C4SIF.org

The “Austrian Economics Center,” which claims to advocate “the ideas of the Austrian School of Economics” and to promote “a free, responsible and prosperous society,” “has joined the Property Rights Alliance (PRA) in an open letter to WIPO Director Dr. Francis Gurry in support of strong protections for all types of IP”.

A letter from Barbara Kolm, the Center’s Director, announcing this, stated:

As we consider free markets and economic growth in Europe we must reflect on the importance of Intellectual Property (IP) rights. We strongly feel IP is key to fostering global innovation, creativity and competitiveness, particularly in today’s knowledge-based economy.

Risk is the lifeblood of creative and innovative economies. IP rights encourage entrepreneurs and creators to push for new advances and contemplate new creations in the face of adversity. Intellectual property is the engine of economic growth and competitiveness, and helps generate breakthrough solutions to global challenges.

In both the United States and European Union, IP-intensive industries support tens of millions of jobs and contribute trillions of dollars to annual GDP. For example, in the EU alone, IP-intensive jobs contribute to 26% of employment and 39% of GDP. Numerous studies have found that countries with strong IP protection programs have up to 13 times higher GDP than those that do not.

That is why we joined 85 think tanks and institutions globally in signing a letter to global leaders that articulates a framework and guidelines regarding intellectual property. As these issues are discussed in various forums around the world, these guidelines will be a helpful resource.

Advanced societies have long understood that by protecting the proprietary rights of artists, authors, entrepreneurs, innovators, and inventors, they are promoting greater public welfare. The continued protection of these fundamental rights is essential to global innovation, creativity and competitiveness.

The comment that “IP-intensive industries support tens of millions of jobs and contribute trillions of dollars to annual GDP” appears to be lifted from a ridiculous “study” by the Commerce Department that is transparently false and flawed—see USPTO/Commerce Dept. Distortions: “IP Contributes $5 Trillion and 40 Million Jobs to Economy”. As for her comment, “Numerous studies have found that countries with strong IP protection programs have up to 13 times higher GDP than those that do not.”—this makes the obvious error of confusing correlation with causation. (See Intellectual Property as a cause of American Prosperity?)

Also signing the letter are other supposed libertarian, free market, liberal, or Austrian groups, such as the F.A. v. Hayek Institute, Austria; Hayek Institute Romania; Ayn Rand Institute Europe (unsurprisingly); Libertarian Club Libek, Serbia; Liberty Forum of Greece; Italian Students for Individual Liberty; The Liberty Institute, India; Digital Liberty, USA; and many others.

To their credit, none of the Mises Institutes that are part of the Mises Global network, nor the Cato Institute, nor the Cobden Centre, signed this letter. Indeed, American groups seem under-represented on this list, perhaps because this letter concerns IP in Europe, and also perhaps because of the growing awareness over here among free market libertarians that IP is monstrous and utterly incompatible with liberal principles.

[Update: See Hoppe on Barbara Kolm and her IP views: https://twitter.com/ograu90/status/1725231525849952478 ]

But it is especially distressing that the soi-disant Austrian groups (the Austrian Economics Center and the two aforementioned Hayek Institutes) are coming out explicitly in favor of IP, despite the fact that many prominent Austrians, such as Bohm-Bahwerk, Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Kirzner, and Hoppe have expressed extreme skepticism or outright hostility to IP (or to the empirical/utilitarian approach implicitly being advanced here), plus a number of fellow travelers such as Plant, Machlup and Leonard Read. For example, see:

• Böhm-Bawerk on Patent and Copyright
• Fritz Machlup, U.S. Senate Subcommittee On Patents, Trademarks & Copyrights, An Economic Review of the Patent System, 85th Cong., 2nd Session, 1958, Study No. 15 (text excerpt) [“Report to the US congress from 1958, which also extensively narrates the history of the patent movement and of earlier economic research on this subject. Machlup, a renowned American economist of Austrian origin, is the first author of a large treatise on knowledge economics and other treatises which belong to the teaching repertoire of economics departments in universities. His report cites a wealth of historical and economic evidence to refute most of the reasoning used by lawyers to legitimate the patent system.”]; also Fritz Machlup & Edith Penrose, “The Patent Controversy in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Economic History 10 (1950), p. 1
• Ludwig von Mises, Human Action 3rd rev. ed. Chicago: Henry Regnery (1966), chap. 23, section 6, pp. 661–62; see also pp. 128, 364; also Kinsella, “Mises on Intellectual Property“
• Hayek: see Hayek’s Views on Intellectual Property; also Tucker, “Misesian vs. Marxian vs. IP Views of Innovation“; Tucker, “Hayek on Patents and Copyrights“; Salerno, Hayek Contra Copyright Laws
• Arnold Plant, “The Economic Theory Concerning Patents for Inventions,”Economica, New Series, 1, no. 1 (Feb., 1934)
• Murray N. Rothbard, Knowledge, True and False; Man, Economy, and State and Power and Market, Scholars Edition, pp. liv, 745-54, 1133-38, 1181-86
• Cordato and Kirzner on Intellectual Property
• Leonard Read, “On Plagiarism” (1972), reprinted in Kinsella, “Leonard Read on Copyright and the Role of Ideas“
• Hoppe on Intellectual Property; Hoppe Interview on Anarchy and Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property is completely contrary to private property rights, free markets, competition, and liberal principles. All Austrian and free market/libertarian groups should strongly oppose IP, not promote it. If these institutions choose to be wertfrei that is fine, but then they should take no policy positions. Once they enter the field of making policy pronouncements they open themselves up to criticism in this arena. (On a slight tangent: as I concluded in New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory:

Under the three theories outlined above—argumentation ethics, estoppel theory, and the self-contradictions of rights-skeptics—we can see that the relevant participant in discourse cannot deny the validity of individual rights. These rationalist-oriented theories offer, in my opinion, very good defenses of individual rights, defenses that are more powerful, in a sense, than many other approaches, because they show that the opponent of individual rights, whether criminal, skeptic, or socialist, presupposes that they are true. Critics must enter the cathedral of libertarianism even to deny that it exists. This makes criticism of libertarian beliefs hollow: for if someone asks why we believe in individual rights, we can tell them to look in the mirror, and find the answer there.

“For Intellectual Property: The Property Ideas of Andrew J. Galambos,” by Richard Boren, was recently published in The Voluntaryist.

Many IP advocates get upset when you accuse them of holding the view that ideas are property—that they think there should be property rights in “ideas”. Nonsense, they say—they are only in favor of property rights in “logos” or “instantiated ideas” or “inventions” or “works of authorship” but the notion that they favor property rights in ideas is ridiculous, a straw man.

Not according to the Galambosian. He frankly admits: “I am in favor of treating ideas as property.”

***

A few comments. In Boren’s piece, he says: [continue reading…]

Nice article in The Freeman (from 2001) illustrating the pernicious effects of patents. Here, a patent on an early automobile design was used by the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers (ALAM) to restrict competition in the auto industry. For a related episode, see Boldrin & Levine’s discussion of “how the Wright brothers used their patents to try to block the emergence of a US aircraft industry. Interestingly, this pattern of behavior continued. In 1972 the US government charged the aircraft industry with an antitrust violation, basically because they kept using their patent pool and cross licensing to prevent entry. IP-inefficiency at its best.” (ch. 4, Against Intellectual Monopoly).

From the Against Monopoly blog:

Killing people with patents

Michele and I have long pointed out the human cost of pharmaceutical patents during the AIDS crisis in Africa (and were hardly the first to do so). Via Andy Neumeyer a new film documenting just how bad it was. Trailer here

[Posted at 05/16/2015 12:18 AM by David K. Levine on Pharmaceutical Patents comments(0)]

See also:

