by Stephan Kinsella
on May 8, 2023
I have profited from Professor Boudewijn Bouckaert’s insightful essay “What Is Property?”, Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 13, no. 3 (Summer 1990): 775–816, which was part of a symposium on Law and Philosophy which also included Tom Palmer’s seminal article on IP.
Unfortunately, Bouckaert’s article is not available online other than behind the HeinOnline paywall. Below I will briefly highlight some of the key insights that helped illuminate the IP issue for me, as can be seen by my citations to and quotations from this paper in Against Intellectual Property. I quote here a relevant passage from AIP, with endnotes: [continue reading…]
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by Stephan Kinsella
on May 7, 2023
Fritz Machlup & Edith Penrose, “The Patent Controversy in the Nineteenth Century,” J. Econ. History 10, no. 1 (May 1950): 1–29. Shamefully, this article is not available online. A compressed discussion of this matter can be found in Fritz Machlup, U.S. Senate Subcommittee On Patents, Trademarks & Copyrights, An Economic Review of the Patent System (85th Cong., 2nd Session, 1958, Study No. 15), Part II.C, “The Rise of an antipatent movement” (1850–1873).
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by Stephan Kinsella
on May 4, 2023
I was sent this query:
I have a question about a situation. Suppose person A buried radioactive waste in an area where no house was built. A month later, person B builds a house in the area, lives in it, and suffers radiation damage from the radioactive waste in the ground. Is this a crime in your view? Has A committed a crime of negligence here since he unintentionally caused damage to B?
My answer: [continue reading…]
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by Stephan Kinsella
on May 4, 2023
Someone asked Hans-Hermann Hoppe for any of his recommendations as to texts, articles, books and the like on science of law, norms, crime, legal responsibility, philosophy of law, which are linked to Austrian and praxeological thinking–writings on a philosophical legal level.
I was cc’d on this corresponded and provided the following answer. [continue reading…]
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by Stephan Kinsella
on May 2, 2023
I came across this interesting piece: C.L. Swartz, “Libel,” in Charles T. Sprading, ed., Liberty and the Great Libertarians: An Anthology on Liberty: A Hand-book of Freedom (Los Angeles: The Golden Press, 1913), p. 526. It is short, so I reprint in full below. But he hits on the essential point: speaking words does not (normally) cause an invasion. Thus it cannot be penalized by law. (For more on this see Murray N. Rothbard, “Knowledge, True and False,” in The Ethics of Liberty (New York: New York University Press, [1982] 1998), Walter E. Block, “The Slanderer and Libeler,” in Defending the Undefendable” (Auburn, Al.: Mises Institute, [1976] 2018), Kinsella, “Causation and Aggression,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Papinian Press, forthcoming 2023), and idem, “Defamation as a Type of Intellectual Property,” in A Passion for Justice: Essays in Honor of Walter Block (Addleton Press, forthcoming).) [continue reading…]
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by Stephan Kinsella
on April 27, 2023
Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:37:44 — 89.0MB)
Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 411.
As noted in KOL409 (Part 1: Patent Law), although I’ve done dozens of speeches and interviews over the past 20 or so years on libertarian aspects of intellectual property, or IP, that is, on IP policy, I’ve never done any in depth lectures for libertarians on IP law itself. In KOL409, I did a brief overview of various types of IP law, and then focused on the patent law and patent application process itself.
This episode provides a tutorial on copyright law. (Recorded Thursday, April 27, 2023.) See additional note below.
For other episodes in the series:
[continue reading…]
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by Stephan Kinsella
on April 21, 2023
Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:20:58 — 74.1MB)
Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 410.
This is my appearance on Robert Breedlove’s What Is Money podcast, Ep. 6 (WiM303) (Youtube channel). This is Ep. 6 of the “Stephan Kinsella Series” (released April 21, 2023).
From Robert’s Episode notes:
EPISODE SUMMARY
Stephan Kinsella joins me to continue our discussion about the book “A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism: Economics, Politics, and Ethics” by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. We discuss the impact of incentive schemes on productivity, the fake communism of the USSR, modern-day slavery, and why Bitcoin is the ultimate solution to centralization.
[continue reading…]
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by Stephan Kinsella
on April 20, 2023
Q:
Hi Mr. Kinsella,
I have a question about property rights concerning dead people. How would a Rothbardian theory of property justify the will of a dead person? Is the will a genuine contract or is it void?
More specifically, I’m engaging in a conversation and someone said that a will is not per se a genuine contract because dead people don’t own things. And if dead people don’t own things, then how can it be said that there’s a transfer of property titles from the deceased person? Should the deceased person have to put in the will that they transfer the property titles to the heirs some moments before their official death?
I’m stumped on this one.
[continue reading…]
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