Pro-Commerce • Anti-Monopoly • Anti-IP • Pro-Innovation
[From my Webnote series] Ported here from Kinsella, The Patent, Copyright, Trademark, and Trade Secret Horror Files, StephanKinsella.com (Feb. 3, 2010) As noted here, Ayn Rand s newsletters used to end with a Horror File of monstrous but true quotations. Along those lines, it s time to collect some choice trademark horror stories in one place. The main [ ]
Jeffrey A. Tucker, Apple the Monopolist, Mises Economics Blog (01/28/2010) (archived comments below) Apple the Monopolist January 28, 2010 9:18 AM by Jeffrey Tucker (Archive) Apple s products seem light years ahead of the competition. By the time the competition starts getting vaguely close to making a product that approximates its excellence and elegance, Apple announces the new [ ]
Nicholas Snow The Three Stages of Invention, Mises Daily (07/20/2006). Archived comments below. Nicholas Snow The Three Stages of Invention, Mises Daily (07/20/2006). Frédéric Bastiat is considered by many to be one of the greatest economic journalists of all time.[1] However, it has been argued that he also made far more important contributions to the science of [ ]
Kinsella, Revolutionary Television Design Killed by Patents, Mises Economics Blog (5/29/2007). Archived comments below. See also: James Rivington, Whatever happened to SED TV?, Techradar (October 2, 2007): It was going to be the tech to beat LCD and plasma The Marketplace Took it as Far as it Could Broadcasters Admit NextGen TV Defeat Kinsella, [ ]
Jeffrey A. Tucker, The Copyright/Baseball Analogy, Mises Economics Blog (11/14/2006). Archived comments below. My friend Carl Horowitz writes a good piece urging Hollywood to join the film pirates rather than fight them [Link broken. Closest I could find is Carl Horowitz, Hollywood: Land of Libertarianism, TownHall (Dec 05, 2009). —SK]. He is surely right about this. [ ]
Interesting piece by Len D. Pozeram, The Great Intellectual Property Bubble and the Coming Reckoning for Western Economies, Libertarian Alliance (UK) (31 July, 2026): Since the early 1990s, Western economies have undergone a complete and perilous transformation. They have shifted from systems centered on the production of tangible goods to ones dominated by the extraction [ ]
I have pointed out before that patent and copyright law have only gotten worse over time, almost never better, except by some occasional judicial interpretations of the patent and copyright statutes,1 which is inevitable since these so-called IP laws grant artificial, unjust, and nonobjective IP rights.2 The copyright term has increased from 14/28 years to [ ]
From PFS Blog: Fhoer: The Death of Physical Media: The Digital Panopticon and the Attack on Property From @Fhoer_here, The Death of Physical Media, Fhoer s Substack (July 16, 2026): The Digital Panopticon and the Attack on Property. According to the author: The end of physical media can be blamed on IP laws The planned obsolescence of [ ]
Max C. Sterling, Property: What Is It?, Exit Now (June 28, 2026). Nice piece. Grok summary of the article and our interchange below. Related Libertarian Answer Man: Self-Ownership for Slaves and Crusoe (Stephan Kinsella, stephankinsella.com, April 2021) On Property Rights in Superabundant Bananas and Property Rights as Normative Support for Possession (Stephan Kinsella, stephankinsella.com, 2025)…
The Supreme Court just told the copyright cartels that your ISP isn t liable when you pirate something, because the ISP didn t tell you to do it. So what s Hollywood s response? They re openly demanding an alternative enforcement tool, which is the polite way of saying they ll… pic.twitter.com/VfrlmHOAtE — Free Talk Live (@FreeTalkLive) July 14, 2026 Justices [ ]
Per Bylund, Intellectual Property versus the Unrealized, Mises Wire (06/25/2026) (below). Related Per Bylund: Intellectual Property: Innovation Should Serve Consumers, Not Producers Bylund: The Minarchist Statist Hangups: Anarchist Statelessness and Abolution of Intellectual Property Austrian Economics Center and Hayek Institute Support IP Socialism and 2026 World IP Day Coalition Milton Friedman…
Related KOL234 Vin Armani Show: Live from London: Kinsella vs. Craig Wright Debate on Intellectual Property KOL267 Sal the Agorist Interview: Bitcoin, Copyright, Craig Wright Tufty the Cat: Faketoshi Patent Oppositions – The Story So Far Craig Wright: You Don’t Own Your Digital Stuff. NFTs Could Actually Fix That — Without Intellectual Property [ ]
From Duke University Libraries blog. Related Utah legislative summary materials 17 U.S.C. § 105, Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government. Grok on the public edicts doctrine EFF: Supreme Court Affirms That No One Owns the Law Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org Inc.: Georgia tried to claim copyright [ ]
Just came across this old post from bionic mosquito (whose name is apparently Jonathan Goodwin, according to Danny Ajamian;1 I am not really sure) about IP and my then-upcoming debate with Werewolf Wenzel. Bionic is somewhat confused about all this, but at least doens t seem to favor IP or pretend he is an expert on [ ]
Wojciech Gamrot, Labor as the Basis for Intellectual Property Rights: Against Cwik, Philosophy of Management (2026; pdf). Abstract: While the dominant justification for intellectual property rights seems to remain consequentialist, various deontological theories are also proposed. They often appeal, directly or indirectly, to intellectual labor as a source of rights or as a circumstance that is […
