Maybe not, if it's something I invent or write, why does someone have to give me rights over it? You do not control the neurons in other people's brains. If y

Maybe not, if it's something I invent or write, why does someone have to give me rights over it? You do not control the neurons in other people's brains. If you share an idea, it is as much theirs as yours. If someone produces something based upon that idea, you cannot rightly take it from them because the thing itself was never yours. There is no way to enforce IP without undermining physical property rights. They shouldn't take them instead... "shall not." Sidestepping the issue of espionage, nobody is "taking" anything from you. In virtually all of the cases that attract attention, IP was intentionally shared. If you publish a book, you can't rightly turn around and yell at someone for reading it. Futhermore, producing a copy of a work does not deprive any of its existing possessors. I understand how the constitution is written It's the why that matters. You are looking at this from the perspective that IP rights are negative rights (= freedoms), when they are clearly not. When you recognize that IP rights are positive rights (= privileges), then you will see that the authors of the Constitution were being generous in affording this protection, which in the "life, liberty, [physical] property" framework you would otherwise not have. It is better to think that you do not "own" IP, but rather hold it in trust for the public, and in the interim, you get to reap some benefit as recompense for your creative contribution.