 Welcome back to another episode of the 21st century anarchist Thanks so much for your guys's patience and understanding as I've mentioned before. I am in the middle of Very big transition in my life. We just finished moving our business We are in the process of moving out of state. So in the meantime, we're actually living in my parents home so making the time and space to Create as many episodes as I want is has been very very challenging. So I appreciate you guys hanging in there Today I want to bring to you an episode on intellectual property and probably the foremost Libertarian that deals with this topic is Stefan Concella Many of you have probably heard of him a very interesting conversation. I think everyone's going to learn something from this So I hope you enjoy All right on the phone. I have Stefan Concella. He is the author of Against Intellectual Property He's a intellectual property attorney Stefan, thanks for joining us today Glad to be your Herman so you know as a libertarian libertarian for most of my adult life and you know anarchist probably for a lot less than that but even so I've noticed that Intellectual property is one of those things that not a lot of people Have thought about they don't sit around ruminating about intellectual property Have you found that to be the case or do you usually have to start from scratch when you come across? You know your regular run of the mill libertarian to some degree a little bit less though in recent years and a lot of the the Libertarian groups I attend and associate with IP and ultra property or IP has gotten More and more attention people have been debating it more and more over the last 10 years. So A lot of people had kind of assumed Things about it. They didn't know much about it, but they took it for granted that it was Some type of law that was roughly some type of capitalist or free market type of law And when it started being challenged by a lot of libertarians like people like me and others Then people started getting worked up and trying to defend it Especially people that thought that think their lives and their livelihoods depend upon it So you started getting a lot of authors and people that are creator types and inventors and Certain types of libertarians like objectivists and randians started Trying to marshal defenses of it more and more but by and large. I find that almost no one even people that argue for it Really understand IP. I am an IP attorney I've been doing it for over 20 years and it is an extremely complicated and arcane and narrow body of law and it's very boring and In my experience almost no one really understands The details of patent law and copyright law Pretty much except for patent attorneys and copyright attorneys Well, that's just good news for them, right? That means a lot of business there that the only ones that can You know translate it Correct and surprisingly 99 of them support IP law because it pays the bills and they have a lock on this narrow specialty area of law and But the interesting thing is, you know, I'll often get a libertarian And I am opposed to IP and I can explain why I am a patent attorney and You know, I used to be in favor of it as a young libertarian But about 20 years ago. I changed my mind after learning more about it And I've been sort of fighting against it ever since in the libertarian Area, but what's interesting to me is I'll often encounter libertarians who will argue vigorously with me and with others and they'll defend this system And I will just point out one abuse or one outrageous application of patent or copyright law after the other and almost every single example you point to they will agree with you They'll say well, I agree, but I don't support that So every routine application of these laws that you can point to they will agree that they don't support that And when you ask them, well, you seem like you don't support current patent and copyright law as they're legislated by the congress So what exactly do you support and they'll say something like well, I'm not an expert. So I don't know So I never know exactly what to argue against with them All right, so let's kind of set the stage here and I know this question would probably require an entire semester Um, you know in law school, but how did we get here? So if you can give us a brief Synopsis or or history of how at least in the united states because I'm sure it varies But how you know, what is IP law based on? I'll be happy to and and you're right about the the time it would take to cover in detail I did a five or six part mesas academy course a couple years ago Which is all my website for free stefanconcella.com where I go into IP theory and all this The common conception of intellectual property is that it's just another type of property right That's how it's sold today patent and copyright are the two main types trademark and trade secret law or other types patent protects in It gives the inventor of a of a new invention. That's a practical device or process A monopoly over that for about 17 years only they can sell it basically or make it And copyrights give the creator of an original work of authorship like a novel or a painting or software or a movie or a song Um, a monopoly over that for about 120 years roughly. Okay life of the author plus 70 years it origin and so everyone thinks of this as a They think of it as a property right now because it's called an intellectual property, right? It's called intellectual property because Unlike other property rights and land and things like that. It's said to Cover objects or things that are created by the intellect by the mind right inventions and Songs and things like that. So it's given that label by its defenders To make it sound like a type of property right Uh, but honestly these things originated Uh patents originated in the practice of governments, you know hundreds of years ago The king's basically selling monopoly rights Selling protectionism to favored court cronies in exchange for favors or money or tax collection duties something like that. So they would say You're the only guy that can sell playing cards in this town Okay, they just gave them a monopoly. It was called a patent a patent means Like an open it's called a letter patent It means it's an open instruction from the king to the community that only this guy can sell playing cards So he was basically just selling monopolies to people Um, this got to be so abusive that the the parliament in england in 1623 passed something called the statute of monopolies to try to reign in the king's power But they were they left in place the ability of the king to grant monopolies for inventions That is, you know unique technical