 Okay, I'm recording. Hey, this is Stefan Kinsella Doing an episode of Kinsella on Liberty podcast. This should be number 208 I've got my old friend Neil Shulman online and we've actually met in person. Have we Neil? Yeah, as I recall it was at Libertopia a few years ago. How are you doing? I'm doing well. How about you? It's all right. Let's say today's March 4th, 2016 you and I have known each other for a Maybe what 30 plus years now? It's been a while and I must say that a lot friendlier now than we used to be Well in the beginning it was friendly remember on the genie forums in the old days before the internet My god, I didn't remember that we we we met on genie that goes back to the early 90s Yeah, that's where I sent you the the review of of your of Your Heinlein ania book. Oh Yes, yes, and it's one of the many interests we have in common. Yeah Heinlein Of course, you knew him better than I did Well, I was I was very lucky to be able to interview him for the New York Daily News Which led to our meeting and subsequent friendship Right, right Well, I think we're friendly when we're not threatening to convert each other IP socialism depends on our definitions There are Actually, it's amazing how much we agree on and there's just you know One bone of contention which has occupied 90% of our energy Yeah, and probably it's only because as I've dug into this IP issue over the years I get more and more to meticulous details because I keep seeing What I think are the errors that cause the some Some mistakes to keep being perpetrated so I get more and more to minutiae and But anyway, you remember a few years ago. I think I dug up the old Information and got the tapes from someone from that IP debate you had done with Wendy McElroy back in like 83, I think, right Yes, and that was my first entry into this Conqueror Yeah, I don't think Wendy's was 81 and with some newsletters in California and then 83 So I really think the modern Debate on this started around then to be honest Well, actually for me it went back even further in time Because I was part of the close circle of Samuel Edward Conkin the third and his magazines new libertarian notes new libertarian weekly new libertarian and various other publications and Of course, I was also good friends with Robert Lefebvre and Both Sam and Bob Lefebvre were opposed to the idea of state copyright and state patents and Where I was coming in was and a very early attempt to justify not status concepts at being an anarchist and agorist I'm opposed to that But to see if there was a natural law and natural rights for concept of ownership of Content Which existed only as what today I now call media carried property, but back then I call logo rights Well, the idea being The idea being that Something didn't have to be made out of Atoms and molecules right in order to in order to satisfy the requirements for a copyright claim. Yeah now Sam Allowed copyrights for individual writers in his publications So he was not so opposed to it that he said no It has it has to be without copyright and at that time. I don't even think there were Creative commons licenses to attend to the discussion Well, I'm all the faith And Bob LaFaith while he was opposed to copyright. He actually endorsed my my concept of Logo rights as worth considering Beginning right after my debate with with Wendy McElroy Ma I would say that if I were to boil it down to my position today is that I am not so much discussing the question of the intellectual Property or ideas as property two concepts, which I reject out of hand, but that I am exploring That property itself is an intellectual artifact and as I posted on your Facebook wall today I think that it comes closest to being intellectual artifacts of Contract law whether or not as you posted a contract law is a Subset of property law or whether property law is a subset of contract law is a debate I don't think it's it's really worth, you know spending a lot of time on but I do think that property itself is an intellectual concept Which falls under both? legal discussion of legal rights and discussion of Natural law and natural rights as libertarians would understand it Yeah Well before we get into your theories that let's talk a little bit more about the background because I think we have another thing in common Maybe you would agree or not on this but My suspicion is you had a man. I know you had sort of a randian approach to some issues and in your in your libertarianism and you also were an aura writer and a successful Career writer writer novelist, so you had an interest in trying to find a way to justify Something that you had a like a financial interest in right and I did too in a way because I was a patent attorney and I still am and That's one reason I started searching as well And the reason I was searching was because I found iron rands, you know She influenced me early on and one of the worst one of the arguments She made that I that never did persuade me was her argument for IP It's something about it was just not like her other arguments It was sort of arbitrary and utilitarian it just didn't make sense like her other arguments did But I was gonna do patent law and copyright law For my career, so I started thinking and I'm a libertarian so I started thinking let me find a better solution for this So I was searching as well It's just you came up with local rights, and I came up with skepticism It's it's ironic that you as a patent lawyer are probably One of the leading scholars today Interposed to the very field you were operating in which is patent law, but in my case I think you have it Because an effect reversed It was not that My my being a writer Was not the reason why I felt it worth doing okay, but it was It was my interest primarily as a libertarian natural Natural rights, okay. All right, which led me to this and in fact, I would say that I was probably more Influenced by Robert Lafave of Approach to property rights per se than I was to iron rands Okay, I accept that but it you would admit that there there's there's some there tends to be some correlation I Tend to find that well, let me let you off the hook by saying that in my original article Informational property logo rights. I did quote from iron rand because I found that parts of our argument Were were expressive But in terms of the basic theory of property which I was pursuing I thought that Robert Lafave made a More comprehensive case. No, but what I was gonna say is it seems to me to be no coincidence that There's a disproportionate number of libertarian novelists who happen to support copyright Just like almost all patent lawyers happen to support patent and copyright. Do you follow me? I don't I don't think it's quite a coincidence You see, you know, it seems to me that that's that's starting off with With If I may use a term that the Ludwig von Mises liked a lot in Tirolgia In other words, it it transfers the argument from a debate of the merits right to a debate on the motivation of the people