC

I just came across this talk by Brian Gladish, “Andrew J., Galambos’s Ideas and the Future of Private Protection for Intellectual Property” from the 2012 Austrian Scholars Conference. Jesus, what insipid nonsense. Why the hell this would be welcome at the ASC is beyond me. Totally incoherent, crankish shit. Statist, illiberal. Galambos is worthless. It is good he is so insane on IP that he has persuaded his idiotic, cultish followers to agree not to spread his wrong-headed ideas.

Gladish’s fumbling mutterings here are embarrassing and have no place at the ASC, at the institute which previously awarded me the O.P. Alford III Prize for Against Intellectual Property.

Gladish says Galambos makes a good case for Paine being the author of the Declaration of Independence. No. He does not. He was a total crank and loon, on IP as well as this insane theory. See Galambos on Paine. Here (Why Objectivists Hate Anarchy (Hint: IP)), Gladish whines that we are piling on Galambos. He should be piled on. He is one of the worst thinkers I have ever come across. He is worthless. At least Gladish had the sense not to mention retard Galambos in his more recent Mises.org article.

Share
{ 0 comments }