• Over Two Dozen Patent/FDA-caused Drug Shortage Patients File Suit Against HHS
• Intellectual Property Rights: A Critical History and US IP Imperialism
• HuffPo: Patent Trolls Are Killing People — Literally
• Patents Threaten To Silence A Little Girl, Literally
• Patents Kill: Millions Die in Africa After Big Pharma Blocks Imports of Generic AIDS Drugs
• Update: Patents Kill: Compulsory Licenses and Genzyme’s Life Saving Drug
• Patents Kill: Compulsory Licenses and Genzyme’s Life Saving Drug
  • For more on compulsory licensing, see Hickey, Kevin J.; Ward, Erin H., “The Role of Patents and Regulatory Exclusivities in Drug Pricing” (01/30/2024)
• Wenzel on patents in developing countries
• Copyright Kills “Men at Work” Flautist, Greg Ham
• FDA and USPTO: Joint Killers
• Update: Trademark/copyright: Wildwood to Atlantic City – Stop ‘watch the tram car’ please/

Great new article by Matthew McCaffrey in The Freeman, “Are Markets Ruining Video Games? Or is intellectual property the real culprit?” (May 12, 2015).

Capitalism is ruining video games. So says game producer Lorne Lanning, creator of the Oddworld series, who recently sparked controversy by blasting economic developments in the gaming industry.

Lanning blames “capitalism” for gaming’s recent financial and artistic troubles, especially its emphasis on commercial success over artistic creativity. His basic claim is the same one levied against the film industry: major studios have been squeezing out their smaller competitors, taking advantage of market dominance to produce an endless stream of big-budget, artistically uninspiring sequels and spin-off franchises.

It’s unclear what Lanning (or anyone, really) means by capitalism, but he seems to be condemning the largely corporate world of game design and marketing. For instance, he mentions bureaucratic corporate structure, the quest for constant growth, and the need to appeal to mass markets as problems undermining the industry. [continue reading…]

Courtesy of Andrew Torrance, mentioned in his 2011 Open Science Summit talk,¹ a quote from this book: Patents in the Knowledge-Based Economy, Cohen & Merrill, eds. (2003) (Google books):

There are theoretical as well as empirical reasons to question whether patent rights advance innovation in a substantial way in most industries. …The literature on the impact of patents on innovation must be considered emergent. One reason is that the effect of patent policy has many dimensions … and these continue to challenge scholars both theoretically and empirically.

Discussed by Torrance here. See also Yet Another Study Finds Patents Do Not Encourage Innovation; and Torrance and Tominlson, PATENTS AND THE REGRESS OF USEFUL ARTS.

In other words, people who say patents encourage innovation do not know what they are talking about and have no clear evidence to back it up.

This reminds of similar conclusions and comments by other researchers, as discussed here:

A hundred and fifty years after the first US patent law and the Founders’ “hunch” that copyrights and patents might “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,”² there was still no evidence to back up this assumption.³

As economist Fritz Machlup concluded, in an exhaustive 1958 study prepared for the U.S. Senate Subcommittee On Patents, Trademarks & Copyrights:

No economist, on the basis of present knowledge, could possibly state with certainty that the patent system, as it now operates, confers a net benefit or a net loss upon society. The best he can do is to state assumptions and make guesses about the extent to which reality corresponds to these assumptions. … If we did not have a patent system, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge of its economic consequences, to recommend instituting one.”⁴

And the empirical case for patents has not been shored up at all in the last fifty years. As George Priest wrote in 1986:

[I]n the current state of knowledge, economists know almost nothing about the effect on social welfare of the patent system or of other systems of intellectual property.⁵

Similar comments are echoed by other researchers. François Lévêque and Yann Ménière, for example, of the Ecole des mines de Paris (an engineering university), observed in 2004:

The abolition or preservation of intellectual property protection is … not just a purely theoretical question. To decide on it from an economic viewpoint, we must be able to assess all the consequences of protection and determine whether the total favorable effects for society outweigh the total negative effects. Unfortunately, this exercise [an economic analysis of the cost and benefits of intellectual property] is no more within our reach today than it was in Machlup’s day [1950s].⁶

More recently, Boston University Law School Professors (and economists) Michael Meurer and Jim Bessen conclude that on average, the patent system discourages innovation. As they write: “it seems unlikely that patents today are an effective policy instrument to encourage innovation overall” (p. 216). To the contrary, it seems clear that nowadays “patents place a drag on innovation” (p. 146). In short, “the patent system fails on its own terms” (p. 145).⁷

