Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 159. This is my seminar, Practical Solutions to the IP Trap, delivered to Liberty.me members on May 19, 2014, based on my monograph Do Business Without Intellectual Property (Liberty.me, 2014). This discussion, moderated by Matt Gilliland, provides an overview of IP and the issues faced by people in their careers and lives and offers suggestions as to how to ethically and practically navigate challenges posed by the existing IP system. Transcript below. Youtube: See also: Profiting without IP “Conversation with an author about copyright and publishing in a free society” (Jan. 23, 2012) Do Business Without Intellectual Property (Liberty.me, 2014) “Innovations that Thrive without IP,” StephanKinsella.com (Aug. 9, 2010) “Examples of Ways Content Creators Can Profit Without Intellectual Property,” StephanKinsella.com (July 28, 2010) “The Creator-Endorsed Mark as an Alternative to Copyright,” Mises Economics Blog (July 15, 2010) Diomavro, Avengers endgame or do movies need copyright? Creators SHOULDN’T Own their Creations TRANSCRIPT Liberty.me Seminar: Practical Solutions to the IP Trap Stephan Kinsella Liberty.me, May 19, 2014   STEPHAN KINSELLA: Let me briefly define the background, the topic, and if I say anything that is confusing or anyone has questions, feel free to raise your hand, and Matt can let me know and I’d be happy to address something that I go over too quickly or that needs more elaboration.  Intellectual property, in the modern, capitalist, 21st century age, is an entrenched part of the western legal system, America, Europe, etc. and other countries as the west tries to push it and gets it entrenched in those countries.  It is considered widely to be part of the capitalist, property rights system.  In fact, patent and copyright, trademark and trade secret and other types of intellectual property are called intellectual property for a reason. It was for a propaganda reason to try to get these things thought of as a property right.  Originally, they were thought of as privileges or policy tools by the monarch or the state, but under attack by free-market defenders, the proponents of IP started calling them property rights.  So this is where we are now.  We have a system where patent law, copyright law, trademark, trade secret, and other types of IP, which I can go into, are basically part of the landscape. Now, the libertarian position, which I’ve argued for over a decade now, almost two decades now – the libertarian position is that patent and copyright law and other types of IP law are completely, 100% incompatible with free markets, competition, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and individual property rights.  So I’m totally opposed to patent and copyright law.  I don’t think we should reform it.  That would be a good step.  But I think we should totally abolish it.  I believe that patents impose hundreds of billions of dollars of damage on the economy of the US, let’s say, every year. I believe copyrights also impose damage and cultural distortion, and it represses and suppresses freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and it arms the state to come up with excuses to regulate the internet and restrict internet and digital freedom.  So there’s basically nothing whatsoever good about patent and copyright and other forms of intellectual property like trademark and trade secret.  But they are definitely entrenched, so that’s a fact of the modern world. And I’ve talked at length on this.  I’ve got tons of podcasts and lectures and articles, and so do other people,