advances and that is the origin of modern Patent law in the u.s. Constitution followed from that So patents basically originated in the practice of the government granting protectionist monopoly protection to Certain people in certain regions of their of their domain copyrights originated when the printing press started emerging and the ability of of people to Publish books started threatening the monopoly that the court of the church and the government had Or what books the scribes would hand copy before that right and what information could be given to the public and so this started threatening their control of information and so the uh the government Established regulations on who could be the official publishers and things like that That eventually morphed into the statute of in and 1710 Which is the origin of modern copyright? So copyright basically originated in the attempt of the church and the state to control thought Basically, it was a type of censorship And it is morphed into a system now where the authors have the right to prevent publication of their works But until recently with the advent of amazon and the internet That right still went back to the publishers and the publishers really were the only way the authors could make things published So they had to sign their rights back over to the publishers or the music industry Etc and so you had the same situation as existed before Around the statute of in time Until until modern times. So basically it's it's like an alliance between the government And certain established interests like the publishing interest, etc That allows them to basically prohibit the publication Of certain ideas or the copying of certain works or the use of certain information For the benefit of certain people And so how do law schools approach this? Do they just start off from the assumption that this is just the way it is or do they even You know analyze any of it the way that you have is it just you just start off from okay? This is ip this is it's necessary and you know, these are the laws and this is how how it works Well, I'd say there's two kind of dominant strands in law school now law school is extremely pragmatic and a practical discipline and therefore law school is heavily imbued with what you can call legal positivism That is the idea that we just take the given law that the government announces as the existing law and we We learn that we learn how to work within it. We take it for granted We don't really criticize it normatively or from the outside. We just take it for granted So they do that so there's a statute The copyright act and there's a patent act and we just take that for granted. Okay, we just learn how that works Then you do talk you have policy issues you talk about whether it makes sense and Nowadays the natural law sort of idea the idea that you come up the reasons For like a higher law justification or criticism of some laws It's sort of lost among lawyers because they're so legal positivistic now so the predominant second idea of law school is this sort of Utilitarian approach or wealth maximization approach It's the idea that we just have to kind of look at all the effects of all these laws And we kind of weigh them in a balancing kind of thing And that's how we decide what laws we should have And they just go with the traditional rationale that was given in favor of these laws What happened was these laws were seen early on By defenders of the free market like let's say in the 1800s early 1800s in america and in europe They were widely seen by free market economists and others as monopolies granted by the state and they were encroachments on the free market And they were heavily criticized Especially patents came under a lot of criticism And there was a movement to abolish them. So the defenders and the interests that had grown up around them and depended upon them Mounted a defense and one of the defenses was well, this is just a natural right as a type of property right So they started calling it intellectual property No one really has ever quite bought that because these rights expire after a certain number of years You know 17 years for patents 120 years for copyright and regular natural rights don't expire So everyone sort of senses that these rights aren't really natural rights So the second argument that they came up with was that well These are necessary to stimulate innovation So it's a utilitarian idea the government can come in and sense that there is a problem with the regular free market That we would have an underproduction of innovation inventions and creative works Because that's a market failure basically that's what their argument effectively is in fact That's in the words in the constitution Which grants congress the power to enact copyright and patent laws which says that Congress has this power You know to promote the progress of science and the arts. So the idea is to promote it. We're going to let People have a temporary monopoly Even though that monopoly is in derogation of the free market So in law schools this rationale is repeated just over and over like we need to have some copyright and patent It can't go too far because that would actually You know Reduce the amount of innovation it would cause disincentives But if you don't have any you don't have enough incentives So we need to fine-tune this and get exactly the right amount of stimulus from the government system to stimulate extra innovation extra creativity and Then they just announce well at 17 years for patents and 120 for copyrights But the funny thing is there are simply no econometric or other studies That prove this whatsoever They don't have any objective basis for the for the numbers. In fact, the number of copyright term was originally 14 years at the founding of the of the country 1790 And it's since been expanded over and over and over again at the at the behest of lobbyists like disney who every time Mickey Mouse is about to go into the public domain They lobby congress like sunny bono copyright act extension, right and they get another 20 years of reprieve for Mickey Mouse To the point now where it's going from 14 to 28 to 56 Now to then to life of the author plus 50 years now life of the author plus 70 And now there's lobbying right now for even more term another 20 years to be tacked on So there's no way you could argue these terms are objective. They're simply the result of basically bribes of The legislature by special interests to keep their monopolies going longer and longer But in law school and among the patent bar and the copyright bar And among the advocates of these systems They repeat this rationale that you need this incentive effect It's a