Natural rights are constraints that all human beings are inclined and able to apply to each other in order to protect their interests.

The right to life is the first and primary. This encompasses equality and fraternity (against negligence).

The right to privacy is the second. This encompasses the right to private ownership and control over products or goods that one manufactures, discovers, or purchases whether of a material or informational nature. It also encompasses the right to exclusive occupation and control over one’s private space (including access whether material or informational).

The right to truth is the third, with liberty the fourth.

One could conceive of a world without private property (communism perhaps), but this is at odds with human nature. One might even stretch further to a Big Brother dystopia where no private space existed, i.e. that the state’s interest in its citizens overrode the citizen’s natural interest in secrecy. No doubt the state would not reciprocate by allowing continuous inspection of its open processes by its citizens.

Privacy is fundamental to human nature. Human beings cannot help but pursue and guard it. If one respects this then one cannot permit people to divest themselves of their right to it. It must be considered inalienable. This doesn’t prevent people reducing their privacy (permitting continued access to, and scrutiny of, what would otherwise be a private space), nor prevent people giving away all their private property, but it prevents anyone else claiming a greater right to another’s privacy than the individual concerned.

This is why rights to life and liberty are also inalienable. One can place one’s life in danger or give lifelong service as a servant, but no-one else can claim a greater right to another’s life, privacy, or liberty.

Truth is also inalienable in that it is inviolate, one can keep facts secret, but one has no right to change the facts. Thus an author may have a right to anonymity (as part of their right to privacy), but they cannot surrender the truth of their authorship – though they are of course free to tolerate another’s falsehood.

So, it is from our natural right to privacy that we enjoy our natural intellectual property right. Our thoughts, designs, and literary works (independent of any medium in which they may be embodied), whether from the sweat of our own brow or purchased from another, remain our intellectual property – until they are sold, exchanged, or given to another (without let or hindrance).

Our natural intellectual property right gives us exclusive control over the IP that we own, but not over the IP that we don’t – irrespective of whether we had a hand in its creation.

There are of course unnatural, mercantile privileges such as copyright and patent that have been created that partially suspend our natural intellectual property rights in order to provide economic advantage. However, these are unethical anachronisms and should be abolilshed.