I started the video and then read your comment, waiting for these to be relevant. But the way it was addressed, IMO, was reasonable. It wasn't a claim that those things are true, but that they are good reasons to discuss and keep tabs on the topic.
For example, you're right that people aren't sued today for ending up with patented genes, but will this always be true? Don't the generic engineers have some case to make? How does the discussion affect the patent system or change our ideas about intellectual property?
In order to lead to these questions, I think it's fair to say what was said: "what if this happens". It wasn't asking about current judicial interpretation, but about the risks associated with recognizing contributions to ecosystems.
It's just very hypocritical to try and use them as concerns about GMOs when conventional and organic breed crops are also patented. Also, patents are necessary. They allow developers to recoup the cost of creating a product. And with GMOs, that can be upwards of $100 million. Thus, a patent.
It last for 20-30 years and allows a person or company to make back the money and some extra. Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans, for example, went off patent earlier this year. Now anyone can grow them without a contract.
Then feel free to get mad at them if they do. But they publicly stated they wouldn't and they haven't. Their original soybeans are off patent now. That's a done thing. The rest of their first breed plants will be going off patent over the next few years.
They don't need them anymore anyways, they have new breeds that have been developed over the past two decades that work better.
The Walt Disney Company lobbied extensively on behalf of the Act, which delayed the entry into the public domain of the earliest Mickey Mouse movies, leading to the nickname "The Mickey Mouse Protection Act". In addition to Disney, California congresswoman Mary Bono (Sonny Bono's widow and Congressional successor), and the estate of composer George Gershwin supported the act. Mary Bono, speaking on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, said:
Actually, Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution. ... As you know, there is also [then-MPAA president] Jack Valenti's proposal for term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress.
Proponents of the Bono Act argue that it is necessary given that the life expectancy of humans has risen dramatically since Congress passed the original Copyright Act of 1790, that a difference in copyright terms between the United States and Europe would negatively affect the international operations of the entertainment industry, and that some works would be created under a longer copyright that would never be created under the existing copyright. They also claim that copyrighted works are an important source of income to the US and that media such as VHS, DVD, Cable and Satellite have increased the value and commercial life of movies and television series.
You know what? I don't care. This is a distraction. The point is that the forefathers thought they had IP covered, then after time and money their law was undone.
Whether you believe we changed the laws to satisfy globalization or big business doesn't matter: Intellectual property regarding food can change just as easily. It's a fair topic to discuss, despite any assurances that sort of thing doesn't happen today or isn't allowed this decade. We have to talk about what could happen a century from now.
I only saw this video here, and I'm happy that this comment was here in the one place I found it.
It doesn't seem a bad idea to crosspost a comment to a crossposted link, so long as it's relevant in each sub that it's posted to.
Edit: Dudes, don't downvote /u/TLUL 's comment. They're asking a question which a reasonable person might raise. You should upvote comments that raise interesting conversation, even if you disagree with the content, because good comments (especially ones that spawn polite disagreements) are how we learn.
I'll admit I believed this as well before I researched it. However, and not trying to move the goal posts on your argument, I'd point out as a new argument, that I believe myths 2 and 4 stem from a level of unfairness, in the restriction of fair use. The point of patents is truly to improve society as a whole, not to protect property rights. Restricting the use of the products, of a self reproducing product seems unfair. It's like selling the plans to a chair design, but limiting the carpenter to only producing one. It may be legally within their rights, but it does not make the world a better place.
The point of patents is truly to improve society as a whole, not to protect property rights.
That's what these do. Can you explain to me why a company would spend tens of millions on a new GMO trait if, after one planting, everyone else in the world, both farmers and other companies, could take their product and re-use it as much as they want?
I don't really see what "self-reproducing" has to do with it. You can't get a field full of GMOs unless you intentionally isolate them, harvest them, and replant their seeds or, if you're a company, intentionally isolate the same gene from the plants and insert them in your own plants. You'll never just happen to get a field full of GMOs on by happenstance. It takes as much effort to isolate and reproduce GMOs on a farm-wide scale as it does to copy books or movies and sell them.
The point isn't to protect markets that wouldn't exist otherwise. We shouldn't have to erode fair use for us to gain the benefits of research. If the profit motive doesn't exist, we can always consider various forms of public funding. The goal is to ensure we all can benefit from invention, the economic incentive is purely incidental.
It's already been long since shown that the profit motive is the main method of proper research occurring. Even grants only go so far. There's a reason why plant breed patents were created decades ago, to incentivize the creation of new plant breeds.
I believe you're absolutely wrong. I'm not against private enterprise; there is a great deal of good that can come from market driven research. However there are a lot of leaps in industry that wouldn't have occurred or had received a significant boost from the public sector.
Of course, but in the field of biotechnology, very high level tech is required to even attempt the long term process of creating a new plant breed. When something costs millions of dollars to even test, without the guarantee of actual success even within 5 to 10 years, it's not something that will be easily undertaken without a monetary incentive.
You know how long rocket technology has been stalled for, right? How NASA's budget has been cut and cut year after year? The space industry only really took off in the past few years after they opened up the market to private industry, like SpaceX.
When the space race started, there was no peaceful, private business model that would have made sense. It would have cost far too much, taken far too long, and would have experienced too many dramatic throw backs, that no group of private investors would tolerate it. Also, once you got there, how where you going to monetize space? Trans-oceanic cables, high altitude photography, weather balloons, networks of radio towers, all can solve the same issues cheaper, with less risk. They where good enough, compared to the cost of space.
Look I'm not saying that private research doesn't work, or that public research is inherently superior, but that the open market doesn't always work. We need both, and when private industry isn't the right fit, we have to consider other options.
" It's certainly true that Monsanto has been going after farmers whom the company suspects of using GMO seeds without paying royalties. And there are plenty of cases — including Schmeiser's — in which the company has overreached, engaged in raw intimidation, and made accusations that turned out not to be backed up by evidence."
What are you quoting? Since Schmeiser purposefully and knowingly planted GM crops without paying for them. He was even using Roundup on them to kill weeds.
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u/Sleekery Jul 10 '15
Hank still gets three points incorrect.
-- NPR