Right, right. Yeah, I don't mean to argue substance by Psychologizing, but I do find psychology fun. Sometimes I can't I can't deny it And I do think that at least at very least we should be aware of our of our of our biases and Try to be sure that if you're advocating something that happens to be in your favor That you have good reasons for it anyway, but of course the arguments stand on their own merits, I think But the on the by the converse I get attacked quite often for being an IP lawyer and for opposing it as if as if As if if I as if my arguments if they were correct is if you wouldn't expect an IP lawyer to be one of the people that would recognize that I mean, it's possible to actually know something about the field That is unjustified and corrupt and to come to those conclusions even though it's not in your finding your you know Your personal immediate interest Well, look just switching to somewhere else just as a for instance Because what I'm know what I'm noting is not what I call hypocrisy, but nearly irony. Okay Wouldn't you find it ironic if you had a medical doctor who claimed? We'll say again, you're you're you were silenting on me Okay I'm saying just to switch to another field. I'm not saying that you being a patent lawyer opposed to patents. It's hypocritical I'm saying it's ironic wouldn't you find it at least ironic if you had a Medical doctor an obstetrician who said that he was opposed to abortion who then as part of his practice performed abortions Yes, in fact, I think that might be hypocritical it could be but First of all, I don't think there's anything wrong with pointing out irony any more than Psychologizing is kind of interesting and it may be ironic. I don't think it happens to be ironic Let's suppose that there's a healthy Difference of agreement among the population as a whole or among academics or scholars about IP 3070 whatever I don't know I mean it would be ironic if some percentage of patent lawyers didn't take that side that if Everyone automatically agreed with it as for the hypocrisy or the irony issue. It would be more ironic if I were out there Suing people in the name of IP. So I agree that would be more difficult, but if you understand the way Then let me let me let me establish this. I have I have never filed a lawsuit On behalf of any of my literary rights, right? No, I understand that and I because Most I most copyright holders don't have those scruples You have your anarchist and your voluntary scruples. So that that taps down the excesses that might otherwise go to so I understand Let me also make let me also make clear that in practice When I have opposed pirating of my rights I have only done so vocally in instances where I felt that it was damaging to a Third party right like more more of a fraud type a fraud type argument or something like that Oh, not not even fraud, but let me give you an example There was supposedly I'm not sure and I'm being told now that this never happened But there was a representation that there was going to be a pirate screening of the alongside night movie at pork vest To compete with the official screening that I went to a lot of trouble to say at a right Movie theater, right? I heard about nearby Rogers campground. Okay And I was upset about it because the whole purpose of the screening was set up as a fundraiser for the Free State project right and so I felt that a Pirate screening competing with a fundraiser for the Free State project was damaging to the Free State project and that upset me I understand that of course that has nothing to do with the validity of copyright or even Logo rights, but I and again all of this is you know, it's sort of like as I say Parallogia, it's sort of like it's interesting. It's an interesting background discussion But but really it doesn't it doesn't speak to the actual question of whether Under a general theory of property rights, which I maintain Is a a moral and a legal construct It's a subset of a theory of natural rights and that of natural law leading to natural human rights that I consider property rights to be a primarily an ontological and moral issue and then you get to it as a as a legal issue But let me start by conceding to you that as I observe it right now the mainstream position of the libertarian movement as I perceive it is Anti what they perceive as artists are artistic rights in things Which are not physical objects, okay? So in essence, I'm fighting an uphill battle a battle Which you have the high ground We did a strategic high ground. Well, I understand that but but and I think there's also especially among anarchists, right? We are generally skeptical of existing statutory Schemes and so, you know someone like you who supports some kind of I Don't call it intellectual property. You call it informational property or now Material-carried property and we can get into the details in a second, but Media-carried property media. Sorry media-carried property You you shouldn't be in the position of having to defend the existing patent and copyright system No, and I find it frustrating that That most of the vitriolic attacks on me assume that I am You know supporting what is being Portrayed as a monopolistic grant of privilege from the state in my very first debate with Wendy I started off by saying if the concept I was putting forward Could not be defended other than as a monopolistic grant of privilege from the state Then I would then I would immediately abandon it Well, but the problem is I would I would say and see if you agree with this the vast majority of pro IP libertarians Would oppose the abolition of patent and copyright at least until we could replace it with their ideal system So they do not have this abolitionist towards and this is where I basically, you know go into my you know you usual Usual spiel about how I don't think that any kind of property if if there is in fact a property that There should be sort of like this is a status phrase, but it's a legal term of art most favorite nation status If you're going to say That a copyright is statused then why isn't a deed from the county clerk justice status And if you're gonna say that we need to abolish now one why not the other But you see next thing then I see that is you're trying to have it both ways because you Act on the one hand like you're not in favor of defending the existing patent and copyright system But when someone calls for abolishing it then you equip you sort of say well if we abolish that why not abolish real real property titles? but you see that's the thing in other words presumably you drive a car which is Which is registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles and which are not allowed to to operate without without that license from the state and Presumably the land deed issued by by you by your county is in the same situation If you are in fact a homeowner or if not, you know what I want to remove as a renter of somebody who does have property Which is a deed issued by the county And and so I I just don't see the difference. Okay. Well, so the problem I have with that argument that analogy is You and I as libertarians don't have much disagreement on The basic notion that there ought to be property titles recognized in scarce resources like land We oppose the state well not a lot Here city is only one is is only one of the things okay, and I don't see scarce city as Absolute as I discuss in my article Human property Scarce that scarcity is not up. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah, well, let's just pick something on card Rather than repeat yeah, and I'm gonna link to it in the podcast the human the human I have that all the links I'm gonna link to this I'm just trying to pick something uncontroversial that we both agree there should be property rights in land Right yeah, and I'm not a George. I'm not a Henry George and the basic function of the existing Property title records offices in the counties around the country is to is to just keep track of that now We opposed to the state monopolizing the function, but it's basically a correct function a libertarian function You can't just leap from that and say that Similarly the copyright system does something crudely, but it does a similar function because well for several reasons we don't agree that that these kinds of things should be property that that's what we dispute and You know the property title system itself is not terrible the way the state runs it It's just that the state has the right to come in and seize your property because of imminent Here we can get into another agreement immediately. Yeah, I think that the way that the laws have been lobbied By you know by large corporations to to extend and protect their Claims of copyright and patent are egregiously Anti property rights for example, I'll give you one one example in patents and another a copyright what Monsanto did in suing farmers whose crops were invaded by Monsanto seeds from you know from adjoining property Patented patents right to the small farmers who had no legal ability to legal defend themselves against this mega giant corporation I think is one of the most horrific misuses of patent law that I can imagine similarly the way the corporations such as Disney have taken things that are traditional traditional fairy fairy tales and Copyrighted them and then aggressively attacked people who wanted to use this stuff which originated, you know long before Disney got to And and sued the heck out of them to to restrict they're doing so is equally egregious Diddy images in taking paintings which hang in the loo and then Pursuit claims against people who reproduce them Well, you know things that go back hundreds of years is is similarly egregious So if you are looking for genial shulman to agree with Stefan cancella That the way that the state handles this is egregious. We have no disagreement Well, let me disagree a little bit on that. I wouldn't I mean this is a quibble, but I wouldn't call it a misuse at all And I wouldn't blame Monsanto and Getty I mean, maybe they're immoral, but they're using the legal rights The system gives them in every one of all three of the cases you mentioned you can explain Why what they're doing is basically supported by the copyright and patent systems This is what they're doing is totally legitimate. I'm not gonna disagree with you that But that that is this that is the problem with all status law none of exist and none of it supports a pure libertarian concept of Property right and in fact one of the one of the historical reasons why libertarians have opposed such law is That they started out with grants from you know from kings and Other and other royalties. Yep So there is an historical Parallel, you know that the development of this body of law Was corrupt going back to its root it is me but but to me That that is an artifact of statism itself In other words, I would say that in fact, you know the Robin Hood story of how you have, you know The king's land being being poached on mm-hmm Okay, is just a as much of an argument not to have privately held land as the argument for grants of privilege from from kings being one of the earliest uses of artistic creation It's equivalent in other words the problem here is not That we don't have something which deserves to be treated as a property right the problem is we have the state Yeah, I so I I don't quite agree I don't think that that the argument that IP is unjust is the same as Arguing that current property rights in land are unjust because of some corruption back in the old days because we all agree There ought to be property rights in land and we have to have some system for determining who the best owner is So that's not really controversial Hold on you can't you can't say that we all agree all of us libertarians You know there are in fact commie communists who don't agree. Well, you and I agree. Okay, you and I agree on the land issue. So That that's one difference the other thing is you know, if someone asked a libertarian well, what would What would roads be like and what would land title registry be like in a free market? We would say well, it'd be similar to what we have now you'd have roads It's just they'd have private owners and that would have different economic effects and how they're run and all that We would have land title records If you go to Cato and reason you're gonna find you're gonna find scholars You found out that some of the earliest highways and turnbacks Well, it's back perfectly created then you then you get to the long history of the railroads where you have all sorts of Statists and parents But my point is you could use some of the existing common law based and other systems that we have as a rough model to What the libertarian system would look like but it would be better But you cannot say that so in terms of IP and I know you I could give you 50 or 100 or a thousand examples And you might call them misuses of the system. I would just say this is just the implications of the Current substantive law of patent and copyright that the state has created and you would probably agree with me on every one of those I will immediately concede your historical point. What what I what I represented in in 1983 Is that I was putting forward a new natural rights theory that did not have an historical base, right? I understand so let's get let's get to something a little bit You and I've gone back and forth over the years mostly in writing and one reason I was just pinging you today was I was talking with another gentleman and he had He was questioning the IP issue and we were talking about it and I was trying to explain something to him And I made the point which is my view which I don't know if you completely agree with but I was arguing that Look one of the fundamental mistakes in the IP argument Or in your logo rights argument I believe is is this idea that you can own an attribute or a characteristic or a feature of an object Separate from the object itself. Okay, and then I said that And