Kinsella On Liberty Stephan Kinsella

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 421.



This is my appearance on Episode 297 of The Local Maximum with host Max Sklar. Recorded Sep. 13, 2023, published Sep. 27, 2023. From their shownotes:

Max talks to Stephan Kinsella, a libertarian intellectual property lawyer who ardently challenges the very foundations of IP. Kinsella delves deep into the core arguments underpinning intellectual property and the inherent fallacies. They also discuss the impact of generative AI on the copyright landscape.

Transcript below.



















Transcript

Max Sklar: You're listening to the Local Maximum episode 297.

Narration: Time to expand your perspective. Welcome to the Local Maximum. Now here's your host, Max Sklar.

Max: Welcome everyone, welcome, you have reached another Local Maximum. We are going to get a really interesting perspective on intellectual property today from Stephan Kinsella. He is an intellectual property lawyer who is actually against the whole concept of intellectual property that includes patents, copyright, the whole thing. Now, for those of us on the outside, there's still a lot that we need to learn about IP, like, what are all these different concepts? Why are they considered necessary by the mainstream?

So we go back to basics a little bit, go over what patent and copyright is and why you still need to use it and think about it even if you don't agree with it. And then we're going to take a turn into the issues of the day with generative AI models and how copyright law may end up getting applied to these processes, by the authorities, by the powers that be and the harm that this could possibly do.

All right. My next guest is a libertarian writer and registered patent attorney in Houston. He has spoken, lectured and published widely on various areas of libertarian legal theory and on legal topics, such as intellectual property law and international law. Stephan Kinsella, you've reached the Local Maximum, welcome to the show.

Stephan Kinsella:

Thank you, glad to be here.

Max: Yeah, really glad to have you and your work on intellectual property and copyright. First of all, that's a topic that, you know, not everyone can make it interesting for me, whenever I listen to your stuff on it, I always I always find it's more interesting. So I appreciate that. And I agree with you on a lot of things. So that's it. I just appreciate the way you present it.

You've been opposed to IP for quite a while. When did you come to this kind of full? Well, what is your full position? I think it's like, you know, no patent, no copyright? Is this your full position? And when did you come to this position? Was it before after going into IP law?

Stephan:

About the same time I was a, I was a libertarian and college and in law school, but I was always unsatisfied with the arguments for IP that I had heard by Ayn Rand and others, I assumed it was a legitimate type of property right because it was in the Constitution, and it's part of so-called capitalism, and everyone was in favor of it.

But their arguments didn't make sense to me, because, you know, most of the arguments were either well, they're either utilitarian or incentive based, or they're kind of a deontological, or principle based, like have a natural rights argument. And the natural rights argument just makes no sense because the patent and copyright expire after a certain number of years, which, which is not how other property rights work.

So it seems to me like if you're trying to do a natural rights argument, which Ayn Rand did, and then you say, but that copyright should expire in 100 years, and patent should expire in 17 years. It's weird that you just have this arbitrary number, which, of course, the government would have to make up and they have no basis for it.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 420.



From the recently-concluded Seventeenth Annual (2023) Meeting of the PFS, Bodrum, Turkey (Sep. 24, 2023). The slide presentation is streamed below (ppt). Video is also below.



It will also be podcast later on the Property and Freedom Podcast, as well as the panel discussion later in the day (video below).



Kinsella talk:



https://youtu.be/QEmRgapffNQ



Panel discussion:



https://youtu.be/aEryCGV2oWU



Slides:







Notes from the slides:



Stephan Kinsella

C4SIF.org • StephanKinsella.com

@nskinsella



Property and Freedom Society

2023 Annual Meeting

Bodrum, Turkey

September 24, 2023

Overview

►       Spoken about intellectual property (IP) before here (in 2010 and 2015), but today I’d like to talk about how I came to my current views

§   And how figuring this out required coming to a deeper understanding and more clarity about the foundation and nature of rights, and property rights, in general

►       I came to the conclusion years ago that all IP law—patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, and others—are completely illegitimate and should all be abolished

►       I started publishing articles on various aspects of libertarian theory in the early 1990s—rights and punishment theory, inalienability, legislation, and so on



Against IP

►       In 2001 I published “Against Intellectual Property” in the Journal of Libertarian Studies.

§   Original title: “The Legitimacy of Intellectual Property”

§   Hoppe suggested I change it, just like he suggested the title of today’s talk

►       The article was controversial and influential, so I became well known in libertarian circles as being “the IP guy”

§   Even though it’s not my only area of research

§   E.g., Legal Foundations of a Free Society (2023) [LFFS]

IP Man

How I got here

►       Libertarian since high school, initially influenced by Ayn Rand

►       Never satisfied with her case for patent and copyright

►       Initially practiced oil and gas law (1992) but decided to switch to patent law (1994)

►       Around the same time I was learning patent and IP law as a lawyer, I tried to come up with a better argument for IP

►       Finally I came to my current IP beliefs

§   I was trying to justify the unjustifiable

►       Heavily influenced by the work of Hoppe (on scarcity and property), and Tom Palmer & Wendy McElroy (on IP)

§   Hoppe was instinctively against IP from the beginning

►       Because I understood IP law very well, I put together what I had learned and published “Against Intellectual Property,” and many articles since

How I got here

►       I kept encountering different objections to my basic argument, so developed further arguments to explain their errors

►       Summarized in “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward,” in LFFS

►       Sorting out the basic case against IP and responding to various objections required rethinking and clarifying other aspects of libertarian theory, namely the nature and purpose of property rights, contract theory, and so on

►       Figuring out IP and finding ways to explain it to others improved my understanding of other areas of libertarian theory

►       I’ve lost track of how many people have written me or told me that my IP work opened their eyes. That’s gratifying for a writer.

