Intellectual Property Rights: Ayn Rand’s Defense

Read Ayn Rand’s essay defending intellectual property, “Patents and Copyrights.”
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This was Ayn Rand’s answer to a question following her lecture “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business.”
Question: Should government protect patents and copyrights?
TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) - Intro
(00:11) - Should government protect patents and copyrights?
Q&A on "America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business," WKCR Radio, 1962.
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[@alexanderscott2456]

The essential fact which gives rise to the need for such a thing as intellectual property is the fact that the mind is the source of wealth. Those who claim to defend property rights while denying intellectual property rights (for example, the so-called "Anarcho Capitalists") are guilty of a mind-body split that evades the role of the mind in production.

[@Weirdomanification]

This makes sense to me, but how do we justly determine duration?

[@alexanderscott2456]

@@Weirdomanification I'll respond to this under your question so others interested in Ayn Rand's answer can access it.

[@Anti-CornLawLeague]

If that idea were applied with the invention of agriculture, the Neolithic Revolution would have taken much longer since everybody would have needed the permission of whoever first patented the idea of sowing the soil before they themselves could start doing so and hunter gathering would have continued to be the norm.

[@alexanderscott2456]

@@Anti-CornLawLeague Ayn Rand: "But intellectual property cannot be consumed. If it were held in perpetuity, it would lead to the opposite of the very principle on which it is based: it would lead, not to the earned reward of achievement, but to the unearned support of parasitism. It would become a cumulative lien on the production of unborn generations, which would ultimately paralyze them. Consider what would happen if, in producing an automobile, we had to pay royalties to the descendants of all the inventors involved, starting with the inventor of the wheel and on up. Apart from the impossibility of keeping such records, consider the accidental status of such descendants and the unreality of their unearned claims."

[@lights473]

You're talking about what is moral and immoral, and what is immoral is not necessarily what is illegal. Property rights apply to what is legal and people are allowed to do immoral things provided they are within their rights. There isn't a mind-body split here. The reason we natural law theorists are against intellectual property is because there are no conflicts over ideas. It doesn't make it moral to take credit over someone's idea that they created from their mind, but it is to say that it's not illegal under objective, natural law and reason to copy someone else's idea and make your life better as a result of this knowledge. Ideas aren't scarce so you cannot genuinely steal an idea. You can only copy ideas into your mind. Ideas duplicate in many minds. There aren't conflicts over things that copy and duplicate. There are conflicts over things that are scarce and can only be used by one person at a time, and these are physical resources, this is where property rights come in. The sole job of property rights is to solve these conflicts and enable peace among men in society.

[@Modernaire]

'the mind is the source of any form of material production and material wealth'. In the context of 'work for hire', I don't 'own' the creative work I produce, however, I often use my mind, as a creative, to visualize, and at most times, to conjure up a solution, vividly within my mind's eye, away from my computer workstation. Thus, I CHARGE for that which is of mental work. Not many do, but must get compensated for the work of my own mind, which then I physically, or digitally produce for the 'payer' of such services. No exceptions.

[@adrianainespena5654]

While the mind may be the source, in order to have something there must be physical work. Ideas that are just in the mind are just passing fancies, it is when the idea is made reality by physical labor that you have something to which the idea of property can attach.

[@Weirdomanification]

Okay, but how does one determine an objectively just duration on copyrights or patents? Why not 150 years? Why not three months?

[@dicktracy3787]

How does one objectively the boundaries of land. All property rights end when you die - dead people do not have rights

[@exnihilonihilfit6316]

google "ayn rand lexicon conceptual index" the n check the IP entry in the conceptual index of the site

[@Weirdomanification]

I do want to understand

[@dicktracy3787]

@@Weirdomanification the best philosophical answer would be the life of the inventor - dead people do not have property rights. However in law we make trades to add clarity and ease of enforcement/notice. See land title registration. which is not strictly consistent philosophically

[@alexanderscott2456]

From Ayn Rand in "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal": "Since intellectual property rights cannot be exercised in perpetuity, the question of their time limit is an enormously complex issue. If they were restricted to the originator’s life-span, it would destroy their value by making long-term contractual agreements impossible: if an inventor died a month after his invention were placed on the market, it could ruin the manufacturer who may have invested a fortune in its production. Under such conditions, investors would be unable to take a long-range risk; the more revolutionary or important an invention, the less would be its chance of finding financial backers. Therefore, the law has to define a period of time which would protect the rights and interests of all those involved. In the case of copyrights, the most rational solution is Great Britain’s Copyright Act of 1911, which established the copyright of books, paintings, movies, etc., for the lifetime of the author and fifty years thereafter. In the case of patents, the issue is much more complex. A patented invention often tends to hamper or restrict further research and development in a given area of science. Many patents cover overlapping areas. The difficulty lies in defining the inventor’s specific rights without including more than he can properly claim, in the form of indirect consequences or yet-undiscovered implications. A lifetime patent could become an unjustifiable barrier to the development of knowledge beyond the inventor’s potential power or actual achievement. The legal problem is to set a time limit which would secure for the inventor the fullest possible benefit of his invention without infringing the right of others to pursue independent research. As in many other legal issues, that time limit has to be determined by the principle of defining and protecting all the individual rights involved."