[Cross-posted at PFS Blog] Congrats, pro-IP libertarians. This is the kind of fascist bullshit you support. https://t.co/Om2WrqIbRI — Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) June 11, 2026 Related: FENDER WINS LANDMARK COURT RULING PROTECTING THE ICONIC STRATOCASTER® BODY DESIGN, Fender Press release (March 9, 2026) Fender wins legal battle over Stratocaster shape in Germany – is it the [ ]
Related (All by Kinsella), “Patents, Pharma, Government: The Unholy Alliance,” Brownstone Institute (April 1, 2024) The Overwhelming Empirical Case Against Patent and Copyright Tabarrok and Murphy: Why Are US Drug Prices So High? Intellectual Property Rights as Negative Servitudes “Intellectual Property Advocates Hate Competition” Are Patents and Copyrights “Monopolies”? IP Rights as Monopolistic…
[From my Webnote series] Related The Overwhelming Empirical Case Against Patent and Copyright “Legal Scholars: Thumbs Down on Patent and Copyright” Intellectual Property’s Great Fallacy; Mark Lemley: The Very Basis Of Our Patent System… Is A Myth IP Law and “Market Failure” Richard Epstein’s Takings Political Theory versus Epstein’s Intellectual Property Views Richard Epstein’s Takings Theory of…
Related Kinsella, “Defamation as a Type of Intellectual Property,” in A Life in Liberty: Liber Amicorum in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, edited by Jörg Guido Hülsmann Stephan Kinsella (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2024) The Patent, Copyright, Trademark, and Trade Secret Horror Files “Defamation as a Type of Intellectual Property,” in A Life in Liberty: Liber Amicorum in Honor of Hans-Hermann…
[From my Webnote series] Related Classificationism, Legislation, Copyright Federal Judges Aren’t Real Judges Another Problem with Legislation: James Carter v. the Field Codes The Non-Aggression Principle as a Limit on Action, Not on Property Rights; Individuals are Responsible for Actions, not for Their Property ; Property rights are not obligations or responsibilities On Conflictability and…
Related Legal Scholars: Thumbs Down on Patent and Copyright Texas A M (formerly Tulane) law professor Glynn Lunney Glynn S. Lunney Jr, Trademark Monopolies, Emory L. J. 48 (1999): 367–487 Glynn S. Lunney, Jr., A Natural Right to Copy, Boston University Law Review 99, no. 6 (2019): 2491–2518 Glynn Lunney, Copyright’s Excess, TEDxTAMU Copyright: The New Mercantilism [ ]
Andrea Togni, “The Multiple-Homesteading Theory and the Metaphysics of Ideas and Information,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 30, no. 1 (2026): 64–86. Abstract: This article explores the intersections between privacy, property rights, ideas, and information. The multiple-homesteading theory (MHT) posits that property rights have universal applicability, encompassing the physical, digital, and…
Related: IP is Not “Not Property” It is impossible to own ideas Another way to explain the problem with IP: Resources v. Knowledge; Ownership v. Possession Libertarian and Lockean Creationism: Creation As a Source of Wealth, not Property Rights; Hayek’s “Fund of Experience”; the Distinction Between Scarce Means and Knowledge as Guides to Action Intellectual [ ]
In comments I suggested: IP is Not “Not Property” Intellectual Property Rights as Negative Servitudes “Conversation with an author about copyright and publishing in a free society” IP: The Property That Isn’t February 15, 2026 From Exit7 or Exit Now (?) IP: The Property That Isn’t February 15, 2026 Intellectual “property” is considered by many—even, sadly, [ ]
Gamrot, A Critique of Moore’s Intellectual Property Theory Related: Speaking at APEE IP Panel in Guatemala: as well as a pro-IP paper by Adam Moore, “Five Arguments for Intellectual Property,” who has written fairly in assessing both anti- and pro-IP arguments in the past Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Intellectual Property Theories Hettinger v. Paine: [ ]
I have done what I can to present my case against IP not only to Austrians and libertarians but to other lawyers. Anything to get the word out and to defeat or put a dent in the support for evil IP. I asked Walter Block one time why he published so many articles on blackmail [ ]
Rothbard: bad and confused on patent and IP by contract; silent on trademark; good on defamation. But see: Kinsella, “Mises, Rothbard, Hoppe: An Indispensable Framework,” in Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment, Stephan Kinsella and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, eds. (Papinian Press and The Saif House, 2026): I have criticized what I regard of some of Rothbard’s missteps, namely on [ ]
Seemed to be leaning against IP, though not entirely clearly. See Hayek’s Views on Intellectual Property; also Tucker, “Misesian vs. Marxian vs. IP Views of Innovation“; Tucker, “Hayek on Patents and Copyrights“; Salerno, Hayek Contra Copyright Laws See also Don’t tell me to read Hayek
Related Miguel Hernández, Anatomy of a libertarian fraud (April 16, 2026) (Permalink (April 19, 2026)) Hernández. tweet Grau tweet 1; tweet 2 Grau s Grok plagiarism analysis Other Milei criticism: HansHoppe.com; PFS; StephanKinsella.com; Kinsella on Liberty Podcast episodes Re the practice of attribution and credit: see Stephan Kinsella, “Mises, Rothbard, Hoppe: An Indispensable Framework,” in…
[Cross-posted at PFS Blog] Someone forwarded to me the email below from one Martin Gundinger of the Austrian Economics Center to one Britt Schier of the Friedrich A. v. Hayek Institute urging support of World IP Day. Both organizations are headquartered in Vienna; Barbara Kolm is Founding Director of the former and President of the latter, [ ]
