Re: thought for the week

On Wed, 21 Jul 1999, Tim Phillips <hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> wrote:
>
> A world of copyright is like a world in which,
> when I buy a tomato, I may eat the tomato, but
> I may not plant its seeds and grow my own tomatoes
> for market.

If this were true, then it would be a world like... ours. This is exactly the situation of farmers who buy genetically engineered seeds from Monsanto. Replanting the seeds from the crops would violate Monsanto's intellectual property rights (the seeds are patented), and growers must sign an agreement that they will not save any of the seeds when they purchase them.

Soon this may be an outdated strategy though. They have a new "Terminator" technology whereby the seeds will grow crops that produce sterile seeds. Maybe an analogy to some proposed digital copying prevention technology here somewhere?

Gregory Coleman
greg[_at_]express.com
fax 650-812-3573 Received on Fri Jul 23 1999 - 21:31:23 GMT