And in a recent study, economists Michele Boldrin and David Levine, authors of Against Intellectual Monopoly, conclude:

The case against patents can be summarized briefly: there is no empirical evidence that they serve to increase innovation and productivity, unless the latter is identified with the number of patents awarded—which, as evidence shows, has no correlation with measured productivity. This is at the root of the “patent puzzle”: in spite of the [enormous] increase in the number of patents and in the strength of their legal protection we have neither seen a dramatic acceleration in the rate of technological progress nor a major increase in the levels of R&D expenditurein addition to the discussion in this paper, see Lerner [2009] and literature therein. As we shall see, there is strong evidence, instead, that patents have many negative consequences.⁸

See also Legal Scholars: Thumbs Down on Patent and Copyright; The Overwhelming Empirical Case Against Patent and Copyright.

1. See KOL101 | The Future (the End?) of Intellectual Property (Open Science Summit, 2011) . [↩]
2. U.S. Const., Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 8 [↩]
3. Eric E. Johnson, “Intellectual Property’s Great Fallacy” (2011): “The monopolies now understood as copyrights and patents were originally created by royal decree, bestowed as a form of favoritism and control. As the power of the monarchy dwindled, these chartered monopolies were reformed, and essentially by default, they wound up in the hands of authors and inventors.” [↩]
4. Fritz Machlup, An Economic Review of the Patent System 79-80 (1958), c4sif.org/resources; Machlup, An Economic Review of the Patent System 79-80 (1958); see also my post The Economist on the American Patent System. [↩]
5. George Priest, “What Economists Can Tell Lawyers About Intellectual Property,” 8 Res. L. & Econ. 19 (1986). [↩]
6. François Lévêque & Yann Ménière, The Economics of Patents and Copyrights 102 (2004). [↩]
7. James Bessen & Michael J. Meurer, Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk (2008, excerpts available at researchoninnovation.org/dopatentswork/). [↩]
8. Michele Boldrin & David K. Levine, “The Case Against Patents”  (June 29, 2012 draft; available at http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu). [↩]

I started practicing law in 1992, and patent and intellectual property law about a year later, in 1993, and became a registered patent attorney in 1994. Right around the same time, I also became anti-IP around that same time and started speaking and publishing about my anti-IP views around 1994–95.¹

At first, I was cautious about revealing my views, as I thought it might hurt me in my career—with colleagues, bosses, or clients. I also thought that my status as a practicing IP attorney might add extra weight to the credibility of my arguments. I was mostly wrong in both. As for the former, it turns out that in over twenty years of being increasingly outspoken in my opposition to IP, I’ve yet to see any client or employer even notice or care, much less object. In fact my prominence on the political aspects of this issue has led to many situations where inventors or others contact me to ask me to do IP work for them. They know I’m against IP but don’t care; they assume I must know my stuff if I have articulate policy views about it. And some want a libertarian patent attorney, because they are libertarians. The only way it might have negatively affected my career is that I refuse to participate in the aggressive (offensive) enforcement of IP rights. But there are enough non-aggressive specialty niches in IP law that this self-imposed boycott is not a big deal: e.g., patent prosecution and counseling, licensing, trademark prosecution, copyright counseling, patentability opinions, and defensive patent litigation support.

I’ve also never noticed that people give my arguments much extra credence just because I’m a patent attorney. This could be because the field is so arcane and specialized that most laymen do not quite understand what it’s about. It also could be because I have always maintained that patent lawyers who are pro-IP have no special policy wisdom on IP, and that any intelligent person is just as able to form normative and policy views about this matter as the Inside-the-Temple “experts”. And I have always studiously tried not to “talk down” to laymen, or to “baffle with bullshit” by rattling off the minutae of legal details just to cow them or shut them up. I think my expertise has helped only insofar as it has helped me to be more aware of the way actual IP works so that my arguments are more legally precise, so that people reading my work don’t think I don’t even understand the system I am pontificating about (which often happens when I read the confused arguments of laymen in favor of IP).