utilitarian argument But they never provide any studies that prove this all the studies in fact that i've seen and i've seen dozens Either or inconclusive they say we just can't figure this out because this is not how human life works We can't know what the effects of these policies are we see some good some bad Or they conclude it looks like copyright is is uh suppressing free speech It looks like patents are suppressing innovation overall They're both costing us in freedom and in creative works and in innovation and inventions and in money right and one need to only Need to look at just the cost involved in a lot of this stuff and it's very clear to see that it's um That these regulations essentially are barriers to entry for a lot of individuals Right, I mean if I want to go out and get a patent Have to hire someone like you and you know pay you a ton of money And who's going to be more likely to be able to to achieve that a large corporation You know crony or or just me you know from inventing something in my garage Well, it's it's uh, yeah the uh the creativeness of the patent bar the special interest is really astounding So they'll come up with natural law arguments natural rights arguments, which make no sense They'll come up with these utilitarian arguments For which they have no empirical Evidence or basis whatsoever and then they will come up with these other things like this the thing that your average person has heard So many times they repeat it like the myth of the small inventor like Without patents the small inventor is at the mercy of these large corporations, right? So everyone sort of believes that the patent system is there to protect the small guy, which is a complete You know, I've been a patent lawyer for since 1993 it's I can tell you it's a complete lie and a complete myth Just like the idea that the minimum wage It's harmful to big corporations. The minimum wage helps the big corporations. They lobby for it. You know walmart Already pays more than the minimum wage. So they're totally in favor of the government raising the minimum wage because it won't Raise their costs at all, but it will raise the cost on some of their competitors, right? So you have these these policies that that are sold like, uh, you know Brewer rabbit going into the briar patch saying oh, please don't do this to me and everyone thinks that Big business is against these laws, but they're not Uh, they actually help them they entrench big big corporations and big big business In their professions in the patent field the way this works is The the cost of acquiring patents is not cheap But big corporations can afford it. They amass very large patent portfolios And they can use these to intimidate Upstarts and newcomers, you know who want to enter into the market and compete with them because they could sue them into oblivion Um, even if none of their patents really apply they could just threaten to do that And the the cost to a small business or a small entrepreneur to defend themselves would be at least a million dollars If not two or three To defend themselves in court and they don't have any money to do that So they they're always afraid to enter the market or they give into pressure They get bought out right away or they get crushed and then they and they get driven into bankruptcy and then the The large company buys up This company absorbs them. So what you have is like in the smartphone area You have a very small number of very large players like uh, samsung and google I'm sorry that google apple voterola And what they do is uh, they sue each other for patent infringement But they have thousands of patents and they have huge law firms and law lawyer arsenals and they spend 50 100 million dollars each on some big law lawsuit. They finally settle with each other One pays one a royalty one pays another royalty. They make a settlement. They agree to go their own merry way One of them is going to have a higher cost They both have a higher cost because they spent money on their attorneys But they just pass it on to the consumer who has no choice but to pay it Because there's no competition because there's no small upstarts that can compete with them because of the patent system So there is no doubt whatsoever that the patent system Helps entrench cartels basically or oligopolies It reduces competition and therefore it reduces innovation because You don't need to innovate as much if you have a comfortable perch with only a few Uh competitors and furthermore if you can rely upon your patent for 17 years That reduces your incentive to innovate because you can just Ride on your on your laurels for a while You know, you can you can ride on this innovation for a while because now you have protection No one can compete with you on that innovation if there were a true free market You would have to keep innovating all the time because every innovation You introduced into the market would very very soon be copied and emulated by other competitors So there'd always be a furious pressure to keep innovating Now let's take a step back real quick just to make sure that people can intellectualize exactly what you're saying um When we're talking about the concept of intellectual property What is what are your you know main arguments against it being? property as we know it so my main argument against it is It comes from an understanding of what the purpose of property rights are in the first place and an understanding how these systems work Um, let me make an analogy. Um The libertarian typically says something like We're in favor of individual rights or natural rights or we call them negative rights A negative right just means the only obligation you have is to refrain from doing something to me That is you have an obligation not to invade my property rights Not to commit a tort against me not to murder me not to steal from me So all rights are in in libertarianism or negative. That's what the non-aggression principle means You have an obligation not to aggress But you don't have an obligation to provide me with food or shelter or education Or sustenance whatever that would be a positive right. The reason is positive rights every right Correlates to an obligation. So a negative right means there's a negative obligation And we're okay with that. We're okay with saying people do have an obligation Not to harm us because all they have to do is mind their own business Stay on their own property And just refuse to enter my property or use my body or my property without my permission but The modern mentality is that well negative rights are all fine, but let's just have some positive rights too, right? Let's have the freedom from fear the freedom from