In conversing over the intellectual property provisions embedded in CAFTA, my father in-law asked me "...don't you [libertarians] think copyright and IP are good things?" Here is a revised version of my response:
Currently, libertarians disagree on the concept of intellectual property as enforced by the state. Since, I'm sure you are familiar with arguments in favor of IP, here are the grounds against IP from the basis of economics, a philosophy of natural rights, and ultimately from God's dominion.
From the standpoint of economics, copyrights and patents as enforced by the state impinge on free trade as mercantilist protections. The economic effects are no different than a tariff or state granted monopoly/oligopoly protection. The economic fact is that patent protection eliminates marginal producers of the patented product.
For example let's say I produced a new product with the private resources I owned called a "wagon wheel." Let's say the tangible assets I owned and used to create the wheel were wood and aluminum. Let's say that the wheel had so many spokes with a particular diameter that gives a wagon a smooth ride. Now a distinction needs to be made between tangible and intangible goods. The wood and aluminum are scarce tangible goods owned by the producer. The ideas concerning the configuration of the wagon wheel by diameter, spokes, and the forging of the metal are intangible. Now let's say I receive a government patent on the wheel. Through government fiat, I have effectively banned anyone else from configuring their privately owned wood and metal in the manner of "my" wagon wheel for a particular period of time.
Now we are in a conundrum. Moving beyond economics, which is morally valid under natural law? The right to private property of tangible assets or the right to restrict by coercion what others legitimately may do with their tangible assets? Under the natural law, rights to the tangible (a person's body, physical property) hold primacy to the intangible (ideas of the mind, feelings of the heart). Such is the libertarian natural law basis against the idea of intellectual property enforcement by state coercion. In order to enforce IP, one would have to violate the tangible property rights of another individual (For a more thorough and legally trained discussion, see Kinsella, Against Intellectual Property, JLS).
Violations of tangible property is something which the secular law can validly enforce by coercion. However, violations of the intangible fall under a much higher authority which does not involve human coercion. Intangibles are best judged and regulated by the combination of God's coercion and the non-coercive acts of man (free exercises of association). These methods are the most effective way to judge who is actually sinning (violating moral law) when using someone else's intangible, but very real ideas.
For example, while it would be a sin for me to claim that I invented calculus or engage in any other form of plagiarism, it would not be a sin to use intangible ideas discovered by someone else. In the case of plagiarism man can validly exercise his non-coercive authority by choosing not to associate with the plagiarist academically. Coercive authority in these cases will rest solely on the final Judgment of God (Heaven, Hell, or intermittent Purgatory). The same will go for the man who copied "my" wagon wheel. Based on these two examples, all else being equal, the plagiarist will receive negative judgment and the copier will receive positive judgment.
The ultimate and theological conclusion regarding coercive intellectual property laws is that God gave us limited coercive dominion over the tangible, He did not give us any coercive dominion over the intangible. By looking anthropologically back to man's creation, we see the Triune God pronounce "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness (Gen 1:26)." In that creation we see God's command for man to "fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over… all the living things that move on the earth (Gen 1:28)." Here is the essence of tangible property in the creation of man. The limits of this dominion come about through the commandments and the natural law.
Regarding the intangible, man's understanding, only becomes possible through the fullness of revelation through the incarnation of Christ. From here we move from the tangible right to self defense under natural law, to the higher and intangible aspect of loving [agape] your enemy. In the case of IP, we must realize that imposing IP standards on poorly capitalized nations, as in CAFTA, will have the affect of coercively eliminating marginal producers to serve their consumers. Eliminating marginal producers in these nations will impoverish the nation even more. All this, so a US corporation can have a more comfortable and "stable" profit margin. All have a right to profit margins, but not at the coercive expense of the little ones who are the ultimately dependent consumers harmed by elimination of marginal producers. 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. (Mat 25:40)' And so through an unlawful violation of God's dominion over the intangible, man is harming the "least of these who are members of my family."
Many will scoff at the "idealism" portrayed in this denial of the moral validity of coercive IP laws. While IP may be the de facto framework that man currently seeks to claim dominion over the intangible, we must also be reminded that there is another greater de facto reality before us. That is the Final Judgment of the Triune God.