Should owning an idea be treated the same way as owning a physical object, or are these two forms of property rights ultimately incomparable? How should societies balance incentivising new ideas with the desire to make them freely available for the greater good? This animated TED-Ed short explores the contrasting ways philosophers including John Locke, David Hume and Elizabeth Anderson have viewed intellectual property rights over the centuries. Revisited in the age of digitisation, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and amid the rise of machine learning, these long-standing debates about the ethics of idea ownership take on fascinating new contours.
What’s an idea worth? How prominent thinkers have understood intellectual property
Video by TED-Ed
Director: Patrick Smith
Producer: Sazia Afrin
Writers: Michael Vazquez, Will Kanwischer
6 August 2025
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