want And so the modern liberal The social democrat mentality is that we can just add to the list of negative rights some positive rights Let's have some positive rights too Why shouldn't we have a rich country and let people have free education and free healthcare? Well, the libertarian typically understands that every time you recognize and set up and grant a positive right It's not free. It comes at the expense of negative rights, right? Because if I have a positive Right to healthcare Someone else has a positive obligation to provide it to me, which means taxpayers have to be taxed to pay for it Basically, right? So we recognize that negative rights are the only type of rights that can exist and if you grant positive rights It always comes at the expense Of genuine negative rights It's the same thing with intellectual property rights if you understand the purpose of property rights is basically To permit humans to cooperate in a world of scarce resources This is the situation we find ourselves in On this earth and in society and in our lives We find ourselves in a world where there is scarcity. There are things that we want to use scarce resources material resources land food objects wood water our bodies animals fur bones, whatever airplanes cars nowadays We need to use these things to control the world. This is how we live our lives But there is a possibility that we could have a conflict over who gets to use these resources because of their nature Their nature is that they're scarce, which means that they're rivalrous which means there can be rivalry or conflict over them And instead of us having an attention an eternal war of all against all we want to live in society with each other We want to live cooperatively and peacefully And instead of fighting physically and doing battle over who's going to be able to use this turf of ground or this whatever We prefer to establish property rules or norms. This says listen, let's just come up with a scheme that says For everything that could be fought over There's going to be a rule that says who the owner is And whoever the owner is gets to use it and he can decide who gets to use it or not He can sell it. He can lend it. He can permit someone to use it or he can tell them They can't use it or he can charge them to use it whatever Right, that is why property rights emerge. That's what property rights are property rights simply are the exclusive Right to control illegally recognized socially recognized Right of exclusive control over a given resource that is like that Now if you start saying well, let's add to that intellectual property rights It's just like adding positive rights to negative rights. It has to take away and the reason is because If you grant to me the right to uh An invention let's say the right to a mousetrap. I come up with a mousetrap the first mousetrap Well, let's say I come up with the first three-legged stool Up until now everyone's made four-legged stools and I come up with if we make a three-legged stool It's more stable. It doesn't rock back and forth. Whatever If I have the property right in a three-legged stool in the idea of it Okay, now an idea is not a scarce resource that people can fight over because you can copy it billions of times A billion people could use the idea of a three-legged stool at the same time They could take their own wood. They could make a three-legged stool with it Without conflicting with each other. They could do that in minding their own business on their own desert islands You could have a million desert islands and a million people All making three-legged stools at the same time that they all learned about from one guy And there would be no conflict So if you so property rules already prevent conflict over their particular stools But if you give someone a property right in the idea of a stool What that means is they automatically now have a property right in basically All the wood in the world. Do you see because What they now have a property right in is they is in the wood owned by you Because they can prevent you from using your wood as you see fit even though you own that wood You can't perform certain motions now with your body and with your wood and with your nails and your hammer and your And your you know carving instruments you can't shape that wood into this particular shape because they own that shape Which means that a property right in an idea Effectively grants the owner of that property right ownership rights in the material resources of everyone else around the world including their bodies So it's basically a type of redistribution of wealth or theft or slavery even in a sense This is the ultimate problem with intellectual property is that it basically undercuts and undermines the basic libertarian Property rules the basic libertarian property rules are very simple It is when there's a resource over which there can be conflict We identify the owner according to three very simple rules Those are number one who first who first owned it. That's that's homesteading or original appropriation According to lock number two Did anyone make a contract giving it to someone else? That's comes that's consent or number three Did someone who owned the property commit some kind of violence or tort against someone else so that they owe them some kind of Restitution or rectification In which case they that victim might have a claim over that person's property But only those are the only three rules you have to consult to determine who the owner of a piece of property is Right who first found it Was there a contract did someone commit a wrong? Right and if you have an intellectual property rule what you're doing is you're saying well, there's a fourth rule now To determine the owner of this resource. So if you have a stool Made of wood that you own that you found from the from the forest that was unowned And you use your own labor and your own body to make this stool But someone else can now claim they own that stool because they have the ownership of the idea of a stool Well, then you're coming up with a fourth rule saying well To determine who owns that stool we have to ask Who first found it? Was there a contract? Was there a tort? Or did someone else think of something first you see? So now we have a fourth rule which undercuts the others But such a rule is nonsense because Just because you think of something and you make that idea public and someone else learns from you You're not really committing a tort and you're not entering into a contract with them If you want to keep your ideas to yourself, you need to keep them to yourself Yeah, and I think that The the problem that a lot of people have with With what