As I have pointed out many times, the argument against intellectual property rights is not that IP rights, or IP law, or IP itself,1 is “not property,” as many people put it, even my fellow opponents of IP.2 The question is not: are ideas (information, patterns, etc.) property or not. It’s whether IP laws are just or compatible with the fundamental or foundational libertarian principles of justice, of property rights.
These are all distinct concepts. See Kinsella, “Intellectual Property versus Intellectual Property Rights.” As Yiannopoulos writes. “Accurate analysis should reserve the use of the word property for the designation of rights that persons have with respect to things.” And just as mind is distinct from brain, person or self is distinct from body (corpus), and a property right in a thing is distinct from the thing itself. On this latter point, see “What Libertarianism Is,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society [LFFS] (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023) [LFFS]; [*** to be done: NEW WEBNOTE ON PROPERTY, PROPERTY RIGHTS AND OWNERSHIP, AND THINGS SUBJECT TO PROPERTY RIGHTS]. [↩]
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.
On “fraud”: For my own view as to the correct way to view fraud, see Kinsella, ““A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), Part III.E, and “The Title-Transfer Theory of Contract,” in David Howden, ed., Palgrave Handbook of Misesian Austrian Economics (Palgrave, forthcoming 2025), section “Some Implications of the TTTC,” subsection “Fraud.”
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
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…
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.
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
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
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.
Against Intellectual Property: An Enlightening Essay
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…]
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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