My buddy Iceberg proposed a delicious test for IP proponents:
Here is a scenario to test a IP statists’ resolve–what would he say if one day aliens visited Earth to enforce intergalactic patents for devices which were patented 600 million years prior by that alien culture that mankind has been “stealing.”
Ha. That is indeed the logic of their position. Of course the IP advocates would find a slippery way to weasel out of it. They would say that this is another government–except the logic if their non-anarchist view implies one-worldism; and anyway, if something is real property, it’s property everywhere. They would say that they don’t believe patent rights should apply to independent inventors–even though patent systems have no such exception and would be largely declawed if they did.
[AgainstMonopoly crosspost]