you're saying tends to be more emotional in that they want to protect that into individual, right? They might say okay fine. I agree that that ideas aren't scares But great minds are so if someone comes up with something first Then we want to protect that individual and we want them to benefit from those great ideas that they come up with Yes Yes, and so that is a common impulse. Um, well, first of all, there's a bit of an equivocation that goes on there They're using the word scarce in a second sense meaning rare when we say a scarce resource We don't mean rare. We mean it's rival risk. But basically it's the type of thing That particular thing can only be used by one person at a time You wouldn't really say that smart people are Arrival risk you would say they're rare that is and that is true The problem here is the libertarian falls into the type of thinking that we see commonly among standard status and mainstreamers and democrat socialists where For example, if you oppose state subsidy of education or you oppose the state Subsidization of art through the national and down for the arts Then the standard liberal will will accuse you of being a philistine and and being against the arts or against education They can't conceive of Uh education Being provided to the public Without the government doing it. So if you're opposed to the government doing it, they think you're opposed to the thing itself Whereas libertarians usually are smarter to realize that you can be opposed to government Subsidies of something without being opposed to the thing itself Right, but they fall prey to similar logic in the case of Of of intellectual property partly because this idea has been so entrenched by now and so ingrained in In western property systems, which we libertarians have been taught to think of is Some kind of rough approximation of a libertarian order, right the west england america early america the common law These property rules we have are not perfect, but there's some rough approximation of capitalism and the free market that we would favor In a free in a free market system And so we take for granted the legitimacy of what's going on But a whole host of practices has evolved and developed in those centuries Taking these patent copyright laws into account. And so we're so used to it It's very hard for people to imagine Well, how would there be innovation funded and how would novels be written, etc If you just jerk this copyright and patent system away from us, they can't imagine it because It's been snuffed out by the government Just like I imagine in soviet russia in the 60s if you told People we're going to get rid of the government's monopoly on automobiles and toothpaste and bread A lot of people might freak out and say well, what the hell where's the bread going to come from? You know because they just they don't they can't imagine who's going to make it if the government's not doing it They're just not used to these alternative systems The government has not allowed the alternative systems to emerge And so people's imaginations are similarly atrophied And that's what's happened here, especially to the more utilitarian consequentialist type libertarian who wants to know What's going to happen if we Establish a war-free economy, which means getting rid of patent and copyright. They demand to know they want to know Well, who's going to how will how will novels be made? How will movies be funded? How how will this happen? They want to know almost like they're making a demand. They're almost saying like Unless you can prove to my satisfaction that When we get rid of patent and copyright, we're going to have just as much innovation in exactly every area As we have right now. I'm not going to favor freedom. That's really what they're saying. It's the same as a liberal saying well You libertarians tell me that there would be plenty of charity in a free society and we don't really need to have welfare But unless you can guarantee to me that there will be no single poor person ever that will go without food In in your system. I'm going to keep my welfare system. Thank you very much This is exactly the attitude the libertarians have who don't really understand what they're supporting They're basically supporting a system that undermines property Rights that undermines competition undermines learning threatens censorship threatens internet freedom by the way the the This whole idea of a piracy which has all the the big content so upset Um, and so they lobby the american government which lobbies the rest of the world to ramp up copyright laws Uh, it actually putting people in jail for pirating Movies and books things like this erin swartz if you recall committed suicide because he was he was facing decades in prison For copying some journal articles from a university uh It's really really a police state type system That no libertarian has any business supporting whatsoever if they don't understand it I could understand being silent and mute about it and being listening on the sidelines, but for any libertarian to vocally support patent and copyright is either An act of complete irresponsible Ignorance because they don't know what they're talking about and they really should be quiet Or it's an act of evil and completely unlibertarian. They actually know what it is and they're in favor of it. Anyway in either case Look, I've mentioned this before in various talks and in writings um Most of the the the horrible things the state engages in War the federal reserve and you know central banking inflation those things uh state funding education uh taxation All the drug war especially all of these things almost every libertarian recognizes is unlibertarian and And they oppose it because they know it's unlibertarian Most people sense that these things are something wrong with these things, but they're willing to tolerate them for some reason Intellectual property is up there with those other five things But it's the only one that pretends to be a type of property right and they get libertarians to support it Uh under the banner of property rights Libertarians who support taxation do so grudgingly. They know that it's bad Maybe we have to do it to support the government. I don't believe that because I'm an anarchist But I understand some anarchists believing that But they don't pretend that it's a property right issue Right the same thing with the drug war And with government funding of education But with intellectual property it's different It's the one of those big bad things the state does it's insidious because it goes under the banner of property rights And that's why I think it confuses libertarians um so much and it's hard to figure out