that's directly out of Robert Lefebvre's theory of properties Okay, it may be and it's it's also somewhat of an implication of lock I think lock was confused on his labor comments, etc But and then I say actually J. Neil Shulman has modified his logo rights characterization and you call it Material carried property, right? No media carried me. Sorry. I keep messing it media carried property And I said so basically you view it the same as I you just have a different Conclusion and that's why I said well Let's just talk about it because and let me just summarize quickly what I think the mistake is and you can tell me Where you think I'm wrong or where what I'm missing to my mind If you own an object and that's the media that that's the physical thing that is owned that that is always Impatterned with some information or some attributes and in fact information cannot be a free-floating abstraction Information to exist and to be perceived and to persist has to be embodied in some media. Wouldn't you agree with that part? Yes, but let me tell let me let me tell you where I think you're going Where I think that you're not seeing what I'm seeing Go ahead in my view something intangible Can't be owned okay For something to be ownable it has to be something observable in the world and it has to be distinct and definite now the Question which I arose which you said that you you agreed with my formulation No, I don't agree that that's I don't agree that's I don't agree that's efficient that that might be necessary Let me let me get this out as concisely as I can I go ahead If you have an alphanumeric sequence Which retains its material identity? in going from physical object to physical object and Is a commodity Separate from the things on which it is carried which gives value trade value To the objects on which it is carried that but it is transferable from one physical entity to another I maintain we have now identified an object a thing something observable and distinct in the real world Which is in fact a property separable From the objects on which it is carried I got it but what's an example that I gave in my debate with Wendy and have used ever since is You buy a book with the title Atlas shrugged you take it home and start reading and What you read is it was the best of time. It was the worst of times, right? I tell of two cities by Charles Dickens. It's not the same it's not the same novel but What if you are if you were reductionist to saying that what can be owned is only a physical object then You have something which will for the sake of argument has the same number of pages as Incompression as the same binding and so if you were going to reduce it and say that only a physical object can be owned Then the question arises. Did you get what you pay for or if you say yes, okay? then you have now eliminated The possibility of a novel being an existent a thing, you know an entity Okay, not an existence so much as an entity. Okay, you're saying it cannot be a thing But if you're saying that you're entitled to to the composition of words of Atlas shrugged and not of a tale of two cities And you're saying that the composition of words the alphanumeric sequence itself Which is separable from the thing on which it is carried the media carried property Is the is the economic good which is being traded? Yeah, and therefore you have an economic good, which is a thing separable from the media on which it is carried. I get your chain of reasoning. I think Let me see if I can summarize it and tell me if I got it right You start off with the presumption that if if you can identify something as an existent Entity as a thing as you call it something that is what would you were specific and definite? You're presupposing that that is Sufficient for ownership like as long as something is specific and definite and you can give it some kind of ontological Category your name and call it a thing and especially if it's valued in commerce and therefore it's a quote commodity Which I guess is only economic goods not other kind of goods then that's sufficient For ownership. I just don't see the argument No, I would think I would say necessary, but not sufficient. Okay, but there are other there are other there are other things It has to be and I and I and in my original debated Wendy and then in my subsequent 1983 Treatise informational property logo rights I go through a whole bunch of other things that are necessary But they're the same sets of questions that have to be satisfied for any other claim of ownership. Well the way you just stated it though. You only specified what was Sufficient for ownership, but I'm sorry. What was necessary for ownership not what was sufficient because just because no I'm I'm saying that I'm saying that I've identified identified a category of things that that can can be owned if If the the same questions can be answered in the affirmative that you would add that you would have to answer For any claim of ownership of anything else. See, I just don't think that that to me that doesn't make sense and for several reasons number one I And I tried to give you an example in writing today Just as a pure contract Situation you could have a contract and the concept of fraud even if you want you don't need to bring fraud into this It's just contract contract theory and property rights alone Explain why you're not getting what you asked for when you get the book that has the wrong pattern of information on it in other words If I give you money conditioned upon the book having a certain pattern in the book And I don't get that then the money that I paid you Didn't transfer to you because it was conditioned upon a certain You see it didn't it doesn't have to be fraud. I haven't I haven't like look. I'm a published I'm a book publisher Okay, and I have in my possession An art an accidental artifact of a book which I received From a lightning source the cover is the cover of my novel the rainbow cadenza. Yeah, but the interior of the book is Volume one of Robert LeFevre's autobiography now there was no deliberate fraud when Manufactured let's forget fraud right Let's just I'm not making I'm not making a legal argument so much as I'm making an ontological argument I'm saying That yeah that if in fact the comp the composition the alpha-alpha numeric sequence in this particular case Is different then you have a different thing a different commodity, right? But the different commodity is that is the physical book which is different than another physical book because of the way It's impatterned the question is can you own the attributes of the book in addition to the book itself? That's the question. Can you own well? I mean in fact and in fact and You know this this is the case even even when there was no cop copyright law to be enforced in fact You can you can argue Look, I will tell you right now that the argument you're making is one which is generally accepted By the film and television industry the writer's guild Treats writing as if