Bob Wenzel on Intellectual Property

Bob Wenzel, who runs a blog entitled EconomicPolicyJournal.com explains his thoughts on Intellectual Property: "I believe free market IP protection started before the printing press and even before written words, in the form of secrets. If I have some information and tell you that I will only reveal it to you, if you tell no one else, and you agree, then we have a free market agreement over IP. To say that IP protection started with the state merely because the state has written copyright laws, is as wrong as saying that money started with the state because the state invented the dollar. Money existed before the dollar and IP protection existed before government copyright laws. Simply because the government created the dollar and copyright laws does not mean that the concepts money and IP protection are evil. They are evil, when controlled and manipulated by the state, but free market money and free market IP are not evil. They both surely can arise without the state and, indeed, are likely to do so in a free market environment."