Yeah, and on the topic of productivity and how much you know the lack of ip Would affect that I think the the thing that cemented it in my brain the most was an example of that Jeff Tucker made and you know, I know nothing and care nothing about fashion But he you know, I don't remember um in the talk that he gave he gave the example of how The fashion industry for the most part there isn't a lot of ip And you know, I thought back to my college days when I used to work at a retail store a clothing store a gap And remembered how dynamic You know that industry was and every three months we had to constantly You know move out the old stuff and bring in the the new season and I never thought about it that way and I said Yeah, I mean you can't patent You know a pants or a t-shirt or whatever So these companies are just always on the go and you can only imagine how much more productive Other industries would be if they also had that incentive instead of just spending so much time in court well, yeah, so um But of course there's a lot of people in the fashion industry that have been lobbying for decades now for a copyright To extend the fashion designs. So you you can never win with these people. They're never stopping But yeah, you have you have examples from all over perfume smells are the same way a restaurant recipe recipes for you know for food and restaurants people Innovate all the time and they count they sometimes emulate each other sometimes they they build on each other, etc The the advocates of intellectual property, especially patents are completely inconsistent because they never come up with a coherent theory explaining Why fashion designs and things like that shouldn't be covered? There's no end to what you could cover With with the idea that anything that has value that's creative should be rewarded by a property right grant There's there's no end to it. Um In fact, there's no there's no reason why they would want to make the terms finite some people like leisander spooner And a few libertarians arguing even today argue that patent and copyright terms should be perpetual now Patent and copyright are bad enough But if you imagine that since the dawn of the 14 1500s or even earlier If there had been perpetual terms to every invention ever Come up with and every work of authorship. We would have no public domain whatsoever We we almost couldn't do anything without permission We we would always we'd all be dead because you couldn't do anything without getting permission of 100 000 errors of someone else We just we died like a like a pit of stasis um The other thing you have to recognize is that um Even the companies that you would think benefit the most from the patent system and the copyright system like the music industry hollywood um The pharmaceutical industry even some of them would be better in a free market because Um, well number one, they would all be free to do whatever they wanted with other people's ideas They would have like a huge recipe box open to them all that would that would liberate them They would untie their own hands So they would benefit even though they suffered by losing some of their monopoly power, right? So In estimates that I have seen and I've done myself If I had to guess okay based upon Some objective estimates and studies I would guess that at least a trillion dollars Is lost In some kind of terms by the patent system Globally every year. I think it's actually more to be honest I think that the amount of innovation that is hampered by the system and the amount of Deadweight cost that's spent on ip enforcement is insane And remember too that these companies will be free. They wouldn't have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on patent attorneys like me They wouldn't have to uh YouTube would be a wholly different type of thing for example right now It wouldn't have to have this whole take down and notice system. They have right now They wouldn't have to have to have been so careful It's hard for us to imagine what would happen without patent copyright, but we know that A lot of things would change netflix is already severely hampered Because of copyright, right? It doesn't have the latest shows and movies The service would be totally different and probably a lot cheaper um absent copyright Uh, I've given examples before about People ask questions about how would movies be made. It's like well Movies used to be remember movies used to be made before digital media Uh, like say in the 50s and 60s when their basic source of income was selling tickets at movie theaters And guess what people still go to movie theaters even today in record numbers And they pay lots of money Even though most of them are savvy enough to go get a torrented free copy of the movie at home So why do they do that because it's a different experience? So there's no reason to believe that Movies wouldn't be made just just for the ticket prices alone It's only in the modern decades where secondary and tertiary sources of income started happening where like for example the um, the the movie studios could make money a second time Uh by playing it on television and a third time by renting it out to hbo and a fourth time by airplanes And a fifth time by hotels and a sixth time by dbd sales Right all these things are great And even if some of those are eroded because of the ability of people to copy Doesn't mean there wouldn't be a way to fund things right and remember their costs would be a lot lower as well uh The whole industry of making sequels is a governed by copyright because Uh, it's easy for a company to make an insipid sequel because they know It's a moneymaker and no one else can make a sequel because of copyright law. So it sort of distorts the entire culture um the uh The uh, I mean think about iron rands novels Libertarians love them. I think atlas struggle was published in what 56 or something Uh, they didn't come out until as movies until about three years ago four years ago They would have certainly come out as movies way before that if there had been no copyright preventing someone from just doing it Maybe there would have been three or four versions of atlas shrugged made already. So what? Uh, you know, everyone freaks out about that idea, but it's it's there's nothing wrong with that I mean people can make a a movie based on romeo and juliette right now if they want to so what? you can make a play based upon uh Play it as republic if you want to right now because it's public domain um One idea i've uh suggested is let's take the example of of a jk rolling the author of uh, harry potter The harry potter novels who's basically like england's first female billionaire. I think because of