it's an act of labor But they are much less specific on whether the labor produces something which can be owned and I'll I'll tell you that you know That this is something which the writer's guild Calls separation of rights In other words, if you if I as a screenwriter were to write for let's say gun smoke It's a work for hire because I'm basically Creating new stories based on their distinct characters But when I write an original episode of the Twilight Zone and anthology series They say I have separated rights unless it's a remake of an earlier Twilight Zone You know such as the 1980s Twilight Zone that I worked on Remade some episodes from the original Rod Serling Twilight Zone from 50s and 60s so if if I were the writer who is Creating a new script based on an original script by Richard Matheson or You know or Charles Beaumont or Rod Serling Then there is no separated rights because it's a work for hire But you know if I if I create an original script with you know With original story not based on that right then there's a separation of right now But these are all these terms based on current copyright. I don't really see how that's Legal terms of art. It's not really it's not really relevant to what we're discussing philosophy of what natural property rights would be I mean you wouldn't have all these I am I am arguing first of all that all property exists only as an intellectual artifact In mind and where I make this argument the most concisely It is in my essay human property But didn't you or didn't you just say earlier that you don't believe in property in tangible things in nature It nothing fun in nature is property that it is basically human a human intellect Which creates the concept of property itself? Well, that's true But you could say human desire creates it too, but that doesn't mean desire Gives rise to property rights absent other features, you know No, but what we're talking about is how human human beings interact with each other and they and unlike and unlike, you know Non-intellectual Animals we do it on the basis of intellectual constructs. Okay, let me try to summarize a different way to look at it You get your take on this it seems to me like your argument is basically this you want to say look Here's a book. There are two books that look identical on the outside They have different patterns on the inside you would be upset if you wanted one and you got the other Therefore, it's a commodity or some kind of economic good and because it's an economic good That shows that the pattern the logos as you call it is an ontological thing that has existence and Then you read which I don't disagree with that as a philosophical exercise It's just you want to leap from that to saying aha because I've identified that there's a thing that has ontological existence Therefore it can have an owner that to me is the entire mistake you're making because you haven't showed that that's necessary I I I approach this a number of different ways in my original informational property reds 1982 article and one of the ways I approach it is a reductive ad absurdum using Praxeology in in my in my reply to conkin his his article copy wrongs. I base I basically deconstructs several of his several of his premises in which I show using Austrian economics of a praxeological approach how in fact If you deke if you eliminate if you eliminate that concept then you basically Run into the contradiction of saying that that which you are arguing about doesn't exist You know there there, you know, I think that it is not a coincidence that Literary contracts regardless of whether we're talking about copyright or not referred to anything as the work in other words It's a noun It is not because that's how the copyright statute the copyright statute defined it that way It's not arguing labor. It's arguing that there is a thing that is being traded called the work It is referred to it in the cut in the contracts granting rights, which are which I have signed There is a a term of art called the work That's just how it's defined in the copyright statute in that is a thing Which is in fact being traded or licensed in the same way that there is a right of Occupancy which is being traded in a rental agreement, right, you know You know for for a car or an apartment well, okay So the copyright statute defined that term work and that's why contracts use it now It's just enough the copyright statute is is beside the point as far as I'm concerned I don't think they would use the term work if not for the copyright statute This is talking put we're talking plain language, but they wouldn't use that word if the copyright statute hadn't introduced and defined it That's that's a new innovation I'm not sure that that's true. I in other words what you're what you're you're arguing Is which is the cart and which is the horse? And so am I and I'm maintaining that there is a copy there. There is a common-sense observation In these contracts, which would survive the demise of the state and it's and yeah, I know Admittedly mucked up copyright law. Let me ask you this. Would you agree with me that your argument to work? You need to show that something having ontological in existence is Sufficient for for there to be property rights possible in it. Don't you think you need to establish that? I? Think I think that given that you need to establish the the same Boundary issues that you would with other other other Forms of property and contracts that yes It it qualifies as being entered into the running as a possible type of property My point is you have to show it though. You have that is a presupposition of your argument that being Establishing that something is of ontological existence is an existent is sufficient for it to be ownable You have to prove that it's not it's necessary. It's necessary to qualify it for the debate on whether or not it is a property I mean my my view on this I'm very randy and in my epistemology my concept theory I just think what you're doing is you're you're doing Reification and it says you're you're conflating the efficiency and the usefulness and the practicality of certain concepts With calling something existing and then leaping to the point where it can be owned like search For example, I think the concept of love is a valid concept. It has a referent in the world You could say there is love, but just because we've identified an ontological type of thing that exists love Doesn't mean it's a type of thing that can be owned You you have to do more than establish the validity of a concept concept to show that the referent of the concept is an Ownable thing. I mean we have time we have motion. I Agree with that but that in fact it when when you're identifying something which exists Look love is something which is an express which is an expression Okay, and it is something which may be Observable in in human behavior But it was not something which you can identify as existing outside of human behavior in the way that an alphanumeric sequence is