From: David Picon Alvarez (eleuteri@myrealbox.com)
Date: Fri Mar 04 2005 - 02:42:28 MST
> Let me tell you a funny story. There was an
> asshole who opposed human genetic engineering.
> So he filed a bunch of patents for various
> techniques that might be useful in geneng.
> But patents last only for 12 years in most cases.
> So now all those techniques are in the public domain.
So, what you're saying is it's OK to wait until patents expire, never mind
potential existential risks, not to speak of the suffering and death that
will come to pass in 12 years (or however many) because no intelligent
person could disagree with the concept of Intellectual Property(tm)?
I sort of understand copyright. You wrote it, it's yours. I don't agree with
it, but I see the point. But with patents, even if you arrive at an
independent insight, you're barred from exercising it because someone got
there first. So, patents are like a landgrab of the natural world. Granted,
a temporary landgrab, but a landgrab nonetheless, from what is, in
principle, a commons, to private hands.
--David.
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