AgainstMonopoly.org Blog Posts

Don’t Call Them “Pirates”

So says Big Copyright, which adopted the term for copyright infringers because of “its suggestions of theft, destruction, and violence.” But now, the “pirates”have  “co-opted the term, adopting it with gusto and hoisting the Jolly Roger across the Internet (The Pirate Bay being the most famous example).” I agree. Copyright infringers should not be called […]

Nina Paley’s “All Creative Work is Derivative”

This is an amazing animation by Nina Paley, “America’s Best-Loved Unknown Cartoonist” (and creator of the amazing animated (and free online) film Sita Sings the Blues, given rave reviews including 4 stars by Roger Ebert). Entitled “All Creative Work Is Derivative” (and blogged here on her blog), and concluding “All creative work builds on what […]

Jeff Tucker Free Talk Live Interview on Open Information and IP

Jeff Tucker was interviewed yesterday by Mark Edge, as part of his “Edgington Post Interview Series,” for his Free Talk Live radio show, about the Mises Institute’s “open information” approach (see Jeff Tucker, A Theory of Open, B.K. Marcus, Mises.org on iTunes U, Doug French, The Intellectual Revolution Is in Process). The interview is lasts […]

The Patent, Copyright, Trademark, and Trade Secret Horror Files

As noted here, “Ayn Rand’s newsletters used to end with a “Horror File” of monstrous but true quotations.” Along those lines, it’s time to collect some choice trademark horror stories in one place. The main post will be here, on the Mises Blog, but I’ll cross-post the initial post here too. But look there for […]

New Book: Innovation, Intellectual Property, and Economic Growth

The new book Innovation, Intellectual Property, and Economic Growth, by Christine Greenhalgh & Mark Rogers, looks interesting: What drives innovation? How does it contribute to the growth of firms, industries, and economies? And do intellectual property rights help or hurt innovation and growth? Uniquely combining microeconomics, macroeconomics, and theory with empirical analysis drawn from the […]

Kinsella’s “Against Intellectual Property”: Audiobook Version

An audiobook of my monograph Against Intellectual Property (Mises Institute, 2008; Mises Store; PDF; Scribd; HTML) has been prepared. The narrator is Jock Coats, who produced a very impressive, professional-quality product. The audiobook, about 1 hour, 54 minutes in length, is available in .mp3 format and in .m4b iTunes book format (each about 57M). The […]

Authors: Don’t Make the Buddy Holly Mistake

In Authors: Beware of Copyright, Jeff Tucker warns authors to be careful with their publication agreements not to alienate their books and other works. A good illustration of this peril is found in the case of Buddy Holly and his recording contract with Decca. As reported in Buddy Holly’s secretly recorded contract negotiation with Decca, […]