A Libertarian Critique of Intellectual Property Quotes

“The proposition that business firms are entitled to patent protection when they have produced variations in the genetic structure of plants (GMOs) conveniently ignores the fact that the pre-existing plants had, themselves, arisen from modifications or adaptations provided by our ancient ancestors.”
― Butler Shaffer, A Libertarian Critique of Intellectual Property

“If one scientist has been issued a patent for his invention of a widget, another scientist would likely be discouraged from continuing his own work on a similar product, or from making modifications or variations on the patented item.”
― Butler Shaffer, A Libertarian Critique of Intellectual Property

“Such a practice allows lifeless fictions to transcend—and thus demean—the importance of individual human beings.”
― Butler Shaffer, A Libertarian Critique of Intellectual Property

“the state becomes seen for what it is: an organizational tool of violence that is able to accomplish its purposes only through the willingness of its victims to accord it legitimacy.”
― Butler Shaffer, A Libertarian Critique of Intellectual Property

“A sign on a church in the former East Berlin that read “nothing grows from the top down,” succinctly identified the anti-life nature of all forms of institutionally-directed, collective control over people.”
― Butler Shaffer, A Libertarian Critique of Intellectual Property

“They can decide to solve their problem collectively, through resort to the State.”
― Butler Shaffer, A Libertarian Critique of Intellectual Property

“Private property is the operating principle that makes real Immanuel Kant’s admonition: “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.”
― Butler Shaffer, A Libertarian Critique of Intellectual Property