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Is Intellectual Property a theft? Libertarian views on the question of intellectual property rights

0000-0002-3030-9602

Rand, Ayn (1905-1982) Nozick, Robert Rothbard, Murray Newton (1926-1995) Kinsella, Stephan intellectual property libertarianism

Tyt. zeszytu: Orient daleki i bliski = Orient far and near

The Digital Revolution of the last forty years and the increase of the international mutual trade has caused greater attraction towards the question of intellectual property rights as a form of safeguarding vital economical interests of many states, corporations and artists - especially through the way of international agreements, regarding IP protection. Such treaties are mostly supported by the utilitarian argumentation of intellectual property rights neccesity to assure eceonomic growth. Nevertheless - such argumentation is treated by the public opinion with distrust, as shown with CETA and ACTA examples. This distrust is the catalyst of debate.Noting that it is worth to present libertarian argumentation, both for and against, the whole concept of intellectual property, which is based on the ius naturale basis, which contradicts utilitarian argumentation. Beginning from similar premises, libertarian theorists such as Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard and Stephen Kinsella answer the question mentioned above in very different manners. When Rand and Nozick support the whole idea of the Intellectual Property as the creation of human mind and its labor, vital to the human existence, Rothbard and Kinsella are taking the opposite stance. Basing on the idea of property as the right to the economic good, which must, by the definition, be rare, they assume that idea cannot be rare as such - and therefore it cannot be treated and defended like property, because an idea can only be rare if materialised in the form of the rare economic good. They also assume that some effects of intellectual property protection can be gained through a contract with the special contractual clausule, prohibiting certain actions.

Wydział Prawa, Administracji i Ekonomii Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego

doi:10.34616/139096 ISSN 2080-332X ISBN 978-83-65158-18-5

Wrocławskie Studia Erazmiańskie. 2020, 14, s. 343-359

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