In any case, over the years I keep getting a number of questions and criticisms, such as: “How can you be anti-IP if you are a patent attorney?” “Aren’t you a hypocrite?” “No client should hire you if you are anti-IP!” and so on. I’ve replied to these and others on a number of occasions, and when they recur, I usually repeat myself or find one of my previous replies. So here, I am collecting many of them into one location, in chronological order, so I can just send the link to this very post to people next time they ask! The most relevant ones are bolded.

• Letter to an Anonymous Patent Attorney  (Jan 25, 2002)
• The Morality of Acquiring and Enforcing Patents  (Oct. 1, 2003)
• “A Patent Success Story” (June 26, 2006)
• Miracle–An Honest Patent Attorney! (Sep. 7, 2006)
• The Most Libertarian Patent Work (July 14, 2009)
• A collection of recent blogs about patent hypocrisy and “success” stories (Nov. 8, 2006)
• Patent Attorney Admission (Dec. 22, 2006)
• An Anti-Patent Patent Attorney? Oh my Gawd (July 12, 2009)
• Patent Lawyers Who Don’t Toe the Line Should Be Punished!  (Sep. 29, 2009)
• Is It So Crazy For A Patent Attorney To Think Patents Harm Innovation? (Oct. 1, 2009)
• Are anti-IP patent attorneys hypocrites? (April 22, 2011)
• The “Productivity” of Patent Brainstorming (Jan. 4, 2012)
• Rothbard on Lawyers, Accountants, Locks and Safes–and patent lawyers? (Sep. 29, 2012)
• “Oh yeah? How would like it if I copy and publish your book under my name?!”: On IP Hypocrisy and Calling the Smartasses’ Bluffs (Jan 3, 2013)

1. See Letter on Intellectual Property Rights, IOS Journal 5, no. 2 (June 1995), pp. 12-13; also Intellectual Property Legitimate? (local copy), Winter 2000, Federalist Society, based on version previously published in Pennsylvania Bar Association Intellectual Property Newsletter 1 (Winter 1998): 3; Roderick Long: Bye-Bye for IP. [↩]

Good episode of NPR’s Planet Money, Episode 551: The Cast Against Patents, featuring economists Michele Boldrin and David Levine, authors of Against Intellectual Monopoly and The Case Against Patents, and members of the Advisory Board of C4SIF.  Embedded below. From the shownotes:

Tesla, the electric car company, recently decided to, basically, give up its patents. Anybody who wants to is now free to steal the company’s ideas.

Elon Musk, the company’s CEO said he isn’t really into patents — and, he said, he thinks giving them up is best for everybody.

On today’s show, we take this idea to its logical conclusion. We talk to two guys who say we should get rid of patents altogether. If someone has an idea, anyone else is free to steal it.

From a Facebook thread, in which I was pinged to explain how Rothbard erred on intellectual property–my comment, edited somewhat:

Update: For more update lists, see Classical Liberals and Anarchists on Intellectual Property.

Two sets that you would think are exceedingly rare. Over the years I’ve noticed when someone falls into either group. My notes are not comprehensive, to be sure, but here is what I’ve gathered so far.

As for the second category: I collected them previously here: Patent Lawyers Who Oppose Patent Law. They include me, my friend Tony Diehl, and a few others. (See this post about an old friend of mine, Steve Mendelsohn, Patent Lawyer Mostly Agrees With Me. Update: See also KOL454 | Interview with my Patent Mentor, Bill Norvell, about Patent Law and Our Days Together; Miracle–An Honest Patent Attorney!) And some that want to be anonymous.¹ However, to be honest, of everyone I’ve listed—as far as I know only Tony and I qualify as as (a) being actual practicing, registered patent attorneys who are also (b) completely opposed to the patent system. As far as I know we are the only two people in the whole world who actually understand IP and oppose it completely and on private property grounds. Everyone else either only understands IP incompletely (non-registered patent attorney) or is in favor of “reform” but not abolition or is against IP on leftish grounds. Well, two out of 7 billion people—that’s a start. I guess. But it’s always shocking to me someone can pose as a radical anti-state libertarian, and then turn around and argue for state-granted monopoly rights. Amazing.

