Canada’s copyright future: Monsanto
May 24th, 2008 | Published in Blog, Business, Design, Media, Politics, Software
Monsanto has been suing Canadian Farmers for years now. You see the wind, insects and birds all naturally spread plant genetics. Some of Mosanto’s patented genetics (what kind of dystopian world do we live in where genes can be patented?) have naturally spread to non-Monsanto farms and so the corporation is looking to collect on those “losses”. This is a good example of where tighter copyright laws might very well take us.
Just like Mosanto pays legions of lawyers and lobbyists to try and shape public opinion that they have a right to profit from natural process, the entertainment industry is doing everything it can to ensure that it has the control to profit from the natural sharing of culture.
You can do something. Write to Jim Prentice, Steven Harper and your local MP. Tell them that culture is public domain and you don’t want to hand over more control of it to corporations.
Of course my biggest question of copyright debate is this:
Why is the debate almost completely about controlling data that must be shared to work (like music), and almost not at all about data that MUST be controlled at all cost (like my social insurance number).
If you’re looking for a review of how we got where we are, click on to watch Larry Lessig’s BRILLIANT corruption lecture:
His copyright TED talk is great as well:
