KOL476 | Alex Anarcho Reads and Comments on Against Intellectual Property: Summary of IP Law (Part 1)

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 476. Alex Anarcho has begun a narration of Against Intellectual Property, with interspersed commentary. (I appeared on his podcast previously; see KOL444 | Property Rights, Bitcoin, Ideas & Fungibility, with AlexAnarcho.) He has so far narrated the first two sections, the first of which, "Summary of IP Law," is in this episode. "Libertarian Perspectives on IP" follows in the next episode (KOKL477). I have posted a Youtube video containing both parts. Alex assures me that narrations with commentary of the remainder of the book are forthcoming. These can be found in his Against Intellectual Property series, which includes Part I, What is intellectual property? (this episode), and Part 2, Libertarian Perspectives on IP (KOKL477). Previous audio versions of AIP include KOL008 | Against Intellectual Property (audiobook) and KOL373 | Against Intellectual Property (audiobook #2). See other audio versions of my work here. Related: “The Problem with Intellectual Property" A Selection of my Best Articles and Speeches on IP The Overwhelming Empirical Case Against Patent and Copyright Defamation as a Type of Intellectual Property Transcript, with added comments and links, below. https://youtu.be/KmZ85ebk2SI Transcript (All endnotes and comments in [brackets] are my annotations. —SK) 0:04 Alex Anarcho: Hey, thanks for tuning in to the Alex Anarco podcast. In this episode and the episodes to follow, I will return to my roots, namely reading books from great libertarian philosophers. When I started the podcast, I was reading The Anatomy of the State by Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty by Rothbard, What Has Government Done to Our Money by Rothbard, and The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand. Then I did a bunch of episodes that were not based on books, but where I was giving my thoughts and having conversations with other like-minded people. But now I think it's time to read yet another book. This book has been very influential in my own thinking about the libertarian philosophy and I think it's a must-read for all who call themselves libertarian or anarchists because it really covers an issue that has not gotten so much attention in the libertarian canon. There is a lot of thought that was spent on political philosophy such as The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard. But this book is kind of a hidden gem. So if you have never heard of it, I think it's a great read or for you I guess a great listen and something you definitely should be aware of. The arguments presented are very strong and they need to be grappled with. For me personally, it was very influential, like I said, and it has significantly changed how I view the world, most specifically the world of software. For anybody who has been aware of my podcast, I'm a very big fan of the cypherpunk ethos that aims to change the world through creating technologies that are unstoppable that allow individuals who use them to become sovereign. And I think yeah the backbone for all of this philosophy is also somewhat rooted in the arguments that are put forth in this book or at least they are heavily backed up by the arguments. So what is the book? The book is called Against Intellectual Property by Stephan Kinsella as you may have gleaned from the title of this podcast. And Stephan has actually been on this podcast before. I will link in the show notes the episode I did with him. And for a long time I've wanted to read this book to my audience and discuss the ideas put forth in it. So far I didn't get around to it and now I think is better than never. So we will read Against Intellectual Property. We will discuss the ideas and as with any of my episodes, if you want to chime into the conversation, you can go to my website, alexanarcho.live or if you want to reward me for making this content, you can go to xmrchat.com/alexanarco and leave a little tip with Monero XMR. It would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you helped fund this episode, then you are eligible to join a secret Discord, a secret Matrix society on the Matrix messenger. For this you have to go to my website and claim your transaction. And when claiming the transaction in the form, you simply provide your Matrix username and this will yeah the bot will send you an invite then to the group. Let’s dive in Against Intellectual Property. AIP: Property rights: tangible and intangible. All libertarians favor property rights and agree that property rights include rights in tangible resources. These resources include immovable immovables (realty) such as land and houses, and movables such as chairs, clubs, cars, and clocks. 