KOL341 | ESEADE Lecture: Should We Release Patents on Vaccines? An Overview of Libertarian Property Rights and the Case Against IP

Kinsella On Liberty

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 341. This was a webinar I did for an Argentinian audience for ESEADE May 26, 2021. The topic was formally "Should We Release Patents on Vaccines" ("¿Hay que liberar las patentes sobre las vacunas?"). In this talk, I briefly provide an overview of the nature of property rights and the principled case against IP, then apply it to vaccines, and took questions from the audience. Transcript below. Youtube: https://youtu.be/EgYS8ldQ_AY Original video: https://youtu.be/-mjc7ZjYQ0o TRANSCRIPT Should We Release Patents on Vaccines? An Overview of Libertarian Property Rights and the Case Against IP Stephan Kinsella May 26, 2021 KOL341| ESEADE Lecture: Should We Release Patents on Vaccines? An Overview of Libertarian Property Rights and the Case Against IP 00:00:01 [Spanish] 00:04:21 JUAN IGNACIO IBAÑEZ: So thank you very much, Iván. I’m just going to proceed in English like the rest of this little talk. So thank you to you and to ESEADE for providing this space. Thank you, Stephan, for participating, and I’m just going to start off with the introduction of our star guest speaker, which is Stephan Kinsella. So Stephan Kinsella is one of the most prominent libertarian thinkers, specializing in the field of intellectual property. 00:04:48 Not only is he a writer and a speaker but also a practicing patent attorney and the director of the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom. He was founding and executive director of Libertarian Papers, which is one of the journals that has contributed the most to libertarian thought in the past years. He is also the author of a milestone book, Against Intellectual Property, published in 2008 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. And it’s no overstatement to say that when it comes to debating intellectual property, his work is a must-read. So I’m going to kick start this meeting by – I’ll provide some context first and a trigger question for you, Stephan, and then just give you all the time you need to speak. 00:05:31 Maybe I’ll pitch in if I need to ask a question, but I will make a sort of Q&A at the end. So just to lay out the ground here, the title of this talk is Should Vaccine Patents Be Released? And what we’re getting at, what it boils down to, is are vaccine patents legitimate? Are they just? Should they exist? You have read a lot on the subject. You’re clearly against intellectual property. This is why we want you to explain your position because it seems, for many people, that as Iván said in Spanish, many people who uphold property rights find it intuitive to also uphold intellectual property rights. 00:06:19 So the question would be as follows. If I create something, I come up with something that didn’t exist before, and this is the fruit of my mind and a sign that I came up with, why don’t I get to keep it? After all, I own my mind. I own my body, and don’t I have a right to keep the fruit of my labor, which I generated, the product which I generated with my mind and my body? So isn’t this only just? And aren’t vaccine manufacturing or vaccine-developing companies have patent-holding rights? Aren’t they just exerting this very same right that I have just described? Why is any of this illegitimate? I’ll just give you the floor now. We cannot hear you right now. 00:07:24 STEPHAN KINSELLA: There we go. Sorry. How about now? 00:07:27 JUAN IGNACIO IBAÑEZ: Perfect. 00:07:27 STEPHAN KINSELLA: Thank you, Iván and Juan Ignacio, for the invitation and for allowing me to speak to everyone in English because my Spanish is very poor for which I have little excuse because I live in Houston, Texas, and I probably should learn it. But thank you for the opportunity. I think this came about because there were some Twitter comments in Spanish, which I was replying to. And I just offered to speak about it because sometimes that is the easiest way.