Maintained that an alphanumeric sequence is in fact a thing that hold on a second hold on hold on hold on earlier use an array of frames of Photographic frames is a is an observable thing in the real world not out not outside of human buffet You said earlier that property doesn't even exist, right? Hold on you said even in the you said property doesn't even exist outside of human Intentions in human subjective valuation So how could alphanumeric sequences in something called a movie exist without regard for for human intention? Okay, because thing this is one of the necessary but not sufficient conditions for a claim of ownership ownership is about action and and Intel and intellectual creation of identity and look I would say that the identity Exists independent the thing this exists This is why it's both an ontological and then the epistemological question before you get to the the moral and legal questions What I think that my work has done is established the the ontological and epistemological basis for these Media carried Objects okay to be identified as ownable in the same way that other Things can be ownable according to the common sense principles of I got it No, I understand your general thrust, but you seem to be agreeing because you say it on occasion You seem to be agreeing with me that Thingness which is just another way of saying something exists or in my view. It just means it's a valid concept Thing this is a necessary, but not sufficient condition. That's why I keep saying that I just want to make sure you agree with me That's what I'm saying, but you need to necessarily but not sufficient But the sufficiency is by applying the exact same question that you would for any other Claim of property. Yes, I understand so so let's we don't have time to get into that But in your argument in your logo rights article and I think in your What's what's the other one human rights or what's it called human property? Property yeah in that one. I think you you try to give reasons why you think it is sufficient I don't agree with you on that, but I think that's really the crux of our disagreement But before we before we go Can we at least come to the point where you think it is debatable within the realm of possibility Honestly, I don't kneel, but it's only because I thought about it so much and I can see no way that you can own the characteristic of an object Without that being a universal that gives you property rights in other people's own resources in other words to my mind information and here and here and here's where I'm saying that the defining distinction which makes it possible is that it is something outside of One human being is something that now exists in the world at the point where exists it exists in the world Separate from the person who brought it into existence Now you have something real. Let me ask you this is your view here Is it platonic or mystical at all because I know you're a little bit mystical more than I am on some Spiritual issues, so does this view because it seems to me back in back in 1983 when I was making these arguments I was I'm asking about now though. I understand But do you think there's anything mystical or platonic about what you're saying because you seem to envision these only only in this only in the That I'm Rand Use the term spiritual. No, I don't mean that I mean I mean, it's like you're envisioning the separate sort of ghostly existence of these of these Platonic objects that are out there independent ontologically separate from I don't I don't I don't I don't accept a Platonic metaphysics You know, well, would you agree that you for information has to be Hold on. Let me ask you this. Let me let me say this Okay, I have made the argument that there's no such thing as a virtual reality That I've just something is real or it isn't You go back to the movie the Matrix, okay, and in fact there were these bodies, you know Yeah, yeah, of course. There's always an underlying me underlying media or an underlying reality. Yeah, there's a substrate I understand I agree with you on that. But my point is wouldn't you agree that information For information these alphanumeric sequences you're talking about they're always embedded in some substrate or some media They have to be just the impatterning of a thing. Wouldn't you agree with that? Yes, and yes, and that's why I I talk about the media Carried property and the this and the question is whether or not there is something separable What can be transferred fine from physical object to physical object physical object And that is and that is the distinction which makes it a thing in and of itself. Well, let's forget about whether it's separable Let's just let me ask you this if all information has to be embodied or in patterned in a media Don't you agree the media has an owner that physical thing that is the media has some owner Yes, and and that and the ownership of that can be separated from the ownership of the thing which is carried It can be I suppose it could be but How does the fact that someone? writes a novel give them the ability to control the media that other people own because Because there is a thing being carried for which property rights have not been transferred Wait, Neil hold on hold on Neil give me 30 give me 30 seconds hold on Neil Neil hold on I gotta answer the door hold on 30 seconds Neil 30 seconds if you book a ride with Uber you your Claim to a ride is a usage which is separable from ownership of the vehicle Neil Neil sorry, I had to answer the door. Sorry. Go ahead. I'll repeat that because I don't know if you heard it I'm saying I'm saying that it is separable in the same way that if you book a ride with Uber What you were buying is a use but you're not buying the Uber vehicle itself Well, I agree some things are separable It's mostly mostly by contract or by co-ownership arrangements But that doesn't mean that you can control what other people do with their property unless you have a good reason I Go with the Lockean and Rothbardian theory of property You're making an assumption you're begging the question. You're saying you're restricting what other people can do with their property Yes, I'm maintaining that while what is what is being argued over is in fact What is not being transferred to somebody else and what they cannot do because it is not their property well But there's not always a transfer. So so for example If let's take the patent case Okay If you get a if you claim a property right and being the owner of this mousetrap design All right Now if I am toiling away in my garage and with my own wood and steel my own substrate and I configure it into a certain shape You can use the patent system to tell me I can't sell that I can't even do make that device now Where was the transfer? You know and I have to I have to say Over the years I have become a lot less sanguine arguing about patent Rather than copyright Okay, I think I think that the case the the case for patent is a harder case Okay, then I've been