Against Intellectual Property by Stefan Kinsella
This audio production is read by Jock Coates of Oxford, England and JockCoates.me
Against Intellectual Property
Property Rights, Tangible and Intangible
All libertarians favour property rights and agree that property rights include rights in tangible resources.
These resources include immovables, realty, such as land and houses, and immovables, such as chairs, clubs, cars and clocks.
Further, all libertarians support rights in one's own body. Such rights may be called self-ownership,
as long as one keeps in mind that there is dispute about whether such body ownership is alienable,
in the same way that rights in homesteadable external objects are alienable.
In any event, libertarians universally hold that all tangible scarce resources, whether homesteadable or created, immovable or movable, or our very bodies, are subject to rightful control or ownership by specified individuals.
As we move away from the tangible, corporeal, towards the intangible, matters become fuzzier.
Rights to reputations, defamation laws, and against blackmail, for example, are rights in very intangible types of things.
Most, though not all, libertarians oppose laws against blackmail, and many oppose the idea of a right to one's reputation.
Also disputed is the concept of intellectual property, herein referred to as IP.
Are there individual rights to one's intellectual creations such as inventions or written works?
Should the legal system protect such rights?
Below, I summarize current US law on intellectual property rights.
I then survey various libertarian views on IP rights and present what I consider to be
the proper view.
Thank you for watching!