KOL079 | “Federalist Society IP Debate (Ohio State)” (2011)

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 079. https://youtu.be/BZHIh6so6-Y This is from March 3, 2011: "IP Debate: John Templeton Foundation's Big Questions Debate series on Intellectual Property and Wealth Creation," The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Student Chapter of The Federalist Society (Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University, Columbus OH). Transcript below. This debate was part of the "John Templeton Foundation’s Big Questions Debate series on Intellectual Property and Wealth Creation”; I debated patent attorney and adjunct IP law professor Steve Grant, who represented the pro-IP side. A video was taken with a videocamera, but it was not direct mic'd so the quality is only so-so. The podcast version here is from my iPhone recording, which I often make during speeches as a backup, in case of low quality of the official version. My iPhone version is better quality, for my own remarks, than the audio from the camera (the audio file from  the camera's recording is here). Professor Grant did his best, but didn't have a solid argument for IP other than the standard "I think we should reform IP but not get rid of it." My opening speech is about 15 minutes and has decent audio quality, and is a summary of a hard-hitting version of the basic libertarian case against IP law (here is the powerpoint presentation I used; embedded version below). Grant's speech is audible but I was not very close to him; but his conventional and unsystematic, more empiricist and positivist than libertarian and principled remarks will be of only mild interest to libertarians. For my 10 or so minute rebuttal to him, I left my iPhone at the table but it's still audible; for the Q&A period, it was in front of me so it's decent again for that part. My host was Aman Sharma, a very staunch libertarian law student and head of the student chapter of the Federalist Society. When I was involved with the Federalist Society (lawyers chapters) in Philadelphia and Houston they were populated with mainly Newt Gingrich loving neocons; good to see some Austro-libertarians infiltrating their ranks. Sharma told me "I had a lot of fellow students approach me after the event with questions showing a new-found interest in the Mises/Austrian worldview." That is cool and gratifying. While in Ohio, I met my friend Jacob Huebert and other local libertarians/Federalist Society people—including Katelyn Horn and Maurice Thompson, of the 1851 Center, for dinner at Barrio Tapas. A fun trip, and great people. https://youtu.be/xkYeJ4_ULs0?si=X7xiWAu168WSIcxl TRANSCRIPT (from Youtube) 0:02 good afternoon president of the federal 0:07 society on behalf of more federal society and I get lost inside here more so I welcome you to today's event 0:14 entitled isn't Alexa property he relevant anymore proud to have the John Templeton 0:19 Foundation sponsors for this event they've got excellent catered food we hope you're enjoying I wanna mention 0:26 just a few things before we get going the first is that elections with minimal water out of Schneider come out at the 0:31 end of this month we an email out on the twin deserves so if you're on plan and you're on our site will be able to get 0:38 the updates for that the boudin and whatever on that sort of thing next I'll explain the format and then 0:44 I'll get started with the brief introduction of speakers and we'll get going here first the format as usual it is going to 0:50 allow for debate so we're gonna have clothing productions by each speaker starting with our guest speaker 0:56 purchased upon detail and we'll have a ten minute rebuttal in the same order on the Washington answer session with you 1:03 the members of the audience so let's start with her grandmother Stephen grant 1:08 practices with assembly wall group in Dublin in the field intellectual property is most particular expertise as 1:14 the prosecution of us had an application that originated in and offices he's been admitted to 1:20 practice before the ten years the US Patent and Trademark Office the Supreme Court of Ohio they go in there namaha a 1:25 federal district court and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals he's been frequent speaker continuing legal education courses as well as 1:32 general education presentations for adventures writers and artists he's a regular contributor to the newsletter of 1:37 the Ohio State Bar Association intellectual property law section he said a number of laws around the country including at warrants and he's their 1:44 first teaching ability and stephan kinsella is a registered patent attorney and general counsel for applied 1:50 optoelectronics already former partner with 20 more he's pressed me to run into patent applications where i've had 1:56 clients ability intelligent and others this is Beach FL dental lumineer