As for the former. It’s always surprising to me when someone who claims to be an anarchist—and a libertarian anarchist, no less—still supports IP…. even though IP is a state-granted monopoly, requires the state, requires legislation, and is utterly incompatible with free markets, libertarian property rights, etc. Prominent examples include:

• Lysander Spooner (Tucker on Spooner’s One Flaw)
• J. Neil Schulman and L. Neil Smith (Replies to Neil Schulman and Neil Smith re IP; Kinsella v. Schulman on Logorights and IP; Schulman: Kinsella is “the foremost enemy of property rights” ; Query for Schulman on Patents and Logorights)
• Sharon Presley
• Molinari
• Jan (J.C.) Lester (Anarchist Libertarian Jan Lester’s Argument for Intellectual Property)
• even Benjamin Tucker was right on IP, but for the wrong reasons
• And possibly: Proudhon (Proudhon: For Intellectual Monopoly)
• And some less-known more modern soi-disant anarchists who are nonetheless confused and bad on IP: Bob Wenzel, for example,² as well as other lesser/modern figures such as Chris LeRoux,³ Shayne Wissler,⁴ Silas Barta (aka John Sharp, “Person,” Richard Harding/Hard Dick).⁵. See also Libertarian Patent Lawyer Defends Patent Law (comments) (Michael F. Martin).

(I am not even including here non-anarchist and utilitarian libertarians, since so many of them have been horribly wrong on IP, namely Ayn Rand, Jan Helfeld, and … most others.)

Libertarians who were surprisingly good on IP before the Internet era include:

• Benjamin Tucker
• Sam Konkin III (Remembering Samuel Edward Konkin III;  Copywrongs)
• Wendy McElroy (see e.g McElroy: “On the Subject of Intellectual Property” (1981); and Copyright and Patent in Benjamin Tucker’s periodical Liberty)
• Tom Palmer (“Intellectual Property: A Non-Posnerian Law and Economics Approach,” “Are Patents and Copyrights Morally Justified?: The Philosophy of Property Rights and Ideal Objects”)
• Leonard Read (Leonard Read: What Makes Ideas Different?; Leonard Read on Copyright and the Role of Ideas
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Hoppe on Intellectual Property; Hoppe Interview on Anarchy and Intellectual Property)
• [Update: See my post: Classical Liberals and Anarchists on Intellectual Property]

(In the post-1995/Internet era, more libertarians starting paying attention, and getting it mostly right, namely me, Roderick Long, Jeff Tucker, Sheldon Richman, and a few others—collected here.)

And honorable mentions:

• Israel Kirzner (Cordato and Kirzner on Intellectual Property)
• LeFevre on Intellectual Property and the “Ownership of Intangibles”
• William Leggett (William Leggett on Intellectual Property)
• Böhm-Bawerk on Patent and Copyright
• David Hume (Hume on Intellectual Property and the Problematic “Labor” Metaphor)

For more, see: The Origins of Libertarian IP Abolitionism and The Four Historical Phases of IP Abolitionism.

1. Miracle–An Honest Patent Attorney! [↩]
2. KOL 038 | Debate with Robert Wenzel on Intellectual Property. [↩]
3. KOL076 | IP Debate with Chris LeRoux ; Can you own ideas? Chris LeRoux debates Daniel Rothschild. [↩]
4.  “Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Economics and Political Theory,” Liberty in the Pines Conference (March 2013); and his comments in this Solopassion thread about IP; and this tweet thread; but see his article An elegant argument against patents [↩]
5. Silas Barta: The shortest, safest libertarian case [sic] for IP.  Re his nyms, he once confirmed this to me: “I also post at these places.  (Usual handle in parentheses.)Asymmetric information, Megan McArdle’s blog (Person)
   Marginal Revolution (Person)
   Overcoming Bias (Silas)
   Kip Esquire’s blog, A Stitch in Haste (Silas)
   econlog.econlib.org (none, banned)
   economiclogic.blogspot.com (johnsharp9)” [↩]

As discussed on this Facebook thread.

