Wednesday, January 23, 2013

BREAKING: Kinsella versus Wenzel

Stephan Kinsella, author of Against Intellectual Property, the book which really started the anti-IP movement  amongst libertarians, has invited me to have a joint discussion on IP.

His proposal is that I will post it at The Robert Wenzel Show and he will post it as part of his new podcast. I have agreed.

We are still hashing out the ground rules, details will follow.

Should be exciting.

27 comments:

  1. Very interested in hearing this one. I personally agree with Kinsella's take on IP, but I enjoy how both parties can be relentless in their approach. This should make for great discussion.

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  2. If the government had its way we would all have to file for permission before we were allowed to write or post on any subject.

    IP was founded after the prenting press was invented in order to clamp down on information getting out that didn't please the elite.

    I read EPJ all the time, but I side with Kinsella. I find his arguments mroe convincing. IP doesn't protect the inventor, it empowers the government and the team with the most lawyers.



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  3. Great news, this should be fun and informative.

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  4. The bizarreness of the situation was brought home to me when I once listened to Dana White, head of the UFC, bragging about having the Department of Homeland Security assisting in keeping hackers from hi-jacking his pay-per-view UFC fight events.

    Something is seriously out of whack here.

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  5. And, yes, I will look forward to this spirited debate.

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  6. A clash of egos this big may, in fact, destroy the universe.

    I approve of this.

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  7. I like what he says here about value:

    http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1727he/i_am_stephan_kinsella_a_patent_attorney_and/c81kpx3

    "you don't own value. value is what others think about your stuff. you have no proeprty in that. the law should not give you a property right in that."

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    1. To me, that's just a clever non sequitur. If a piece of real property liberally had no value, no one would want to own it. It's value that propels the desire to own property. I.P. has value and that propels people's desire to own it (or the right to use it).

      People trade their labor to create I.P. There is a scarcity of people who can create fine art, movies, books, software, engineering designs, etc. Without the ability to control the fruits of their labors, at best information will be driven underground; at the worst, it won't be created at all.

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    2. That should be "literally", of course.

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    3. "If a piece of real property liberally had no value, no one would want to own it."

      I would put it differently, if no one valued a thing, no one would want to own it, and therefore it would not become property.

      "It's value that propels the desire to own property."

      It's because people value things, and because these things are scarce and rivalrous, that we are motivated to own it, and therefore acknowledge and use the concept of property.

      "I.P. has value and that propels people's desire to own it (or the right to use it)."

      I have no reformulation of this.

      "People trade their labor to create I.P. There is a scarcity of people who can create fine art, movies, books, software, engineering designs, etc. Without the ability to control the fruits of their labors, at best information will be driven underground; at the worst, it won't be created at all."

      Information we don't want to share, we can keep to ourselves. Information we make public we can attempt to control via contracts with those we share it with to keep it secret from others. But knowledge you may want to collect a royalty on, once public, is like any other knowledge: it is not scarce, and not rivalrous, and so its use does not induce conflict, and therefore property does not apply to it.

      IP is essentially a late-comer's arbitrary claim on another's ownership rights over their physical property to which property does apply.

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    4. agree. like george bernard shaw said,copyrights and patents are for those people who believe that they should get paid again and again for the same work.lazy assholes

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  8. It's good to see Kinsella has more balls than Tucker and isn't afraid to debate.

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  9. I'm looking forward to this. I, too, am wholly convinced by Kinsella's (and others') arguments against IP but am certainly willing to listen to a libertarian-oriented argument in favor of it, if there is one.

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  10. Kinsella is the proper debate.

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  11. I too eagerly await this and like others here, find myself solidly convinced by Kinsella's arguments. However, I honestly do look forward to hearing Wenzel's arguments because an open mind is what got me to where I am now. So I hope he brings something new to the discussion that really causes me to think.

    Because I must admit, the quality of the debate on this topic (not Wenzel, referring to others) has been very disappointing. In light of Kinsella's logical exposition, ALL of the pro-IP arguments I've heard so far are so impotent and specious that I really have to conclude a belligerent obstinacy on the part of those who just won't concede they're so glaringly wrong.

    Perhaps Wenzel will be the first pro-IP (assuming that's his position, but not concluding that since I don't know) advocate that makes me think the debate has truly been engaged. Otherwise, it's a pathetic one-sided slaughter so far and the pro-IP people demonstrate themselves to have some other agenda, since the strength of their arguments clearly is not the explanation for their position.

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    1. though i like EPJ, my own sense is that robert hasnt really thought it thru.think of it,kinsella is a patents attorney and he does that thing for a living -while being philosophically opposed to it after YEARS of thinking. robert should stick to macro economics. this game is over before it even begins.i hope the debate starts with first principles -defining things the 2 sides are defending or they would just talk past each other

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    2. This is idiotic. If you want to judge who is correct by how long and how many IP attorneys have thought about the subject, then Kinsella loses 10,000 to one.

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    3. It's not merely that Kinsella is right because he spent more time on this. Spending countless hours on the topic in no way makes you automatically right. But Kinsella has made this a primary focus of his scholarship, Wenzel has not. Still, I want to see a libertarian argument in favor of IP instead of the usual prattle.

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    4. If you've read the past threads on IP, it becomes glaringly obvious that Wenzel has no points to make that others haven't made. They are all specious. He spits out logical fallacies by the dozen (odd as he is usually great at pointing them out when others use them). This will be slaughter. I just hope Wenzel doesn't make himself look too foolish.

      I am a fan and will definitely listen in on this. But, I think it's safe to say that if Wenzel had anything to convincing to say on the subject, we'd have heard it already. He hasn't and he likely doesn't.

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  12. As someone who's job is software contracting, the contract clauses protecting IP are among the most important. I'm very interested in the debate. Real world commercial applications vs. theoretical constructs.

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  13. Kinsella vs Winzel = Rothbard vs Rand

    Where do you stand?

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  14. I personally took Kinsella's "Libertarian Legal Theory" Mises Academy course. Kinsella knows what the hell is talking about. IP was the main subject for one of the weeks. He brought up how in a libertarian private law society there would probably be some type of original works logo on books. If your book did not have that logo then it would not be highly regarded as it probably contained plagiarism (free market at work as the author would be disregarded). The same would apply for brand names and what not in order to prevent people from getting fooled into buying a fake product or whatever.

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  15. Kinsella's arguments regarding IP have demolished every pro-IP argument that I've been exposed to. I'm curious to see if RW has any new insight here, but I am highly, highly skeptical.

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