[LAU] ASCAP Assails Free-Culture, Digital-Rights Groups

[Rob]

On Friday 16 July 2010 12:04, James Morris wrote:
> How would you feel then, if you were a farmer, about being prosecuted
> for growing plants from the seed of the plants that grew from the
> seeds purchased from international seed company X?

Or for growing plants from the seed of the plants that grew from seeds 
purchased from international seed company X... and then blew onto your farm 
from a neighboring farm.  Which was an actual case such a company was 
allowed to bring, not against the wind, but against a farmer who wasn't a 
customer of theirs.  The farmer lost.  All because said company was allowed 
a patent on the genes of a living thing.  They made billions before such a 
thing was possible, but billions weren't enough; they needed control over 
people who weren't even their customers.

"Intellectual property" has spun way, way out of control.  The only 
workable tactic I can see when faced with multi-billion-dollar corporations 
with an interest in things getting worse rather than better is to advocate 
for it all to be thrown out so that the people advocating for a less 
extreme approach to copyright/patent/trademark reform will seem like 
reasonable people willing to compromise.  

The other guys are doing the same, but to them, cutting off families' 
Internet access based on an unproven accusation and making copyright 
infringement a criminal act (or the facilitation of possible copyright 
infringement, even if no actual copyright infringement takes place) are 
examples of things they think *are* reasonable compromises.  

Rob