Thank you for the thoughtful response. As you say, I think our fundamental positions are not that far apart, but our ways of reaching there are quite different

Thank you for the thoughtful response. As you say, I think our fundamental positions are not that far apart, but our ways of reaching there are quite different and we seem to disagree on scope. Just to be perfectly clear, I do support (and indeed rely on) the concept of Intellectual Property, but I believe it needs to be limited in both duration and scope. Now, to address a couple of your more specific points. Steel is an alloy of iron, not just purified form (although some early forms involved mostly removing impurities and creating the alloy with other impurities naturally present), and while the term steel is somewhat generic I could say something like "440 Stainless Steel" and refer to a very specific composition. I point out that Rearden relied on it because I believe (it has been a while since I read Atlas Shrugged) Rearden metal used steel as a base. Even if that detail is wrong, it certainly relied on the millenia of metalurgical knowlede developed before Rearden, for which he paid between nothing and very little since only the very most recent developments are patented. The fact he led a team rather than developping it on his own weakens the clean philosophical argument that it was "earned by the sweat of his brow". He worked with others. Yes, he paid them and has every legal right to claim it as his (actually even that's muddy because he did it through his corporation and it is not entirely clear that he was a 100% owner with no one else having any equity at all). But while that doesn't muddy the legal water, it does muddy the philosophical claim. When a right was recognized does not change its status certainly, but it does act as evidence against a claim that it is an axiomatic right. One would expect that an axiomatic right would have at least some traces of origins in antiquity and that it would have arisen (even if it took a while) independently in many cultures. This is not true of copyright or patents. Those were extremely modern, created by a legislature and for a very specific purpose. Euclid would likely be shocked by the idea that someone would need his permission to copy his Elements (which he borrowed liberally from others to create). Oddly some of the European Moral Rights, such as the right to be acknowledged as the author, come closer to being axiomatic than actual copyright, even though they aren't recognized in the US in a full form. Euclid probably would have been outraged if the copy you made of his Elements didn't acknowledge him as the writer, but he wouldn't have questioned you making the copy. As for Disney, again I am not arguing against IP rights, I am all for them. The fact that most of Disney's best movies are openly derivative is an argument for IP rights that are limited in time and scope. That is what I am arguing for, and that is a position which benefits Disney greatly.