Conversation with a student (this happens pretty frequently). (some formatting has been lost)

Just came across this old letter from Liberty (and my now-friend Timo Virkkala) rejecting an anti-intellectual property piece I submitted to Liberty in 1996. A brief history: my first anti-IP writing also appeared around 1995.¹ Here’s the text of the rejection letter:

June 27, 1996
N. Stephan Kinsella
Suite 3600
1600 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103-4252

Dear Mr. Kinsella:

I am very sorry for taking such a long time to get back to you regarding your proposal for an article on contract theory and intellectual property rights. We’ve been kicking around the idea, and have decided that it is probably not our fare—though interesting.

In reviewing your proposal, I notice that your argument resembles that of Williamson M. Evers “Title Transfer Theory of Contract,” which appeared in JLS early on. Are you familiar with Evers’ argument?

Thanks for thinking of us. I’m glad Wendy McElroy suggested us to you, and I hope you will consider us again.
Sincerely,

Timothy Virkkala

Interestingly, in the meantime, IP has become of intense interest among libertarians, and, in 2009 I published “Intellectual Property and Libertarianism” in Liberty.²  As for the Rothbard/Evers contract theory, in 2003 I published “A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability” in the Journal of Libertarian Studies 17, no. 2 (Spring 2003), which elaborates and expands on their views.

Update: On Facebook I mentioned “The weird thing was you guys sent me a couple of rejections of other people’s articles — a weird mismatch.” Here is what I meant. See below, from earlier correspondence to Liberty (the Bank of England submission was published; see here):

Monday, March 1, 1993

Timothy Virkkala, Assistant Editor
Liberty
P.O. Box 1167
Port Townsend, WA 98368

Dear Mr. Virkkala,

In your letter of February 25, 1993, you inform me that my essay, “The Hard-Core Juvenile Defender,” has not been selected for publication in Liberty. However, I did not write nor submit such an article. I did submit, in a letter dated December 18, 1992, an essay entitled “The Perpetual Federal Budget Surplus?”. If I recall, I also submitted some time thereafter a copy of my recent article “Estoppel: A New Justification for Individual Rights,” published in the latest issue of Reason Papers, along with a proposal to write a shorter, more popular version of the article for you. I would appreciate it if you would check your records and inform me of your decision on these two submissions.

Additionally, I would like to propose to you an idea for an article or perhaps for a “Guest Reflection,” which I would be happy to write if you think you would be interested in considering it for publication. The essay would concern the following:

I spent last year in London. On the pound notes, for example the £5 note, is the language: “BANK OF ENGLAND: I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five pounds.” Well, since there is no longer any metal standard, I wondered what this could mean. The note is five pounds; what could it mean to promise to pay the bearer of it five pounds? This promissory note language is a facade, a completely illusory promise. I decided to visit the Bank of England, located in downtown London, in the Financial District, to call their bluff, to make them make good on their promise. What would they do, I wondered—hand me back another five-pound note in exchange for the one I offered?

I made it there, and was stopped at the door by security, and I could not get past the main front desk without having a three-piece suit and “official business.” In other words, the doors of the Bank were not even open to all the holders of notes which promised them that the Bank would give them five pounds “on demand” upon presentation of their “note”. I explained that my note said the Bank would give me five pounds upon demand for my note, and that I was hereby demanding that the Bank fulfill its obligations under the note. The man behind the front desk had little patience and told me that perhaps I’d find some information if I went to the Bank of England Museum around the corner.

So I left and went to the Museum, which is quite nice, actually. I explained to a curator what had happened, and that I was interested in finding out exactly what the language could mean, since obviously it didn’t function as an actual promise to pay me five pounds—they wouldn’t even let me in the door! She went into a back room, and finally dug up an old photocopy, from God knows what source, which attempts to explain the meaning and evolution of the “I promise to pay the bearer” language. I took the pages home, and tried to understand them. Apparently, the Bank is contending now that the language only means, and only ever meant, that the Bank has an obligation to replace old, out-of-circulation pound notes with new, in-circulation ones. Right. That’s what “I promise to pay bearer on demand the sum of five pounds” means.

