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[scrdest]

@FD: Source on the case?

And whether they enforce it with sterile plants or frivilous lawsuits is irrelevant to the fact that they shouldn't be able to enforce it at all. The real problem is the fact that intellectual property is still considered a valid concept; it needs to be comprehensively done away with.

In which case, how do you propose they are developed? It's like taking copyright protection from artists without the artists' benefit of having enough of an individual personality and connection to the customers that they could viably depend on the customer goodwill. Seeing as farmers have already tried to circumvent the laws, it's tantamount to just closing shop already, and that's just not viable unless you want people to literally starve.

[Loud Whispers]

What I *expect* is that it's illegal to reverse-engineer the seeds, and I know they're designed such that people have to buy more.  Which seems completely fair to me.  Kinda surprised foreign governments or humanitarian groups haven't designed free, virile alternatives...  Suggesting there are laws prohibiting that.  Or that bioengineering is really time consuming and people deserve to profit from it?

Do you want uberwheat wrecking the local ecosystem? Granted, with gene flow, it is inevitable that uberweeds sprout up. Perhaps the extra food yields is worth the damage it wreaks, it's not as if farming isn't already damaging in of itself.

[Bohandas]

In which case, how do you propose they are developed? It's like taking copyright protection from artists without the artists' benefit of having enough of an individual personality and connection to the customers that they could viably depend on the customer goodwill.

Isn't copyright law more about protecting the interests of sleazy record producers?

[Tack]

IP copyright actually makes a lot of sense. If you developed a world and characters, and then someone decided to steal all of that, make the exact same story on a different medium and cut you out of a single cent- then somehow I doubt you'd bother creating original ideas.

It can be taken to extremes, with a lot of "massive universe" concepts it can seem pretty farfetched that you have to buy incredibly exclusive rights just to make up a unique character within it (looking at you GW), but I do enjoy that it's the creator's way of keeping reign on the story. If someone goes too far off canon, you can pull them back into line... Well... Sometimes. (GW).
Then again, sometimes it can cause a massive issue, like when selling cosplay related to the universe is grounds for a lawsuit (Guess Who.).

... Not to point any fingers (Fuck you Games Workshop.).

[scrdest]

In which case, how do you propose they are developed? It's like taking copyright protection from artists without the artists' benefit of having enough of an individual personality and connection to the customers that they could viably depend on the customer goodwill.

Isn't copyright law more about protecting the interests of sleazy record producers?

Perhaps, but that's sorta the point - an artist could get by on the customer goodwill - not every one all the time. Suppliers of basically industrial raw resources such as agricultural biotech companies equally depend on the copyright law as status quo - but unlike the former, they don't really have an alternative if they lose it.

Even still, if it were about protecting record producers, it's only a non-issue nowadays, where a musician may reliably craft and disseminate their work online, using readily accessible, if sometimes specialist, software - but that's only the case thanks to home computing and the Internet - if you would remove copyright laws a hundred (random number, less would probably work better) years ago, you'd get roughly the same situation as Biotech is in nowadays.

Either you'd protect the producers, sleazy as they may be, or you would harm everyone by putting the only people with the infrastructure to meet the needs of secondary producers - musicians in this case - out of business, either until the remaining surviving producers are even more of a monopoly or until *nobody* can release a LP because there is nobody able to handle it.

[Rolan7]

In which case, how do you propose they are developed? It's like taking copyright protection from artists without the artists' benefit of having enough of an individual personality and connection to the customers that they could viably depend on the customer goodwill.

Isn't copyright law more about protecting the interests of sleazy record producers?

That's certainly the way it's framed.  Record producers really were sleazy, profit-motivated businessmen...  But the reaction that intellectual property and data like music should be impossible to sell?  That a creator has no special ownership over what they create?  I don't accept that.

Heck, most of the issue with record companies was that the creators didn't own rights to their own music.  Because they traded it to record companies in exchange for valuable services they needed, but still.

I do believe in the open-source software model, but it's situational and should be opt-in.

[Sergarr]

IP copyright actually makes a lot of sense. If you developed a world and characters, and then someone decided to steal all of that, make the exact same story on a different medium and cut you out of a single cent- then somehow I doubt you'd bother creating original ideas.

I don't think creativity works that way.

Topic-related: For some reason I now want to write a DBZ fanfiction about Krillin in Roshi's sunglasses breaking every villain's plot in DBZ.

[Flying Dice]

@FD: Source on the case?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc_v_Schmeiser

It's more complex and neither side which is normally argued is correct.

all claims had been dropped that related to patented seed in the field that was contaminated in 1997; the court only considered the GM canola in Schmeiser's 1998 fields, which Schmeiser had intentionally concentrated and planted from his 1997 harvest. Regarding his 1998 crop, Schmeiser did not put forward any defence of accidental contamination.

Basically, Monsanto dropped charges relating to the guy's field in 1997, which was a case of accidental contamination, but proceeded with charges for 1998, which is the year where he intentionally replanted the Monsanto strain.

The Court dismissed the argument that "use" of patented cells or genes applied only in the context of their isolated form. Nor does the fact that Schmeiser did not use Roundup herbicide on his crops preclude "use" of the gene. Even though the plants propagate without human intervention the realities of modern agriculture mean there is always human intervention in the growth of plants and thus farming is a method of "use" of plant genes.

The Court ruled that Schmeiser deprived Monsanto of its monopoly on the special canola plant by storing and planting the Roundup Ready canola seeds pursuant to his commercial interests. Thus, Schmeiser is considered to have infringed section 42 of the Patent Act. The Court, however, disagreed with the damages given by the trial judge as there was no profit directly resulting from the invention itself.

1. The nature of modern agriculture constitutes the use of "owned" genes.

2. The farmer did violate Monsanto's rights to that strain.

3. The original court's damages were overruled; the Court ruled that the farmer didn't directly profit from the gene.

It was neither a case of Monsanto persecuting a hapless and innocent farmer nor a conniving thief trying to steal Monsanto property for his own benefit, but mass media cannot into nuance.

[penguinofhonor]

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[GiglameshDespair]

If you pick up a CD, make copies, and then sell them, would be a closer analogy.

[EnigmaticHat]

Meh, Monsanto massively lobbies the government and has a bunch of its former employees in government positions relating to its own regulation.  Any argument defending them can only be tenable if you're claiming that they're no worse than all the other corrupt corporations trampling on our democracy.

[Levi]

Feels like: 47^o Celsius"

Pretty sure I'd die.

[Flying Dice]

Meh, Monsanto massively lobbies the government and has a bunch of its former employees in government positions relating to its own regulation.  Any argument defending them can only be tenable if you're claiming that they're no worse than all the other corrupt corporations trampling on our democracy.

Not arguing that point, just saying that it's equally bullshit to argue that they were beyond the pale of corporate evil or that the farmer was genuinely innocent in every respect.

[Teneb]

Feels like: 47^o Celsius"

Pretty sure I'd die.

Feels like a typical midsummer day then? (except at the wrong time of the year?)

[penguinofhonor]

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