Liberty To Not Kill Trees

Education, Technology, The Basics
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The great Liberty magazine, edited by R.W. Bradford from 1987 to 2005 and since then by Stephen Cox, has decided to abandon paper and become a completely online journal. This is a harbinger of things to come, as the publishing world adapts to the advent of the Internet and digital information. My own journal, Libertarian Papers, was founded in 2009 as an online journal; and, perhaps presaging things to come, Liberty‘s entire archive was recently put online on Mises.org. Cox himself, a brilliant writer, is also the heroic co-editor (with the brilliant Paul Cantor) of the critically acclaimed Literature and the Economics of Liberty: Spontaneous Order in Culture–published in free online epub and pdf formats by the Mises Institute. The November 2010 issue of Liberty contains the following editorial:

From the Editor

I want to make an announcement about an important change in Liberty. After our next issue — December 2010 — Liberty will cease to be a print journal. Thereafter it will appear online, in a free, fully revised website that will carry features, reviews, reflections, comments from readers, and a complete archive of all the issues we have published since our founding in 1987.

This is a big change, and it brings both happy and unhappy thoughts. Unhappy, because we all value the printed word and the familiar appearance of Liberty. Happy, because online publication will enable our authors’ contributions to appear more frequently, and closer to the events on which they comment. And I predict that an online site will bring us more readers.

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Study IP with Kinsella Online

(Austrian) Economics, Education, IP Law, Libertarian Theory
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IPAs mentioned on the Mises Blog in Study with Kinsella Online, starting November 1 at the Mises Academy, I’ll be presenting the 6-week course Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics, with Monday evening lecture/question-and-answer sessions. An excerpt from the course description:

Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics

PP350 — with Stephan Kinsella

Cost: $125
Length: 6 weeks
Dates: November 1, 2010 – December 17, 2010

Click here to register for this course

This course is taught by Stephan Kinsella, a practicing patent attorney and author of Against Intellectual Property. This is a 6-week course and will run from November 1 until December 17 (with Thanksgiving week off), and will provide an overview of current intellectual property law and the history and origins of IP. The course will explore and offer critical analysis of various utilitarian and deontological justifications offered for IP. The course will analyze the proper relationship between property, scarcity, and ideas, and integrate the proper perspective on IP and the nature of ideas and information with Austrian economics and libertarian theory. Various legal and political reforms consistent with this perspective will be offered along with discussions of market and social institutions in a post-IP world. Optional testing will include a multiple-choice mid-term exam and a combined multiple-choice and essay final exam. Kinsella is Senior Fellow of the Mises Institute, editor of Libertarian Papers, General Counsel for Applied Optoelectronics, and was formerly an adjunct professor at South Texas College of Law. He has frequently lectured and published on IP law, international law, and the application of libertarian principles to legal topics, including Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (co-editor, with Jörg Guido Hülsmann, Mises Institute, 2009).

Course outline and further information available at the course page: Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics.

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eBook: Fifty Economic Fallacies Exposed

(Austrian) Economics, Anti-Statism, Education, Non-Fiction Reviews
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Understanding basic economics is crucial for all libertarians.  No other field offers as clear and irrefutable a case for liberty.  Indeed, statism draws much of its support from the public’s flawed understanding of economics.  Even libertarians are occasionally led astray by flawed economic reasoning.  A friend recently brought a book designed to combat such flaws to my attention:  Geoffrey E. Wood’s Fifty Economic Fallacies Exposed.

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Vis-Ed – An Example of How IP Doesn’t Matter

Education, IP Law
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Visual Education has sold language flashcards for years. Part of the value of the product is selecting *which* 1000 words to include in a set of language cards. I’m sure this information was hard-won by consulting linguists, or more likely paying a professor to compile a list and format the cards the first time. They charge a premium for the cards vs. the same cards blank (compare their set of 1000 Portuguese flashcards for $14.95 versus their set of 1000 blank flashcards for $6.95). I willingly pay this premium, but any entrepreneur could put together a set of language cards and sell them just like Vis-Ed.

Indeed, they could copy Vis-Ed’s list of words. I have no idea whether Vis-Ed can or does have a copyright on their list of words. Hard to see how they could. And yet, the premium charge is there and consumers willingly pay it.

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