arguing for what I've been calling media carry Well, let let me do kind of a lightning around with you to hit because there's some things I want to get talked to you about because you know a lot of things about the history and Conkin and these things and Not to do all too much on them. Let me just get your take on some things number one Do you believe let's just stick with copyright because you think that is some rough Rough system that approximates something like might could exist in a free society Do you think that the time limits on copyrights? should be finite and arbitrary or perpetual I think that For media carry property You asked the exact same questions that you would for ownership of any other kind of property So the problem with the copyright system is that it expires at about 120 years In your view it should last forever. Yeah, but you but again, you're talking about a state a status-defined system I understand but one diff one defect of the system is that they could also arbitrarily say that land ownership ends with death and can't be I can't be carried. I know I'm just I just want to get you on record and see what you think I mean, you do realize the original copyright act All I'm saying is is that when approaching this question I think you need to satisfy the same requirements you would For ownership and transfer of any other kind of property Are you aware by the way that Jefferson when the Bill of Rights was being considered? He wrote a letter to Madison and he proposed because at that time the the Copyright clause was already in the Constitution right 1789, but for the Bill of Rights Jefferson proposed Amending the Bill of Rights or adding adding a provision to the Bill of Rights saying that The state can grant these monopolies By which he meant copyright and patent but only for x years. So he wanted to put a time limit in there You know probably Was taking a utilitarian approach You know, I'm I'm not I wrote an entire novel the rainbook it ends attacking the concept of utilitarianism Being sufficient to come up with fairness and human affairs I you know, I'm an absolute believer in theories of natural law natural rights And I would say that that would separate me from Jefferson and Locke So you so in your system You couldn't even publish you couldn't even republish the Bible or Shakespeare's plays or Homer's Homer's works without getting some permission from some long Long-lost and descendant down the line. I mean, there would be a huge you'd have to have permission for everything There'd be a complete permission culture for all ideas Well, I mean again, I Expand the question to every other sort of property. So that's a yes in other words Do we need to do we need to get permission from the heirs of the of of the Roman emperors? Before we can take a tour of the Coliseum. Okay, and then so let me ask you this one about conkin You mentioned that he didn't oppose people using copyright or in some cases in Lefebvre either I mean, of course, I don't either I've gotten copyright on my works and used it before It's just and did not copyright his own works and Robert Lefebvre did not copyright his own works Well, you realize that copyrights automatic so that that's actually not true They do have copyright in their works as soon as you write something you have a According to the state that I mean are we are we are we going if these are two people who did not recognize the authority of the state to Define these questions. Well, but they had copyright in their works Whether they wanted it or not according to state but not according to their own preferences Well, but yeah, but someone couldn't have caught someone can't someone can't go publish one of the faves books right now Without getting permission from someone even though the fave himself might have opposed copyright Unless he put some kind of license that would be that would be the case if it were an unpub if it were an unpublished work Then that argument could be made in fact, in fact, I'll tell you where this arises In a practical sense as far as I know the only copy of the manuscript For Samuel Edward Copland the third counter-economics is in the hands of Victor Coleman, right? Victor Coleman has published other of Sam's works which were first published when when Sam was alive and Sam explicitly published them without a copyright But in the case of no that's not true the You can't publish something about a copyright the legal rights to this are held by the conch in a state Which is which devolves upon Sam's brother Alan conch and in which Alan has made me the literary executor So Victor is in the position of having the only manuscript Yeah Of you know the only physical manuscript which he refuses to provide to the estate But he cannot legally publish it himself without permission from the estate, right? Well, this is just the kind of bizarre logic that comes from any type of IP system I believe so that's is you can you can blame the state's copyright system But I think it's just the logic of copyright and you're gonna get these these absurd and Obviously unjust and obscene results. It's just an inevitable part of separating the idea of ownership from scarce resources I wanted to ask you you mentioned earlier that in your earlier arguments. You tried to you tried to rely on praxeology to support your case I think praxeology One of the one in my original liking three article informational property local rights. I reply Sam makes a makes what he what he represents as a praxeological case and so I responded with the praxeological case Right and what I was going to say is I think that praxeology and especially Mises is You know version of the Austrian economics is is absolutely crucial and indeed essential to getting these issues straight But I think it points in the other direction. I think that praxeology basically regards human action as the employment Right the unconscious purposeful employment of scarce means To achieve something in the world Guided by knowledge so praxeology views human action Let's start out with the first premise of Austrian economics, which I used as Which I almost parodied as the first line of my novel alongside night Mises argues human human beings act to remove felt unease correct, okay That's their purpose. That's their motivation right line of the novel Elliot real and felt uneasy the moment you enter just classroom, right? And I think that's a brilliant aspect of praxeology But it only goes to the motives or the purpose what human action is is it's the employment of scarce means which you can call scarce resources? Guided by knowledge so there's two important components to successful human action. One is the availability It needs to send goes on through, you know, a whole a whole send, you know, a whole series of the deductive Derivation I know I'm just focusing on the bare structure of practice. I just want to get your take on this, okay? My argument is very simple And I think Mises is right when we act in the world We're trying to achieve