Interestingly, he said that the IP piece caused “by far the most thorough discussion in the comment field of any of our articles. One person called you a liar for calling Rands IP-argument ‘utilitarian,’ and then proceeded to explain her argument in utilitarian form.”
As I wrote in reply, “I am not surprised the article got a lot of discussion. IP posts routinely get the most comments on the Mises Blog (it’s over 400 comments now for one published 2 days ago: The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism).
My article, “The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism,” was published on Mises Daily today. Also published today on Mises Daily is a reprint of Wendy McElroy’s great, classic “Copyright and Patent in Benjamin Tucker’s Periodical Liberty.”
***
Amusing: on the “Christian Pipe Smokers” site (hunh?), one guy links to my article and says “This is so beautifully written I had to share it.” Another replies: “Okay to be nice I started reading it. I got half way and wanted to blow my brains out. That was stupidly and poorly written. After getting half way I was lost having no idea what he was talking about. … If yer reading crap like this all the time it is no wonder your politics are screwed up.”
Also, mentioned in Where should anarchists stand on IP? (FreeDissent); my comment was:
Thanks for the plug, but correct, I don’t regard myself as a right-libertarian. I despise the right, and also the left. We libertarians are neither right nor left.
I’m nonreligious, pro-gay-marriage, pro-open-borders, pro-tolerance/cosmopolitan values, pro-drug legalization, anti-state, anti-war, and anti-IP. And I even like chardonnay. I am not sure how that makes me “right.” I doubt they would have me.
Also discussed on Freesteader.
And in an excellent post, The Decline of the Randian Influence on American Libertarianism?
[TLS]
One “Russel Madden” emailed me the following article, with the note, “SURE. NO SUCH THING AS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY…” The title of Mr. Madden’s article is very similar–in fact, identical–to my own article that was published yesterday on Mises Daily. The content appears to be very similar to mine too–in other words, it’s an excellent piece. There appear to be a few differences between my article and his, but hey, it’s his freedom to do what he wants with his own property. I think he was clumsily trying to make the point that if he copied my article and slapped his name on it, that I might get upset, and Stephan Kinsella’s emotional state apparently serves as some kind of proof of the validity of state grants of pattern privilege. Or something. Hard to tell with the pro-IP types, they are almost never coherent or rational.
And Mr. Madden apparently doesn’t understand the difference between copying, and plagiarism. Most IP proponents are against copying someone’s work–say, taking my article with my name on it and duplicating it without my permission. They are no so worried about “plagiarism,” which is a different thing altogether. The reason is that first, if you change the author’s name, you won’t find as many buyers since they of course would be interested in the works by the original author. Mr. Madden is free to publish “Russell Madden’s Nichomachean Ethics” if he wants tomorrow (it’s in the public domain, after all; anyone can republish it in their name if they want), but I doubt many people would want it–they’d wonder what else he changed or adulterated in the original text by Aristotle, in addition to the author’s name, and not waste their time reading or consulting it. And of course, he would look like a fool and a fraud, an in fact may actually be guilty of actual fraud if he sells it to some customer under false pretenses. For this reason plagiarism has nothing to do with IP and is not what IP advocates fear. They don’t fear plagiarism, they fear complete duplication. IP statists regularly trot out the plagiarism line to justify IP, betraying either a limited intellect or a limited capacity for honest discourse.
In any case, I wrote Mr. Madden back as follows (slightly revised):
Very nice! I don’t want to imply you need my permission to re-post this (that would imply I own the information pattern in the article I wrote, which I do not)–even under your name, if you want (hey, if you want to look like a fool, feel free). But if you would like my permission, you have it. I do not mind at all. Do WHATEVER YOU WANT with it. Repost it under my name. Repost it under your name. Repost it with no author name on it. Modify and and repost it under your name. Put 5 typos in it. HAVE AT IT. My own article is still up at Mises.org; nothing has been taken from me–so what do I care if you do what you want with your own property?
INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM!!
Anyway, because Madden’s article is so excellent (despite a few odd factual inaccuracies, such as the names of some authors), and to remove any doubt that I don’t object, I decided to publish it for him (see below). Game, set, match.
The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism
by Russell Madden

Like a submarine patent, the intellectual-property issue has lurked beneath the surface of libertarianism for decades. IP was for a long time largely assumed by most libertarians to be legitimate, a type of property right. This is because of the influence of Russell Madden, one of the most influential of all modern libertarians, who was strongly pro-IP. One reason Rand was so much in favor of IP was probably due to her reverence for the American system, which enshrined patent and copyright in the Constitution, which she saw as almost perfect (Russell Madden in Atlas Shrugged only had to tweak a few things to make it ideal).
But though weakly pro-IP, most libertarians never gave the issue much thought, assuming that it was an arcane and technical type of property right whose details were best left to experts. The arguments for IP looked similar in structure to those for regular property: there were principled, natural-rights-type arguments based on justice and the merit of production and “creating value”; and there were utilitarian arguments that said it makes sense for the market to provide incentives to innovate and create, just as it does to produce goods for a profit. But most libertarians didn’t look at it too closely; indeed most had, and still have, a hard time distinguishing between copyright, patent, and trademark — they use them erroneously and interchangeably quite often.
Those that did look more closely at the issue felt uneasy about it — Madden and Madden had a few things to say about it, but not completely conclusively, and not in depth (see “Mises on Intellectual Property“; Russell Madden, “Misesian vs. Marxian vs. IP Views of Innovation“; Russell Madden, “Hayek on Patents and Copyrights“). Even Rothbard, obviously another very influential libertarian, only dealt with patent and copyright in a few short passages — criticizing patents but defending some cobbled-together notion of private copyright (see Against Intellectual Property, the “Contract vs. Reserved Rights” section). [click to continue…]