Against Intellectual Property

By N. Stephan Kinsella

Kinsella’s main point is that copyrights, patents, and similar laws don’t make sense if you care about real property rights. Property rights are meant to stop fights over scarce things like land, food, or tools. Ideas aren’t scarce. If I share an idea with you, I still have it too. So, treating ideas like physical property is a mistake. Some people argue that if you create something, you should own it. But creating something usually just means you’ve rearranged stuff you already own (it doesn’t give you a claim over other people’s property). Defenders of intellectual property either use “natural rights” arguments, which are inconsistent, or “it’s good for innovation” arguments, which don’t have solid proof and might cause more harm than good. In practice, IP laws let creators control how other people use their own things. For example, if you own a printer and some paper, copyright law can stop you from printing a copy of a book you bought. That’s like letting someone else have partial control over your property. Instead, people could just make private agreements, like non disclosure contracts, to protect secrets. Those agreements should only apply to the people who agree to them, not to everyone. Some IP believers take the idea to ridiculous extremes, like claiming ownership over certain words or demanding payment every time someone says them. Kinsella’s bottom line is that IP creates fake scarcity, interferes with real property rights, and doesn’t clearly make us more creative or innovative. We’d be better off without it.