Against Intellectual Property

By: N. Stephan Kinsella

Narrated by: Jock Coates

Length: 1 hr and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

This essay will change the way you think about patents and copyrights.

Few essays written in the last decades have caused so much fundamental rethinking. It is essential that libertarians get this issue right and understand the arguments on all sides. Kinsella's piece here is masterful in making a case against IP that turns out to be more rigorous and thorough than any written on the left, right, or anything in between.

Would a libertarian society recognize patents as legitimate? What about copyright? In Against Intellectual Property, Stephan Kinsella, a patent attorney of many years’ experience, offers his response to these questions. Kinsella is altogether opposed to intellectual property, and he explains his position in this brief but wide-ranging book.

©2010 Ludwig von Mises Institute (P)2018 Ludwig von Mises Institute

Excellent Libertarian Treatise on I.P.

I really appreciate Mr. Kinsella taking the time to write this informative book. The legal morass of patents, copyrights, and other intellectual property in America, are over the top and border on the ridiculous!

Also, Jock Coates did a great job reading the text.

Proves that thought is scarce

The basis of the book is that intellectual property cannot exist because of the following affirmations:
1) Property is defined by first occupancy of a scarce resource
2) Intellectual property is defined by abstract concepts initiating from thought
3) Thought is not scarce and thus, cannot be property

The logical fallacy here is begging the question, the assumption that all of these affirmations are statements of facts and not simply opinions.

Ironically, the level of double think this book goes to in order to prove its point proves in fact that thought is scarce by completely lacking any of it. Lacking that is of any thought. If thought weren't scarce, this book would have at least a smidgen of it.

I would be interested to know if Kinsella would say these are his ideas. Because if he responded yes, he would ironically be answering yes to question of possession of abstract concepts. He would be taking ownership of something he himself says is not property.

I found the author's stress of first occupancy conflicting. He believes that first occupancy of physical possessions dictates ownership, but completely ignores first occupancy or origination of an idea. For some reason, first occupancy holds weight in the physical realm and not in the abstract. Why? Who knows. Because "thought is not scarce and therefore cannot be property," I guess. Begging the question...

My opinion is the same that due to the refusal of the author to agree to respect any contract with another person in society based on his own beliefs (which he believes are inarguable facts), the book is textbook narcissism.

Highly technical.

Language very technical. I dont recommend for the average person.
Book reader performance was great.