an outcome right to remove felt uneasiness or to achieve something at the end of the process But we do it by employing scarce means That are causally effective in the world and we do it by using our knowledge to decide what to do So you have to have knowledge and you have to have scarce means property rights apply to this Again, and I I think that I made this argument in one of my other articles responding to that video Copying is not that but need to pay a lot. Yes, I respond I responded to that in I think It's linked in article called the libertarian case right P But I'm just trying I'm just hold on I'm just trying to say that scarcity is itself a limited Concept in other words that it is a relative But what do you but hold on that there is no requirement for absolute scarcity? It nearly needs to be scarcity within a particular context But what do you mean when you say you're opposed to intangible property and that you think all information is in a media a media is a scarce physical resource Land is a scarce physical resource arguing that if there is an alphanumeric sequence for example than that alphanumeric sequence is a I Know you think there's only one of something it is by definition scarce It's okay, but but let's go back. I want to just finish this very short Praxealogical argument and see what you think's wrong with because you keep stopping me before I get to the end And it's very simple. We employ scarce means We employ scarce means that is you manipulate things in the world that can have a cause and effect But to do that you have to have some idea of what causality is what caught what physics laws are and you have to have Some idea of what's possible and what you're going to achieve So knowledge is in your head it guides your choice of means and your choice of ends So every action is the employment of scarce means and the use of knowledge. Would you agree with that? I would I would say That that is a chain of reasoning which precedes the possibility of property Yeah, I'm just saying that it's inconceivable to imagine human action that doesn't employ scarce means and that doesn't isn't guided by knowledge Correct well Yes, but but there's the but there's the possibility of Human action acting on something which is ubiquitous Yeah, that's the right. That's the general conditions of human action, right in doing so converting something from ubiquitous ubiquitous to scarce That's possible I'm just saying that the structure of action is that every single human action has to employ scarce means and has to be guided by knowledge It's just inconceivable without it in in in in in a sense Well, wait, do you agree with that or not? Hold on. Let me answer you. Let me try to answer your question. I think that human action is itself a scarcity and therefore the employment of human action on something else has at least the potential To satisfy the conditions of creating a a scarce Something that's fine But I'm not talking about the end result of your action the end result of an action does not need to be The acquisition of a scarce resource or the ownership of some object the end of an action could be anything it could be totally subjective right It might it might be to get a little girl will smile after you do a card trick No, the hold on the the the the cause the the the the reason the the reason of the human mind Which affects an action? Is not the same thing and I would say that there is a disconnect Once the result of that action Produce an etching in The real world which is separate from the actor and observable by other actors I know but you're okay, but you're getting on I'm not trying to I'm just talking about if you view human action Praxeologically as the employment of scarce means to it to achieve an end and the and the in the Action that you could take is guided by knowledge that that shows that knowledge or information and the We're having a Communication artifact problem at the moment is that you are we just said purple. Could you see it again, please? Oh? Sorry, what I'm trying to say is my understanding of the way property norms arise and the way they relate to me This is economic understanding. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, sir When you're talking I'm not hearing just verbally mm-hmm Try saying it one more time test test test. Can you hear me now? Hello test Neal Yeah, I'm not really getting anything. Do you want to stop the recording and call me back and start it again? Sure, I'll do that right now. Hey, Neal. Sorry about that. I'm uh, I'm calling. Let's just finish Yeah, let's just finish it up quickly. What I'm doing is I'm calling you on one iPhone. I'm just recording it over the over the air on another very low-tech solution because Everything's always glitchy in technology In fact, why don't we why don't we wrap it up? Yeah, let's just wrap it up. I told you what I wanted I was just running an alternative praxeological theory by you and the basic argument is that you need property rights in the Scarce means that are essential to human action But you cannot have property rights in the knowledge that guides human action because that's not a scarce resource But I take it you don't know Well, you do believe in informational property, so you think there's property rights in information Okay, okay Well, I think So like if you own a horseshoe You don't own the matter in the horseshoe. You only own the way the matter is shaped So like if you own a horseshoe, you don't own them the metal matter of the horseshoe You only own the way the horseshoe is shaped. Let me ask you this Yeah, but but so let's suppose lightning strikes the horseshoe and melts it and now you have a Puddle of molten iron Do you own that or do you lost the ownership of it because it's not a horseshoe anymore? Yes, I would say that because I don't believe that the ownership of the house is dependent upon its shape But it does because because you can't have information without some media that it's carried in Information Yeah, there could be multiple copies of it. I know right, but you but but that's also this also implies It could be multiple copies of it So you want to call it one object Yeah, so it's a universal or it's or it's a platonic. It's that's why I say it's a platonic object to me It seems like but well, I'm sure Sure, I Anyway, I'm gonna tie it up now I'm a little upset with you because I asked you to keep this 30 minutes and you insisted on going a whole hour Neil No, I'm just joking. I don't know because I have it broken up probably about an hour and five minutes No, no, I'm joking then again, you and I have no problem being loquacious. That's true. That's true Well, I appreciate your time and in your your your sincerity on this issue I think for now we'll have to agree to disagree, but at least people can listen to this and see where you're coming from and Evaluate the different ways of looking at this stuff. All right, and you hold on hold on after after I stop and then we'll chat talk to you later Thanks, man