this And no doubt some of that is because of copyright I don't know if all of it is and I don't I don't think all of it is you could easily imagine a scenario where someone like her Becomes a multi hundred millionaire easily without in a copyright free world So for example, she published her first novel just because she loved writing it. She had no expectation of becoming rich So she would have published harry potter it would have gone on kindle She would have sold it for a dollar each maybe or on kindle Maybe she would have gotten a million readers around the world and they loved her 10 million readers She would have made 10 million dollars right off of that even if there were knockoffs She would have made some money And then she realizes hey, I've got this big fan base 10 million harry potter readers parter readers out there Uh, so she says i'm going to start on book number two and she does an indiegogo campaign Or she just does a gofundme campaign or something a patron account and says I've got book number two ready I'll tell you what i'll release it as soon as I get A million people agree to pay five bucks each for it five million bucks pretty good money for writing a book I guarantee she would have gotten it and then maybe in the meantime two or three pirate movie studios would have You started making movie versions adaptations of her first novel without her permission because there's no copyright But one of them might have went to her and said listen, there's two other companies making harry potter Uh and the sorcerer stone movies right now We want to make one too But we'd like you to consult on it and endorse it And we think that we would get a lot more ticket sales than our competitors because the fans Would much rather go see the authorized version So we'll give you 10 of the royalties if you just do that, you know So now she's got another 50 million in her pocket I mean there's any is any number of ways you could imagine someone like her making money They just have to figure it out. You have to figure out a way to be an entrepreneur Given the property rights system of a free society And that highlights another issue that I think people have trouble with when it comes to this stuff that They feel like then that puts the onus on good marketing over just creating something cool right or something uh novel and And I think that's why a lot of people also have trouble with this because they say well We want people creating but are they going to be punished because they're just not good at business right, well, but uh You know, you know First of all, I guess there's a principal response of that which is that look what's the purpose of Libertarian theory. What's the purpose of property rights? What what are our principles? What are we for we are for a society where people Respect each other's rights. Okay, we are not socialist who think everyone has a right to a job And we shouldn't be Entrepreneurial socialist who thinks everyone or creator socialist who thinks everyone who comes up with something quote unquote valuable or a good idea Is entitled to some kind of monetary return from it because they're not The second answer is that even in today's world where there is patent and copyright That's still the case what you just said, you know, if I'm some lone inventor and I come up with a new mousetrap Even if I come up with the money To apply for a patent that doesn't make money start coming in. I still have to somehow make money off of it you know, I have to Go into business and start making mousetraps or I have to find someone who wants to license this from me You have to be a businessman Or you have to wait sit there and be a patent troll and hope that some other company Comes up with the same idea five years later And starts making the mousetrap. They take the entrepreneurial risk to do it and then you just sue them, right? Like a patent troll I guess that's a money making Type of business model, but even that's a business model. It's a horrible one, but even that's a business model It wouldn't be possible in a free market But there's just no way to make money off of an idea even under a patent and copyright system unless you're kind of a businessman So that criticism makes no sense whatsoever Now how would things like Trademarks and things that identify people or brands or things be Be managed so for instance the real world example if In a free market without ip my wife and I own a business and we have our logo and we have You know the name of the company So How would one go about protecting that or making sure that another company doesn't just you know, they see that you're successful They start using your company's name and your logo Right different from the other thing now now so trademark is like the third big type of ip It's not nearly as big in terms of damage as patent and copyright And it's not nearly as obvious to most people that trademark law should be totally abolished as well Which I believe it should be Let me explain why first of all, um Rothbard has explained Uh in the ethics of liberty Well, he was a little confused on copyright, but he was good on patents But he was also good on defamation law, which is reputation rights, which is basically Trademark is a combination of fraud law And reputation rights. Okay, and I'll explain that in a second. Um and contract law Reputation rights or defamation law says that if you have a reputation Then if someone slanders you or defames you or liables you by Telling a falsehood about you that harms your reputation. You can sue them Rothbard explains what that is an unlibertarian Type of law you don't have a right to your reputation because reputation is just what other people think about Think about you. You don't have a right to their opinion or their brains And I agree with that totally I actually think defamation law should be considered a fifth type of ip But it's not normally considered so by lawyers, but I think it should be and it should be struck down for the same reasons um trademark law is usually justified even by libertarians even by ones that are skeptical of patent and copyright By saying that it's just a way to prevent consumer fraud Um, or they blend it in with this reputation issue like well, you have a right to your reputation So the way I look at that is this. Um, first of all, you have a name. I have a name My name is Stefan Kinsella. You your name is Herman. Um, you know, your son might have a name It might be the same as someone else's name You don't actually need the government a government legal system to That for you to have a name In fact, you have a reputation. I have a reputation in the community I don't need government laws to have a