4:18 Alex Anarcho: So I think this is a brilliant distinction and the word tangible may be somewhat foreign but it means exactly what was described here. Basically in my mind it's things that you can touch. So I can walk up to a house and touch the house. I can walk up to a chair and touch the chair. And so things that exist in the real world. (( Note from Kinsella: See “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward,” n.30: "In AIP I sometimes used the term “tangible” to indicate scarce resources that can be subject to property rights. (I’ve also sometimes used the term corporeal, a civil-law term.) Hardy Bouillon argues that it might be more precise to focus on the difference between material vs. non-material goods, rather than tangible vs. non-tangible goods, as the touchstone of things subject to property rights." )) And for those things, libertarian philosophy puts forth the idea of property rights that these tangible commodities, tangible goods can have a rightful owner. And yeah, I think this is something that we'll come back to every now and again that this is pretty a clear-cut issue and there is not a lot of discussion on this. Basically, from John Locke on the idea of being able to homestead land is very deeply interwoven in libertarian philosophy. AIP: Further, all libertarians support rights in one’s own body. Such rights may be called self-ownership as long as one keeps in mind that there is dispute about whether such body-ownership is alienable in the same way that rights in homesteadable external objects are alienable. 5:48 Alex Anarcho: So alienable means you can kind of outsource them or give them away to somebody else. And I think what he's referring to here is the discussion that for example Walter Block and Murray Rothbard have had—I mean Rothbard has passed away—but the idea can you sell yourself into slavery and for this I will actually read the footnote which reads: AIP: Debate over this issue manifests itself in differences over the issue of inalienability and with respect to the law of contract, i.e., can we sell or alienate our bodies in the same manner that we can alienate title to homesteaded property? For arguments against body inalienability, see Stephan Kinsella, “A Theory of Contracts: Binding Promises, Title Transfers, and Inalienability.” So for example, as I understand it, Rothbard says that you cannot sell yourself into slavery. Like your will is inalienable and therefore you cannot like in perpetuity sell your will to your own body. And Walter Block is of a different opinion as I understand it and say well yes you can do that. (( A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability, in  Legal Foundations of a Free Society [LFFS]; KOL442 | Together Strong Debate vs. Walter Block on Voluntary Slavery (Matthew Sands of Nations of Sanity). )) So there is some dispute in that regard but I guess the common ground is that we do agree that we own our own body. (( See How We Come To Own Ourselves, in LFFS. )) Yeah. So this is the most immediate thing that we have in the world. If we think back to in The Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard explains the scenario of Robinson Crusoe being stranded on his deserted island and the immediate reality he's faced with is the possession and property of his own body that like he can control his own body and he kind of also has to sustain his body in order to keep on living. AIP: In any event, libertarians universally hold that all tangible scarce resources—whether homesteadable or created, immovable or movable, or our very bodies—are subject to rightful control (or ownership) by specified individuals. 8:29 Alex Anarcho: Yeah. So, we'll not get lost in the discussion of can you sell yourself into slavery for this episode, but we'll just surf on the wave of agreement in libertarian circles that yes you can have these property rights in tangible scarce resources. And I think with texts like these is really really important to measure every word. So tangible means things you can touch and scarce means that there is a limited amount of them. (( But see, on scarcity meaning either "lack of abundance," on the one hand, or "not superabundant," on the other, On Property Rights in Superabundant Bananas and Property Rights as Normative Support for Possession; “Good Ideas is Pretty Scarce”; KOL337 | Join the Wasabikas Ep. 15.0: You Don’t Own Bitcoin—Property Rights, Praxeology and the Foundations of Private Law, with Max Hillebrand; KOL176 | “Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics: Lecture 5: Property, Scarcity and Ideas; Examining Rights-Based Arguments for IP” (Mises Academy, 2011); Objectivists Hsieh and Perkins on IP and Pirating Music; “On Conflictability and Conflictable Resources.” )) And the whole idea of property rights is because of the scarcity aspect. If things were abundant and you could have like press a magic button and things would just appear out of thin air, property rights wouldn't really make a whole lot of sense. The purpose of property rights is to reduce conflict that we can have over these scarce resources. Namely, well, can I sleep in this particular bed or is that your bed to sleep in? So,