I’m delighted to announce a new project that I’m helping to organize: the hosting of live online events (i.e. webcasts) with notable intellectuals and producers about their work. Even better, our first webcast will be law professor Adam Mossoff speaking on questions about intellectual property!

Even amongst its staunch defenders, the basis and limits of intellectual property are always hot topics. That was plain as day based on the long lines of people hoping to ask Professor Mossoff questions about the theoretical basis and practical implementation of intellectual property after his lecture at OCON this summer.

Here’s Professor Mossoff’s proposal for this webcast:

Ayn Rand was the first to recognize that all property is at root intellectual property. The law and history support Rand’s view that all property rights, whether in land, factories, consumer goods, securities, or inventions and books, are made possible by innovators who first conceived of these new values. Professor Mossoff will give a brief overview of the evidence supporting Rand’s view and answer questions about the theory, history, and law of intellectual property.

As that description suggests, the webcast will focus on answering your questions about intellectual property. It will last between 60 and 90 minutes.

In case you’re not familiar with Adam Mossoff — or his ground-breaking work on intellectual property — here’s a bit more about him:

Adam Mossoff is Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law, where he teaches and writes in the areas of property and intellectual property law. His research focuses on the intersection between intellectual property law and property theory, and has published numerous articles on topics in patent law, property law, legal history and legal philosophy. He graduated with honors from the University of Chicago Law School.

You can find more on Professor Mossoff on his GMU faculty web page, and you can download many of his papers from his SSRN page. But mostly, I should say that Adam Mossoff’s lecture on intellectual property at OCON was fantastic, and he was particularly stellar in the Q&A. That’s why we’re so excited to have him as our first speaker.

If you want this lecture to take place, if you want to support Professor Mossoff’s extraordinary work, and if you want to help create a new outlet for the dissemination of intellectual ideas, please pledge. You can pledge whatever dollar amount this lecture is worth to you.

If enough people have pledged enough money by noon on November 6th to make this project worth producing, then I’ll email everyone who has committed, you’ll send the payment, and I’ll send you a private link to the lecture. The lecture will be recorded on the evening of Monday, November 15th. You’ll receive a link to the recorded version soon after that date.

That’s awesome, right? Right! But wait, there’s more! If you pledge $20 or more you can submit questions in advance of the event, see all questions submitted by others, and vote on the questions you most want to hear answers to in the lecture. (We’ll use Google Moderate for that.) Professor Mossoff will craft the bulk of his lecture around the questions and topics that people are interested in, provided that they’re consistent with his topic and theme.

In addition, a select number of people will be invited to participate in the live online event so you can watch it while it’s taking place, participate in the live chat, and ask questions of Professor Mossoff during the webcast. How do you participate live?

1) If you have made one of the top 10 highest pledges by the November 6th deadline you will be invited to the live online event.

2) Everyone is encouraged to invite their friends to pledge for this event. The top 10 people who have brought the most number of friends to join in the pledging will receive a personal invitation to the live event. (Hence, share this post on Facebook!)

(We might offer more options for the live event later.)

Do you want to pledge? I hope so! (If you were referred by a friend, please note his/her name in the comment field of your pledge. Also, even if you’re pledging less than $20, please include your questions in that field.)

If you have any problems with that embedded form, try this one. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to post them in the comments.

Also, please note that Professor Mossoff cannot provide legal advice, and thus webcast questions should not concern, directly or indirectly, any legal disputes involving the questioner, either directly or indirectly.

   
Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha