Actually, it isn't. Ad hominem is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it.

In this case, he is referring to a third party (the monarchy) who actually did use it as a monopoly priviledge for the monarchy. Saying that it is frabricated does not make it so. In fact, if you look at all that was said, it was "Historically, Intellectual property was created as one more monopoly privilege for the monarchy."

> Actually, it isn't. Ad hominem is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it.

Which is what the poster did in bringing up the motivations of a monarchy that used some form of IP regulation that we weren't even discussing. Discrediting monarchies' motivations for wanting IP has nothing to do with the situation we have today. It's an ad hominem.

None of that has anything to do with the utility of reward-based IP laws in promoting the creation of useful IP to society. So you could also consider some argument about how monarchies used IP in medieval times to be a red herring. Regardless of the label, the argument is equally invalid.

I've actually reread my comment, and I concede the point.