Why Intellectual Property Rights? A Lockean Justification

Posted by khalling 10 years, 6 months ago to Philosophy
105 comments | Share | Flag

well researched paper by Professor Mossoff. It begins with an historical treatment of Locke and Anglo-American development of legally protected intellectual property and moral justification. The paper then addresses especially the Libertarian arguments against IP, including the utilitarian model of property rights in land and scarcity arguments.

All Comments

Previous comments...   You are currently on page 5.
  • Posted by khalling 10 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    copyrights protect the "look and feel" of software. They do NOT protect the underlying invention. In that case, might as well be free. Your alternative is to hide your code. as a Trade secret. Please read the moral argument s for patents(in all areas, across all industries) in the article.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Comment hidden due to member score or comment score too low. View Comment
  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 10 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I am also a software developer and scratch my head over the "all software should be free" movement. It may be selfish but I would like to make a living using my creativity and not work at McDonalds and write code in my spare time.

    I rely on intellectual property protection for my product to allow me to maintain it and provide a living for the couple dozen people who work for me.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by MinorLiberator 10 years, 6 months ago
    Thanks for posting, kh. Several reasons:

    Mainly, although I've only had time to skim the article, it looks great.

    Also, I've just recently re-read Locke's Second Treatise, and a modern application would be great to read and excellent timing.

    Finally, I've only recently run into some Libertarian friends who argue against IP rights. Huh???? I'm a software developer and have run into my share (thankfully a minority) of fellow developers who trumpet: "All software should be free!!!!" It's only recently I've heard of some Libertarians saying the equivalent. I'm looking forward to seeing that addressed.
    Reply | Permalink  

  • Comment hidden. Undo