The primary social evil of our time is lack of respect for self-ownership rights. It is what underlies both private crime and institutionalized crime perpetrated by the state. State laws, regulations, and actions are objectionable just because the state is claiming the right to control how someone’s body is to be used. When the state drafts a man
If so, expect your fees to rise, with TiVo’s recent $74 million patent lawsuit victory , sure to be leveraged against cable TV companies who offer TiVo-like DVRs. (The award might actually be tripled, because the jury found the infringement was “willful.”) This report of the decision states “In a case cast as crucial to TiVo’s (TIVO) survival, a
The following edited comments are excerpted from a recent email discussion with Walter Block and one of his correspondents, a Philosophy Professor (designated [PhilProf] below): Walter, [PhilProf] -- Thanks for your email. Only time for a few comments now. [PhilProf]: “I find it difficult to accept the following possibility, namely, that when,
I’ve pointed out before ( 2 , 3 ) that the utilitarian logic behind patents—that it’s needed to provide “incentives” to innovate—could also be used to justify taxpayed-funded subsidies to artists and inventors. Interestingly, the World Health Organization , in a recent report, points out the damage pharmaceutical patents pose to the poor in the
A friend in Cambodia alerted me to this story , about the Cambodian Prime Minister’s ban on 3G phones to prevent the spread of porn. Said the PM: Hold it. Do not yet start the mobile phone services through which the callers can see each others’ images. Maybe we can wait for another 10 years or so until we have done enough to strengthen the
It’s a commonplace that Americans and Westerners are the technical and business innovators, and that Chinese are good at imitation. But sometimes it’s the reverse. I recently learned of a Chinese tax policy that I fear the IRS may want to emulate someday (if they are not already--I’m not a tax expert). It’s come to my attention that when a foreign
Gotta love ThePirateBay.org , a Swedish website. They offer an index to various data files--movies, videos, songs, what have you--that you can download via “Bit Torrent” technology. The files are not stored on their servers; they merely provide users with links as to where they can download various material from. What is admirable about them is
I wrote an Objectivist friend the other day, “No matter what your stance on IP, surely you must wince to read Rand write: “patents are the heart and core of property rights.” I mean... COME ON!” Her reply: “Rand’s view is a variation of the Communist view that a worker owns what he worked on for having had some kind of productive contact with it.”
Law professors Keith Aoki, James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins have produced a comic book Bound By Law? Tales From the Public Domain which gives good examples of some of the terrible barriers copyright law has placed in the way of documentary filmmakers. Though these authors are not radicals or very principled (and of course, like mainstreamers,
As noted on the notorious Liberty and Power blog (well, notorious for having banned me once, anyway, and for letting me back in; usually only Objectivists, Catonians, or other types of neocons ban me, cough-cough-PALMER-cough, cough-NOODLEFOOD-cough), The Independent Institute has just released its Open Letter on Immigration to President Bush and
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.