I will gladly fight you to avoid a world government. Suppose we should establish our own Atlantis. A world government would be what I was trying to evade.

IP for the life of the creator plus either 50 or 70 years - or more if passed to a corporation (or a foundation) seems entirely reasonable to me. As for Peikoff's inheritance, that was within the 50 or 70 years. After that, if AR's legacy is to be preserved, Peikoff should establish a foundation specifically for that, if AR didn't already establish that with Peikoff as the executor.

Actually, Thomas Paine had no descendants, so his works would have passed into the public domain on his death. (That does not apply to land. It does not become a public space. Someone can claim it.)

And what is the objective number? 50 years? 73.2 years? How do you know? That is why I advocate for OBJECTIVE laws for intellectual property. I do not know what they all may be, but I do know what they obviously are not. Unless you have some better argument, I must maintain that intellectual property should be heritable - or else not. But completely and consistently, not this "life of the author plus x years."

If the patent rights passed to one heir each time, then I can agree with you, but when such rights get divided up to multiple heirs to the nth generation, would I be expected to pay 512 different people if each generation had 2 kids for ten generations? The intolerable burden is a pragmatic argument. You are correct about that, but pragmatism is important.

After a certain period of time, intellectual property becomes "common knowledge". Regarding books, music, and art, the number of such requests would be essentially zero after either 50 years or the person's life, whichever is longer. Yes, Michael Jackson and two of the Beatles still sell CD's, so I am willing to extend the 50 years to 75 or even 100 years. If I were to buy a copy of Common Sense by Thomas Paine now, who would the publisher pay the royalties to? There must be hundreds of his descendants by now.

I was actually trying to make a joke about my being a professor, but as long as you bring up the subject, I agree with you that FIRST TO FILE is incorrect, but that's a battle that any amount of pontificating on our part is not going to change. Regarding the heritability of intellectual property, I think patent law's duration is correct. Regarding something like book or music sales, there should be some limit (50 years or the life of the artist, whichever is longer?)

I produced for my two creators at their discretion until I reached the age of consent and gained my emancipation. :)

I am satisfied with dbhalling's answer.
From the comments section in the third link:
"Parallel Independent Innovation?
I do not have Ayn Rand’s book with me right now, but she does discuss this issue in her book. Based on memory her point about simultaneous invention is that first true inventor has title to the invention. Thus, your hypothetical about the car breaking down to the patent office has no effect on who obtains the patent. Given this, I think she would not be in favor of a first-to-file system and I agree. As a patent attorney, I can tell you that parallel independent inventions rarely happen. In the US, we have a process for resolving cases where there is almost simultaneous invention and there are very few of these cases a year – 55 last year.
Photo Finish? As I stated, these cases almost never occur. However, the point of the legal system is to determine who has the property rights. If the parties do not agree to share the property rights then one will be determined to be the owner of the invention. While the result may not always be correct, at some point it is also important that clear title be established so that the property can be put to work."

Recognizing we do not live in a perfect world, and being a layman, I do not feel qualified to offer a superior option from an experienced, fully informed position. I will defer to his expertise.

My wife's great^n grandfather Lucius Knight, helped to found two villages in northern Michigan, Kingsley and Mayfield, in 1867. In 1867 outside the village limits of Kingsley, he claimed a section of land, one mile on a side, 640 acres. N generations later, Knights still live on parcels that they inherited. When do they lose the right to pass it on?

When do my heirs OBJECTIVELY lose the right to intellectual property that I create?
(Riddle me that, Batgirl!)

Like you, I advocate for WORLD GOVERNMENT. I stand with you against our conservative comrades who want AMERICAN NATIONALISM. Away with all borders! I stand with you on this. Read Ayn Rand's essay on "Balkanization" and fight now for globalism and capitalism. One Earth. One People. One Law.

I agree 100%. We do need OBJECTIVE intellectual property rights across all nations. We do not have that in the USA because we now follow "first to file" having abandoned "first to invent." I also agree 100% that America's first to invent laws brought inventions here. Of course, we also profited from the violations of patent laws as when SAMUEL SLATER memorized the plans for a textile mill and brought it out of England to the USA. You would punish him, of course.

YES! why is it you get THAT and not the other? Transferable and inheritable. They are not infinite in duration. But the idea that property rights in land is infinite in time is incorrect. It is limited by the life of the owner or under inheritance, the rule against perpetuity. that's as much as I understand about their differences

yes.
In the 1850s, about the same time that we did adopt copyrights across countries, we were negotiating treaties to do just that. But negotiations broke down. Note: the 1850s, an anti-patent kick started up in Europe and some countries dropped their patent systems for a decade or two. Note the wealth creation and invention rate of the US at that time.