seasoned student editor of Liberty and a 2:02 pers and director at least ten indistinctly innovative freedom he's published numerous articles and books on 2:08 IP long and as you know law and application of libertarian principles of equal topics including international 2:14 investment political risk and dispute resolution of practitioners di Louisiana's civil law engineering and 2:20 proxy's Institute in 2008 before my actual blood pressure stopped extra 2:26 policy logging currently teaches that the online leave is happening on intellectual property or libertarian legal theory with that please join me 2:33 motivate first time develop thanks much 3:12 okay got my talent one here it's good to be here thank you come on I'm going to 3:18 start out with some sort of Austrian economics type observations human beings 3:26 in this world are largely dissatisfied creatures this is why we act humans 3:33 employ means that are causally efficacious at changing the state of affairs that would otherwise occur so if 3:39 to achieve ends they have to ameliorate their health uneasiness this is amaziing idea these means which 3:47 in our bodies are necessarily scarce or rivals this means that there's a possibility of violent conflict when two 3:55 people struggle over a given scarce resource as the Austrian libertarian philosopher and economist of hunter 4:02 Mahatma says only because scarcity exists is there even a problem of formulating moral laws insofar as goods 4:10 are super abundant or free goods no conflict over the use of goods as possible and no action coordination is 4:16 needed hence it follows that any ethic correctly conceived must be formulated 4:21 as a theory of property ie a theory of the assignment of rights of exclusive control over scarce means because only 4:28 then does it become possible to avoid otherwise inescapable and irresolvable 4:34 conflict 4:41 so in other words what libertarians favor is peace cooperation and prosperity and therefore we favor the 4:48 assignment of property rights so there are resources that are scarce can be used peacefully and productively and 4:54 cooperatively and in particular what we favor is the assignment of property rights as follows each person owns his 5:02 own body and he also owns resources that he homesteads or that he acquires by 5:07 contract from a previous owner this is exactly why a growing number of 5:13 libertarians including myself oppose patent and copyright we view the grant of such artificial rights by the state 5:20 as statist socialist and theft this is because these rights grant to third 5:25 parties say inventors artists and creators of veto right over how owners use their own property in effect patent 5:34 and copyright makes innovators and creators a co-owner with the original owner of the owners property and this is 5:41 just theft is the redistribution of wealth it's really that simple this is the problem of patent and copyright so 5:48 for example a patentee acquires partial ownership rights and other people's property but he did not homestead the 5:56 property he has no contract with the owner and the owner has never committed any kind of tort or crime that justifies 6:02 weakening his property rights or redistributing them them to the to the patentee now the question arises how 6:10 contemporary into favor property rights and other advocates of capitalism in the 6:15 free market how could they have been bamboozled into thinking that an anti-competitive monopolist to grant of 6:20 state privilege by a criminal state be justified so let's just take a quick look at the history of the sordid 6:27 origins of patenting copyright as a Eric Johnson a law professor writes in an 6:33 upcoming study the monopolies now understand his copyrights and patents were originally created by royal decree a 6:39 stowed it's a form of favoritism and control as the power of the monarchy dwindled these charter anomalies were 6:45 reformed and essentially by default they wound up with the hands of authors and adventures so let's just think about 6:51 copyright copyright in a modern sense originated when Queen Mary created the 6:57 stationers company 1557 which had the exclusive franchise over book publishing 7:02 so this was based upon the monarchies desire to control the press and to control this the use of the printing 7:09 press which is emerging into censor ideas and to have only approved ideas spread in 1710 was that to the ban 7:17 formalized this idea of copyright and gave authors a copyright and one reason 7:22 authors were happy to have its copyright was now they had the right to control their own works so in a way the the 7:28 reason that they approved and won a copyright was to remove the state's control over their own works it wasn't 7:35 to be able to extort money from people using their words as for patent excuse 7:43 me the English Parliament enacted the statute of monopolies in 1624 and this 7:48