Thursday, January 29, 2009

The IP debate heats up again!

Well, did you miss my posting, guys? I know one fellow who did. STS welcomes "Andras", a commenter on the Mises blog, who has single-handedly revived my older, ultra-arrogant post that presented the serious problems with libertarian anti-IP (intellectual property) theorizing. Apparently, the default setting on Blogspot is that posts don't expire, so they can always get more comments, and I saw Andras's comment there because I kept coming back to it to link that post. Note that in addition to the initial post, I summarize in a later comment, my three biggest problems with opposition to IP in the context of libertarianism. Take a gander!

Andras understandably dislikes the pro-IP groupthink (though he doesn't use that term specifically) on the Mises blog. But, there's reason to be happy. I've noticed a sharp change in the general form of IP discussions there. They used to be a few people against hordes of fanatical IP haters. But now, there is significantly more balance, and far more people are making reasoned refutations of the standard (but wrong) anti-IP arguments. Here's a short list from the past month:

Why People Don't Believe In Paying For Music. Hint: Its All About Deflation.
A Book That Changes Everything
Hayek on Patents and Copyrights
Hayek, IP, and Knowledge
Authors: Beware of Copyright
The Universals of IP Theorizing
Matsushita and the Patent
Does Innovation Require Property in Ideas?
Dangers of Copyright Exhibit
Dissecting Boldrin and Levine: An Alternate View of Intellectual Property

Two things to keep in mind: a) these aren't all the IP posts in the past month, and b) I'm linking these not to endorse the argument at the top, but to show the more numerous and well-reasoned criticisms the Mises blog gets now.