§   See “My IP Odyssey”

Absurd Arguments for IP

►       “Thank goodness the Swiss did have a Patent Office. That is where Albert Einstein worked and during his time as a patent examiner came up with his theory of relativity.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 419.



This is my Soho Forum debate held Aug. 21, 2023, in Manhattan, against Corey DeAngelis, of the American Federation for Children, moderated by Gene Epstein. I defended the resolution "Today’s school-choice movement in the U.S. is worthy of support by libertarians…" (taking the negative). Oxford debate rules applied which meant that whoever changed the most minds won. My side went from about 10 to 23 percentage points, gaining about 13; Corey went from about 45 to 64%, gaining about 19, so he won. I was pleased that we had an informative and civil debate about an important issue. (This is my second Soho debate; the first was KOL364 | Soho Forum Debate vs. Richard Epstein: Patent and Copyright Law Should Be Abolished.) My discussion notes are appended below. See also Reason.com article with video; Reason.com article with podcast.



Results



Today's school-choice movement in the U.S. is worthy of support by libertarians.

                          Pre                 Post                Change

Yes                   44.90%           64.29%            19.39%

No                    10.20%            23.47%            13.27%

Undecided   44.90%           12.24%            -32.65%



 



https://www.youtube.com/live/xZF-lT_1pag?si=nJVtVVz6FKsQ4wjv



Related:



Comments on the Youtube livestream

Various comments on twitter: here, here, here, here.

Rose City Catholics Fight for LGBTQ Rights—and Start a War With Portland’s Archbishop (July 5, 2023)

Educational Scholarship Accounts

Lew Rockwell, Education and the Election

William Anderson, The Trouble with Vouchers

Jacob Hornberger, “School Vouchers Are Anti-Libertarian,” Hornberger’s Blog (Future of Freedom Foundation) (July 5, 2022)

———, “More on Anti-Libertarian School Vouchers,” Hornberger’s Blog (Future of Freedom Foundation) (July 6, 2022)

Bob Murphy Show ep 105: Corey DeAngelis Makes the Case for School Choice

Jacob Hornberger Makes the Case AGAINST School Vouchers (with Bob Murphy — Bob Murphy show ep. 248)

Tom Woods Show: Ep. 2325 Corey DeAngelis and Connor Boyack: The State’s Schools Are Beyond Repair

Tom Woods Show: Ep. 2211 Corey DeAngelis on the School Choice Movement

KOL112 | Jack Criss Interview on the Voucher System (1989)

Kinsella, “Negates freedom of choice,” Letter to the Editor, The Morning Advocate (Dec. 21, 1988), and related correspondence related to the voucher system and school choice, 1988–89 (Note: Written in a more Randian “Objectivist” phase, and before I came to oppose voucher systems.)



DISCUSSION NOTES

Resolved: Today’s school-choice movement in the U.S. is worthy of support by libertarians

A Soho Forum Debate

Corey DeAngelis vs. Stephan Kinsella

Aug 21, 2023

The Sheen Center, 18 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012

MAIN PRESENTATION – NOTES

[15 MIN]









So there are many ways to explain why intellectual property is illegitimate



Oh wait, that’s the wrong debate





Resolved: Today’s school-choice movement in the U.S. is worthy of support by libertarians.

To answer this question, we need to understand what libertarians should support, and what “Today’s school-choice movement” is

Libertarianism is a political philosophy that believes in individual rights to self-ownership and to private property ownership.



In short, we oppose “aggression”

So libertarians oppose a host of state laws and policies since they themselves commit aggression

Such as taxation, war, the drug war, the central bank, and intellectual property (see, IP keeps coming up)

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 418.



This is a followup to KOL414 | Corporations, Limited Liability, and the Title Transfer Theory of Contract, with Jeff Barr: Part I. See that episode for more information and notes.



In Part III, we need to talk about corporations. For more on that, see Corporate Personhood, Limited Liability, and Double Taxation.



 



https://youtu.be/5-Zvt59UlSk

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 417.



Part 3 of my video commentary on Larken Rose's recent comments on IP. For more information, see the description and links at KOL415: Commentary on Larken Rose, “IP: The Wrong Question”: Part 1.



https://youtu.be/Q6dVF-DP-mY

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 416.



Part 2 of my video commentary on Larken Rose's recent comments on IP. For more information, see the description and links at KOL415: Commentary on Larken Rose, “IP: The Wrong Question”: Part 1.



https://youtu.be/3W7ZSkzjOtQ