reputation. There will be reputations and there will be names Including business names, right? So that's the first thing you don't need a government system to have a reputation or to have a name um Second of all the threat that you're talking about is almost non-existent. So If mcdonalds had been a popular hamburger chain Well, when burger king or windies started up to compete with them, even if there hadn't been trademark law Usually these companies don't want to Mimic and copy the other company. They want to start their own chain with their own name It just is not going to happen that you're going to have someone come up with a renegade mcdonalds because Sooner or later the word is going to get out that there are renegade mcdonalds, right and Customers will either start suing them for fraud now There's a type of fraud law I support if you go to a restaurant Or to a company and they pretend to sell you something that's not legitimate Then that is a type of fraud Which is why trademark law is not necessary based upon fraud because there's already fraud law or contract breach So to the extent trademark law Duplicates what fraud law already does it's not necessary, but trademark law goes far beyond that. So for example If I make a knockoff Chanel purse Right that normally sells for $500 and I sell it to you for $5 now Chanel can stop Me from making that sale and they can confiscate with the power of the government all the purses in my Warehouse and destroy them, right? That's what trademark law gives them the power to do. Now. There's no way you can justify that based upon um Fraud law because when I sell you the purse for $5 I'm not defrauding you because you well know you're getting a knockoff purse And that's what you want. You can't afford a $500 purse or you don't want to pay for it So there's no fraud in that case I'm not defrauding my customer. My customer is not defrauding being defrauded or complaining Yet Chanel still has the right to come in and step in and stop it. So to the extent trademark law deviates from fraud law It's illegitimate. That's why I would get rid of it um So that's the first thing with with with with trademark. Um, I simply think that And and now and think of the practical ways as operate Let's suppose I go down to the local Kroger grocery store and I want to buy some crest toothpaste Which I do on occasion Now It's possible. There could be a knockoff chinese a chinese company selling knockoff crest Which is inferior in quality To be honest, if it's not inferior in quality, I don't really care if I'm getting knockoff crest But let's suppose I care and let's suppose it is inferior in quality Well, kroger bought that crest fake crest toothpaste from somewhere They had a supplier And as soon as the rep the word gets out that kroger is selling Fake crest and other fake products on their shelves. Guess what's going to happen? They're going to lose customers So kroger has an interest in being a reputable company And giving a guarantee to their customers We guarantee that everything on our shelves is from the original supplier And we have or the original manufacturer and we have suppliers And we we guarantee we make sure that they are legitimate and that they guarantee that they got it from the original Manufacture as well. So there's a there's a certification process that would happen normally in the free market down the chain There's just no need whatsoever for trademark wall any more than we have a need for the For the for the government the fda to inspect meat, right? And for the government to Inspect cars you can have private mechanisms that do this already. I mean maybe yelp would do it You know, it's hard to predict exactly how this would happen in a free market But um, I would say trademark law is completely Completely inappropriate. The only thing that should be prohibited Or considered to be an offense and the law would be outright deception and fraud of consumers. So you know, if I sell you a Chanel purse pretending That it is a genuine Chanel purse that is a type of fraud, but in that case the victim is the customer And he doesn't need trademark law to sue. He can sue based upon contract breach or fraud law right and furthermore Where's he buying this purse? Is the customer buying it from some guy with a van on a corner in the shady's part of town? In which case you should be on notice In fact, if you're buying a Chanel purse for five dollars, you should already be on notice that it's not a real purse Right, um, or are you buying it from a nice glitzy Chanel outlet in the gallery of mall in downtown Houston? Right. Now, what's the likelihood that some Shady priority outfit that's standing to be sued by thousands of defrauded customers is going to be able to get the resources Right and have the reputation to get a lease from the gallery The gallery is not going to accept shady customers like that any more than kroger is going to accept knockoff toothpaste From a chinese company just to save a few bucks Well, they're going to lose all their business as soon as people figure this out So these are problems that just do not exist like at all on the free market Trademark law doesn't solve any real problem that exists on the market Well stuff, and I wanted to provide my listeners a primer on this stuff And I think you've done that and then some so a lot to Digest your chew on but if people want to explore, you know more about this topic and know more about your work Where should they go? On this particular topic. I have a website called c4 the number four Sif.org which stands for center for the study of innovative freedom. So it's c4sif.org and just go to the resources page there I have tons of prime primers and articles and concise guides and And on my personal site stefanconcella.com I have a podcast and I have a media page and publications with lots of articles and Talks on this topic. In fact my mesus academy course was like a five or six part course on ip And if someone wants to drill down into those more deeply they can they can take that for free. It's on it's online at my site Excellent well, thanks so much for your time stefan. I hope to have you again At some point to get a little bit deeper in this stuff, but I really appreciate your time today You're welcome hermit appreciate it All right guys, there you have it. Hope you enjoyed that I'm going to include as many links as I can from stefan where you can find a lot more about him and the work that he does and Just resources on this topic and stay tuned. I am scheduled to speak with walter block soon And i'm hoping to get that episode up within the next few days. So stay tuned for that and as always Remember you are free live accordingly