[@thetalkingboard]

If I invent insulin (or purchase the IP and exclusive rights to manufacture, distribute and sell), then I can morally sell my life changing invention at any price. True or false, according to Ayn?

[@thefrenchareharlequins2743]

Can ideas be exclusively used?

[@mannyjeanpierre4062]

no they can be used by limitless number of people. But patents for ideas are different.

[@Mr.Witness]

@@mannyjeanpierre4062there is no such thing as a patent for an idea.

[@mannyjeanpierre4062]

@@Mr.Witness ??? Then what are patents???

[@thefrenchareharlequins2743]

@@mannyjeanpierre4062 They are the right to exclude others from applying an idea, particularly as it pertains to inventions. The problem I am trying to posit is that multiple people can apply an idea without excluding each other from doing so.

[@Mr.Witness]

@@mannyjeanpierre4062 A U.S. patent gives you, the inventor, the right to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” an invention or “importing” it into the U.S. A plant patent gives you additional rights on the “parts” of plants (e.g., a plant patent on an apple variety would include rights on the apples from the plant variety). What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import the invention, but the right to stop others from doing so. If someone infringes on your patent, you may initiate legal action. U.S. patents are effective only within the U.S. and its territories and possessions. No, you cannot patent an idea in the US. US patent law only allows patents for the physical manifestations of ideas, such as products and machines, not the ideas themselves. To get a patent, you must show how your invention works and that it is new and different from other inventions in its field. You don't need a working prototype to apply for a patent, but you must be able to describe the invention in detail

[@danaaronmusic]

I am a libertarian and I approve this message.

[@lights473]

Then you're not a libertarian

[@Fodkdj]

@@lights473you’re confusing libertarian and anarcho capitalist, libertarians believe in a limited government that exists solely to protect rights, a libertarian could believe in intellectual property

[@lights473]

@@Fodkdj a libertarian believes in respecting men's rights. Anyone who believes it's just to tell others what they may do with their property is not a libertarian

[@adrianainespena5654]

Ideas by themselves are not really copyrightable. I learned it when I tried to get the copyright to my fan fiction. ON the other hand if there is work involved in putting it clearly and explaining it, and building something with it, yes. But ideas just fly in and out of your brain, and you cannot tell is the same idea has not visisted someone else's brain.

[@kellyw8017]

Ideas are copyrightable once they're expressed. You can't copyright the idea that a shark terrorizes someone, but once you start creating a specific story of how that shark terrorizes someone, the characters, scenarios, setting, and plot -- all of that is fully copyrightable. Also, if you come up with an invention, even if you haven't yet created the model, you can still patent the idea if you work it out on paper.

[@adrianainespena5654]

@@kellyw8017 Yes, once you put in the work, then you got something physical to show and you can copyright it.

[@kellyw8017]

@@adrianainespena5654 But individuals can't utilize someone else's work that is still under copyright to reduce the amount of time to create a product or to use someone's else creativity to profit from them.

[@adrianainespena5654]

@@kellyw8017 YEs, because there is work put there to create something based on the idea. But in science you cannot copyright formulas nor theories - you are supposed to provide the quotation and indicate where it can be found. Scientists use each other's work as a basis for their own studies.

[@kellyw8017]

@@adrianainespena5654 Using the example previously stated, someone can create their own "shark goes after a person" story. But if they start using characters, scenes, plot points, and similar from Jaws or another shark movie, it's copyright infringement. It's small people who want to enrich themselves because they don't have the creativity to create something on their own. In other words, they have no business being in storytelling, because they aren't storytellers, they're fan fiction writers.

[@CapitalistSpy]

💯💯💯

[@The_Schizoid_Man]

Zulu gang rise up

[@freesk8]

I love Ayn Rand, but I have to disagree with her, here. It is wrong to present the work of another as your own, but it is not wrong to use the idea of another person when you make your own product, especially if there is attribution to the original creator.