If you would be interested in this essay idea, please let me know and I will be happy to submit a finalized version, which would contain more elaboration on the nature of money and the “legal tender” language in the U.S., to you for your consideration. If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to call or write.

and:

Friday, May 7, 1993

Timothy Virkkala, Assistant Editor

Liberty

P.O. Box 1167

Port Townsend, WA 98368

 

Dear Mr. Virkkala,

I have previously submitted to you several pieces for your consideration for possible publication in Liberty. These include:

A. In a letter dated December 18, 1992, an essay entitled “The Perpetual Federal Budget Surplus?”;

B. a copy of my recent article “Estoppel: A New Justification for Individual Rights,” published in the latest issue of Reason Papers, along with a proposal to write a shorter, more popular version of the article for you

C. in a letter dated March 1, 1993, a proposal for an article concerning my visit to the Bank of England and my attempt to collect on the ten-pound note’s “I promise to pay bearer on demand the sum of ten pounds” language.

I am still awaiting word from you regarding these items. If you recall, we did have a mixup where, after submitting item 1 above, you, in your letter of February 25, 1993, informed me that my essay, “The Hard-Core Juvenile Defender,” had not been selected for publication, although I did not write that article.

I would like to submit some further articles and items for publication in your magazine. They are enclosed with this letter and a description of them is provided below.

1. A poem entitled “Big Enough”;

2. a short story entitled “The Subjectivist’s Lament”; and

3. an article entitled “Freedom vs. Government”, which was published in July 1989 in an obscure underground LSU student newspaper called The Wonderland Times.

1.  Letter on Intellectual Property Rights, IOS Journal 5, no. 2 (June 1995), pp. 12-13 ; see also  My IP Odyssey; Roderick Long: Bye-Bye for IP; Roderick Long Finally Realizes IP is Unjustified; The Four Historical Phases of IP Abolitionism; and The Origins of Libertarian IP Abolitionism; My IP Odyssey.  [↩]
2. Vol. 23, no. 11 (Dec. 2009), p. 27;   blog post; local PDF; Liberty‘s online version; see also “Intellectual Property and Libertarianism,” Mises Daily (Nov. 17, 2009); based on speech at Mises University 2009 (July 30, 2009; audio; video); speech podcast on The Lew Rockwell Show, #131, as The Intellectual Property Racket (Aug. 19, 2009). [↩]

Amusing “debate” between Daniel Rothschild and perennial pro-IP “libertarian” pest Chris LeRoux (aka Sid “Non Vicious” Leroux, Chris Propertarian, etc. etc.). Rothschild has amazing perseverance trying to penetrate the muddled thinking and confusions and ever-shifting positions of LeRoux, or whatever his name really is.

Background:

• KOL076 | IP Debate with Chris LeRoux
• Not to be confused with the Louisiana band LeRoux
• For other debates with embarrassing/bad IP proponents:
  • KOL 038 | Debate with Robert Wenzel on Intellectual Property
  • KOL079 | “Federalist Society IP Debate (Ohio State)” (2011)
  • Koepsell – Quinn “Debate” on Gene Patents
  • IP Debate?
  • Richman Dominates Spontaneous IP Debate
  • IP shill Dale Halling refuses to debate me (see: Are Patents and Copyrights “Monopolies”?; Economic Freedom of the World Rankings and Intellectual Property: The United States’ Bad Ranking is Even Worse Than Reported; Thomas Jefferson’s Proposal to Limit the Length of Patent and Copyright in the Bill of Rights; Patent Shills want to make patents “incontestable”; Are Patents “Monopolies”?)
  • Gene Quinn: Patent Shills want to make patents “incontestable”
  • And what the heck, let’s throw buffoon Helfeld in there, because he obviously favors IP too: KOL123 | Debate with Jan Helfeld on Anarchy vs. Limited Government

There may be some others but I can’t recall them offhand—there are a few perennial pro-IP “libertarian” pests, like Shayne Wissler, Silas Barta (aka “Person,” “John Sharp,” “Richard Harding”).