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The All-In podcast (@theallinpod) hosts Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath), Jason Calacanis (@Jason), David Sacks (@DavidSacks), and David Friedberg (@friedberg) screw up yet another IP discussion. (See All-In Podcast Concern over China and IP “Theft”.) This time they sense how copyright is going to screw up IP and want some changes, but… not enough. This is one of these examples of Brandolini’s Law (the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle); it would take about 30 pages to debunk all their confusions about IP (Calacanis claims to know it more than the others but he mangles it too; none of them understand IP law); they conflate patents, copyright, trademark, stealing, plagiarism, and contracts/terms of service; (( Stop calling patent and copyright “property”; stop calling copying “theft” and “piracy”; Copying, Patent Infringement, Copyright Infringement are not “Theft”, Stealing, Piracy, Plagiarism, Knocking Off, Ripping Off. )) they are confused about independent invention, originality, authorship, what China is doing,¹ and on on… they are just all over the map. [continue reading…]

1. The China Stealing IP Myth.  [↩]

As I have noted previously, the two most harmful types of IP, patent and copyright,¹ have gotten increasingly worse since their inception in 1790, with few exceptions. Originally the term was about 14 years for each (based on the idea of protecting the master from competition from his apprentices for the arbitrary period of two 7-year apprentice terms).² Patents are now about 17 years (20 years from date of filing, with about 3 years for prosecution being typical), and the scope has expanded somewhat, to cover business methods and computer software (even though software is also now covered by copyright, as it is a form of “expression,” but should’t be, as it is functional, hence the possibility of patents on software inventions).³ Congress has has expanded the term several times over the decades from 14 years renewable once, to, incredibly, the life of the author plus seventy years. Copyright  originally covered books, maps, charts; it now covers subject matter either because of new developments and judicial recgnognition or by legislation now covering things like musical compositions (sheet music), photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings, compilations (databases), computer programs (software), and even “look and feel.”⁴ [continue reading…]

1. “Patent vs. Copyright: Which is Worse?”; The Overwhelming Empirical Case Against Patent and Copyright; “The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism” (Mises Daily 2010); IP Answer Man: Death Toll of Patent Law; “Death by Copyright-IP Fascist Police State Acronym”; “Masnick on the Horrible PROTECT IP Act: The Coming IPolice State”; posts tagged under Patents kill. [↩]
2.   Where did the patent term come from?; Optimal Patent and Copyright Term Length; see also Thomas Jefferson’s Proposal to Limit the Length of Patent and Copyright in the Bill of Rights.  [↩]
3. KOL409 | IP Law Tutorial, Part 1: Patent Law; Grok report. [↩]
4. KOL411 | IP Law Tutorial, Part 2: Copyright Law; Grok report. [↩]

KOL469 | Haman Nature Hn 149: Tabarrok on Patents, Price Controls, and Drug Reimportation. Read more>>

Related:

•  Jeffrey A. Tucker on Intellectual Property
• From It’s a Jetsons World (Mises Institute, 2012): [continue reading…]

From StephanKinsella.com:

I’ve always been against defamation law (libel, slander, etc.). I assumed it was the plumbline libertarian position, even though many libertarians and most Objectivists seem to favor reputation rights. As I wrote in “Defamation as a Type of Intellectual Property”: ¹ [continue reading…]

I asked my two go-to AIs to write an article for me based my previous publications. Here is the initial prompt I gave both:

Write a draft article, in Stephan Kinsella’s style and voice, presenting his case against intellectual property law. Draw on the articles and posts linked below and attached. Include as many nuances and details as possible and make the argument systematic and as comprehensive as possible. Make the article concise if possible but take as much space as needed to fully flesh out the various arguments and explanations.Consult attached documents and the following: [continue reading…]

Related:

•  Whereupon Grok admits it (and AI) is severely gimped by copyright law
• ​ Libertarian and IP Answer Man: Artificial Intelligence and IP

See Reginald Godwin, “Copyright, AI, and the Great Illusion,” Libertarian Alliance (June 28, 2025).

I was asked by an old friend for my thoughts on this. I reproduce them below. [continue reading…]

From Juani:
You know, we talked a lot about AI and all the other day in your podcast,¹ and on this topic, Google has made a particularly nice AI-powered app that allows you to explain concepts using AI-generated drawings of cats.

I decided to ask the AI to explain your anti-IP stance, and below is the result. You might find it rather interesting, and perhaps useful, to explain this and other concepts, in particular to younger people or those with little understanding of these topics.
[continue reading…]

1.  KOL467 | Discussing AI and IP with Juani from Argentina. [↩]

• KOL469 | Haman Nature Hn 149: Tabarrok on Patents, Price Controls, and Drug Reimportation
• Optimal Patent and Copyright Term Length
• Tabarrok: Patent Policy on the Back of a Napkin

In a recent Human Action podcast episode, “Why Are US Drug Prices So High?,” Bob Murphy and Alexander Tabarrok discuss drug prices, President Trump’s recent “Executive Order: Delivering Most-Favored-Nation Prescription Drug Pricing to American Patients,” and related policy like patent law. (See also Trump’s “Worst Idea”: Undercutting Patent-Inflated Monopoly Pharmaceutical Patents.)

Their shownotes: [continue reading…]

In S1:E7 of the TV series Doc, the main character, Dr. Amy Larsen, has to take the medical boards again because of an accident giving her amnesia. Preparing for the boards, she recited part of the modern, 1964 Hippocratic Oath:

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

An admirable, implicitly anti-IP sentiment. Which some doctors seem to thwart by filing patents on medical procedures–seeking to block other doctors from using the knowledge they have to treat patients. [continue reading…]

[From my Webnote series]

I have pointed out that in case of disputes over the use of scarce (conflictable) resources (means of human action) other than one’s body, property rights principles are used to determine the owner of the contested resource. (In the case of one’s body, the principle of presumptive self- or body-ownership is used.) Thus, as noted in Aggression and Property Rights Plank in the Libertarian Party Platform: [continue reading…]

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 466.

[continue reading…]

Intellectual property is totally incompatible with libertarian principles and property rights, principled libertarians, especially Austrian and Mises-influenced ones should know.¹

This follows clearly from libertarian property principles as laid out in the LP Platform (Plank 2.1), which makes it clear that the aggression opposed by libertarians is defined in terms of property rights, which are based on self-ownership of one’s body and, for previously unowned external scarce resources, by the principles of original appropriation, contractual acquisition, and transfers to effectuate rectification for torts/crimes: [continue reading…]

1. See my “The Problem with Intellectual Property ” (2025), Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023) [LFFS], Part IV, and You Can’t Own Ideas: Essays on Intellectual Property (2023). [↩]