What’s an idea worth? How prominent thinkers have understood intellectual property

Name: What’s an idea worth? How prominent thinkers have understood intellectual property | Aeon Videos
Uploaded: 2025-08-06
Duration: 6 min
Description: Should it be possible to own an idea? The debate around intellectual property has deep roots in the history of philosophy

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.

Video by TED-Ed

Director: Patrick Smith

Producer: Sazia Afrin

Writers: Michael Vazquez, Will Kanwischer

6 August 2025

Post