If you own yourself, then two independent inventors both deserve property rights in the effects of their productive labor. Present law does not recognize that. In fact, previous law did not, either. I maintain that they are not objective. I believe that all independent inventors deserve the right to the products of their intellectual efforts.

Look at a picture of the world in space. do you see property lines?

I seek objective intellectual property law. The US now with the rest of the world recognizes FIRST TO FILE, NOT FIRST TO INVENT. That is wrong. The old way was better. If intellectual property should not be inheritable (as Ayn Rand claimed), then US law is wrong and should be changed -- and anyone should be allowed to copy _Atlas Shrugged_ as if it were Shakespeare or the Bible. I maintain that intellectual property _is_ and _should be_ heritable. Do you care to discuss that?

Solve this: You cannot take land from one place to another but you can have patents in three countries and not 100 others. That is what I meant when I said that our laws for intellectual property derive from medieval concepts. Many laws do. We do not have objective law. I am trying to advocate for it.

Solve this: patents are granted by nations. Should we advocate for universal patent laws analogous to the Berne Convention on Copyrights?

Good stuff! The comments following the "Ayn Rand on Intellectual Property" article were demonstrative of the magnitude of the problem we face. The Kantian influence... the mindists are ubiquitous. They do not grasp and accept the natural rights inherent, corollary and essential to existence. They see only subjectivity where objectively applied logic define value, rights and property. Then without fully grasping the fact that one cannot exist without these corollaries and still retain the right to exist and without offering persuasive logical counter argument they falsely claim victory... refutation of your argument! The audacity! They do not know and they do not know they don't know. A is A. Existence exists. You either have a right to exist for your own sake and are entitled to all that is required to continue your existence and all of the products of your effort/existence (creation of your mind or hands), or you are a slave. You and your product would then belong to someone else. The corollary is that if you are entitled to these things, then you must recognize the same for others. What other logical option is there? It is a choice between freedom/self ownership or slavery.

The argument that intellectual property rights should not be heritable may not have a solid foundation. We pay rents to the heirs of the original owners of land. Why not on inventions? That this would be an "intolerable burden" is a pragmatic argument, not an objective one.

It is the nature of ideas that better ones come along. khalling cited the first US patent, Samuel Hopkins's patent for the production of pot ash. If that were passed down to seven generations, would it matter? Ayn Rand claimed that a patent on the wheel would have made the automobile impossible. Perhaps not. Patents are assigned by nations. Penrose patented his tiles in the UK, US, and Japan. He did not patent them in Germany, Brazil, or a hundred other nations. So, it may be that ONE KIND OF WHEEL - one design only - might be patented in Babylon, and it would remain to bee seen if 6000 years later Babylon had no automobiles though Athens, Rome, and America all do.

Is that objective justice, that you can have intellectual property rights in one country, but not another? These defenders of the status quo merely do not think deeply about the roots of the these concepts.

The reason that land never seems to go out of ownership is that it is physically real. Inventions are different from land. ideas can be lost and forgotten. They deserve a different kind of law. And they have a different kind of law. I just point out that the present law is not objectively appropriate.

Thanks for the link to the old article. I copied it into two different directories for future reference. Let me take just one point. PROPERTY RIGHTS SHOULD NOT EXPIRE BUT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS DO. Neither Greg Perkins nor Ayn Rand offered a consistent claim.

Let us grant that intellectual property should not be heritable. When should it expire? 17 years? Not 18 or 21.4? Why that number and not another?

If you agree with Ayn Rand, then you should be vigorously fighting the Millennium Digital Commerce Act which granted IP for the life of the creator plus 70 years - or more if passed to a corporation. I do not hear you complaining.

In fact, even before this
January 1, 1978
Effective date of principal provisions of the 1976 copyright law. The term of protection for works created on or after this date consists of the life of the author and 50 years after the author's death. Numerous other provisions modernized the law.

Under that law, Leonard Peikoff inherited the rights to Ayn Rand's works. She apparently approved when she was alive. Maybe she had other things on her mind...

Do you find this unjust? Do you not find that unjust?

You mean intellectual property rights are not derived from “medieval concepts about land ” but man’s right to the product of his mind? What we are taught in the liberal media is wrong? How surprising, not.

I understand how tiresome it must be to argue the same points over and over. I present the same points every year and in some cases twice that often, but then I get paid for it.