KOL067 | Patent and Copyright are Unconstitutional!
Channel: N. Stephan Kinsella
Date: 2018-01-29

Original podcast and additional notes available at http://www.stephankinsella.com/kinsella-on-liberty-podcast

I recorded this one during my morning walk. Forgive the audio imperfections, but I had the audio tweaked so it’s not bad. I discuss the argument for the unconstitutionality of IP, namely patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret, which I discussed in a previous post, Copyright is Unconstitutional. For further details, see that post.

Update: One further argument for the unconstitutionality of copyright that I forgot to mention in the podcast is one I mentioned in the referenced post. Namely, the Patent Clause in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to award patents “to promote the Progress of Science …  by securing for limited Times to Authors … the exclusive Right to their respective Writings….” The copyright clause only authorizes Congress to protect an author’s “writings.” To the extent copyright law covers things other than writings–like paintings, movies, music, sculptures, photographs, software code (or at least look-and-feel aspects), boat hull designs–it is also clearly unconstitutional.