"Why Intellectual Property is not Genuine Property," Adam Smith Forum, Moscow -- Stephan Kinsella

Speech by patent attorney and libertarian writer Stephan Kinsella on "Why Intellectual Property is not Genuine Property," delivered remotely at the Adam Smith Forum, Moscow, Nov. 12, 2011.

More info at http://www.stephankinsella.com/2011/10/speaking-on-why-intellectual-property-...

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News & Politics

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• Intellectual Property

[CHAS1422]

@oldoddjobs What you say is partially true. We have many incentives to write, build and create. Profit does not only come in the form of money. But we live in a society where we need money to survive. When people see that there is no benefit in an endeavor that requires a large investment of time and effort, they tend to avoid a time investment. If we said "no pay for authors", how many technical, or scientific papers would be written. Incentive is not greed, it is also survival.

[oldoddjobs]

@CHAS1422 "The only incentive to create write or invent is to have a return to pay the bills."

What a silly thing to say!

[CHAS1422]

If the patent and copyright laws were eliminated, you would see the death of creative culture. A person could invest years on a work, then release to the public, and an unscrupulous copier could profit from it and undermine all returns from the originator. The only incentive to create write or invent is to have a return to pay the bills. Without enforcible copyright laws we will become cultures of tradesmen and nothing more. What a fail arguement.

[quantumG]

The biggest problem is with your terms. Copyright, Patent and Trademark law are not Intellectual Property.. they are *laws meant to protect Intellectual Property*. You can easily argue that these laws suck but don't throw away our right to make first claim on the products of our mind.

[runr100]

@janc71 Perhaps some artists will be discouraged by the lack of profit motive, but you will see that many libertarian authors, particularly at Mises Institute, put their books online free of charge. The preponderence of free learning videos in foreign languages, in math and science, in economics, etc. suggests that there are many people, like me, who enjoy sharing their thoughts with others for the pure pleasure of doing so. Teachers certainly don't teach for the money, and some are quite good.

[TreachMarkets]

Some acid reflux at 43:20.

[nskinsella]

@janc71 No, incentives are not the defnese of liberty. We have principles.

[janc71]

@nskinsella "If you don't think you get enough reward -- monetary or otherwise -- out of writing a book, don't write it, do something else productive."

Yes, my idea exactly, but wouldn't it be fair to say that this would disincentivize people to produce artistic content? Maybe that's simply a matter of tough luck, but we free marketeers always hammer on the fact that the profit motive is a important incentive to produce 'stuff'.

[raystinsky]

What about Rothbard's view that copyright is a contract between the purchaser and seller--that the purchaser will not copy the content and sell it? It seems acceptable, and it wouldn't need government intervention, only court action if such a breach were discovered.

[victort1231]

@nskinsella But they are not paying anything for the actual product itself. Essentially, I view human ingenuity and intellect as some of the most important resources we have. I agree with you that many IP laws are too broad, and are poorly thought out, and can be abused. However, I think that eliminating IP laws is to state that human ingenuity is inherently worthless, as I cannot derive profit from my unique and useful ideas (since someone will steal these ideas as soon as they are implemented)