[@kellyw8017]

It depends on how you use it. If your goal is to enrich yourself by utilizing someone else's creativity, then you are stealing from them. As laid out above, you can't copyright the idea that a shark goes after a human. But if you express the idea with characters, scenarios, plot points, scenes, supporting characters, etc., all of that is the expression of an idea. Another part that people get confused is to believe that if you change things up, you can still use what someone else created. But here is the catch: you're using someone else's creativity instead of creating your own, fully reliant on your own ideas as if you are starting from a blank page and your own mind. If you start from someone else's work or pull in bits and piece of other people's work, you are stealing. And we all know the reason that people steal. It's because they don't have the creativity to create something fully on their own that would be worth the same value. And here is the other catch: there are tens of thousands of books that are in the public domain that you can pull from to create a "new" story. But people aren't interested in doing that work, because they know that others would recognize where they pulled the bits and pieces. Felons (copyright infringement is a felony) try to steal from material that isn't widely known so that they can pass themselves off as the individual who created it, hoping not only to enrich themselves through theft but to also bask in false glory as the "creator."

[@maurices5954]

How does one steal non-physical property?

[@hellothere-hx5by]

By reproducing it without the consent of the originator. You don’t have the right to piggyback of the fruits of one’s labor. That’s a violation of property rights.

[@maurices5954]

@@hellothere-hx5by Given physical property: Does the originator own the materials that somebody else used to reproduce something? Clearly if i buy the materials i own the property and not the originator. No violation of property rights has occurred. Given non-physical property: How does reproducing a non-tangible idea become a violation of property rights?

[@yansennunez7978]

You can't, you can only replicate.

[@hellothere-hx5by]

@@maurices5954 It is a violation of property rights because ownership is based on being the person who caused the creation of the type of property. Property rights protect one's exclusive use of the entities he is responsible for bringing about into existence. Property rights entitle a person to the fruits of one's labor. The type of property did not exist until the inventor or author. No one would have been able to reproduce it without the inventor or author. They discovered the type of property first and hence get exclusive use of it, just as someone who first discovered untouched land.

[@hellothere-hx5by]

@@maurices5954 Of course, since people build off of intellectual property to create new intellectual property and since people put labor into creating the particular instances of the intellectual property, the intellectual property owner cannot claim all the responsibility for every aspect of the creation of a type of property for all time. But, exclusive use is exclusive use, you cannot have two exclusive users for the same use at once. Hence, to respect the property rights of others, including future intellectual property holders, time limits are necessary. As time goes on and people build new physical and intellectual property off of old intellectual property, the original IP owner's responsibility for those new properties diminishes over time.

[@lights473]

Rand was wrong on intellectual property. There is no right to preventing other people from using their property even if it's based on your idea. There are no property rights in ideas.

[@Mr.Witness]

Give an example of an idea that is protected under iP

[@JRenardLeatherCo]

once and idea is placed onto a medium (a script being written, a painting being written, a building plan being drawn, etc). it can be protected by copyright. even if the script needs a LOT of re-writes go working, or the building plan doesn’t have the fully fleshed-out details, once it’s realized on any medium, it can be copyrighted.

[@IDFsodomites]

Rand was clearly deluded by zionist agendas. Most of her ideas were nonsense.

[@Mr.Witness]

@@JRenardLeatherCo True, Ive come to realize these “property of ideas” people are reciting some dogma from where i’m not sure. A simple google search clarifies that what they are objecting to doesn’t even exist.

[@dicktracy3787]

Nonsense you are Luddite. You are like the Indians saying no one own's the land

[@glennjohn3824]

I agree. But the source of this is not reasonable at all and objectively false. The equalizer is God, not the mind. The smartest people are less violent and violence is the standard which reason has no power. Without God, this philosophy is just wishful thinking and intellectual fantasy. Stay free 🙏❤️🇺🇲

[@apokalypthoapokalypsys9573]

"god"? Objectivists laught at your backwards mysticism.

[@glennjohn3824]

@@apokalypthoapokalypsys9573 I'm impervious to your opinions and mockery because I don't hold any ideas or opinions above the Truth. You only mock because you don't know any better... none of my business. I'm here to shed light on the human condition not to placate your narcissism. Do objectivists also "laught" at your spelling? 🤔

[@Modernaire]

@@apokalypthoapokalypsys9573 Our minds are a destination where divine creativity channels to where our mind receives it and we individually conjure up ideas. Your heart, feels it. This transfer happens only when you've reached a zen like ability in your chosen profession. If we try, we can achieve a balance between beliefs.

[@Pentazoid111]

gay

[@DerykRobosson]

The world now knows that you were happy to have listened.