On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 10:23 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Doug: "You work for software companies. I write for a living. Very
> nice of Jonas Salk, but what are we to do?"
>
> [WS:] Granted, intellectual property rights do some good (like
> protecting interests of authors like yourself) but they also do a lot
> of bad, like creating monopoly rights for something that would
> normally be a public good. For example, big pharma companies patent
> ingredients used in traditional medicine in Africa, which amounts to
> neo-colonial exploitation by the means of law. Or record labels using
> it to steal music from musicians
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bihari_brothers).
>
> So the proper question to ask is whether intellectual property rights
> create more good than bad for society. I am not sure what the answer
> is, but I have an impression that bads outweigh goods, so the point is
> to change that balance instead of defending the status quo or
> overthrowing it altogether.
>
> One area where the system of intellectual property rights seems to go
> absolutely crazy is the protection of ideas instead of specific
> products e.g. genetically modified seeds. For example, if the plant
> that a farmer grew out of genetically modified seed produced a seed,
> the idea of genetic modification reproduced in that second seed is
> patent protected, but it should not be (I know, Monstanto and Jordan
> would disagree :) ) If patents could be used that way, some really big
> bads - like destruction of traditional medicine by big pharma, could
> be avoided, even though some software writers may be hurt. But if I
> were to weigh traditional medicine against an electronic gizmo that
> will become obsolete the next day it was released, I would go for the
> former.
>
> Wojtek
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
-- Facebook: Gar Lipow Twitter: GarLipow Grist Blog: http://www.grist.org/member/1598 Static page: http://www.nohairshirts.com