Kinsella On Liberty

KOL387 | The Great IP Debate of 1983: McElroy vs. Schulman

07.06.2022 - By Stephan KinsellaPlay

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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 387.

This is a classic debate on intellectual property between Wendy McElroy and J. Neil Schulman† at the Libertarian Supper Club in Westwood (Los Angeles), California, in 1983. McElroy takes the anti-IP side and Schulman argues for IP. I don't appear in this episode but I thought my listeners might find it of interest.

https://youtu.be/-_Nyaav6Js0

I wrote about this on Mises Daily, as “The Great IP Debate of 1983,” Mises Daily (July 18, 2011), which concerns the then recently-found audio of that debate, which was put up as a Mises podcast and is now also hosted at Mises.org. It's a fascinating listen. As the Mises blurb about it reads, "In this wonderful debate, we find the whole of the theoretical apparatus of the anti-IP case presented with precision and eloquence." This was near the beginning of the modern libertarian anti-IP movement, pioneered by McElroy and Sam Konkin (see references below).

Related (by me unless noted otherwise):

McElroy: “On the Subject of Intellectual Property”: this appears to match at least part of Wendy's initial presentation in the debate

Schulman, "My Unfinished 30-Year-Old Debate with Wendy McElroy"

McElroy, "Contra Copyright, Again"

Classical Liberals and Anarchists on Intellectual Property (discussing LeFevre)

The Four Historical Phases of IP Abolitionism

The Origins of Libertarian IP Abolitionism

The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism

KOL208 | Conversation with Schulman about Logorights and Media-Carried Property

“Introduction” and chapter “Conversation with Schulman about Logorights and Media-Carried Property” [both available here] in J. Neil Schulman, Origitent: Why Original Content is Property (Steve Heller Publishing, 2018)

Libertarian Sci-Fi Authors and Copyright versus Libertarian IP Abolitionists

Replies to Neil Schulman and Neil Smith re IP

Query for Schulman on Patents and Logorights

On J. Neil Schulman’s Logorights

Kinsella v. Schulman on Logorights and IP

Schulman: “If you copy my novel, I’ll kill you”

Schulman: Kinsella is “the foremost enemy of property rights”

Reply to Schulman on the State, IP, and Carson

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