Comments on: Viropiracy – because safeguarding ‘intellectual property’ is more important than saving lives

By: note

note — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:31:17 +0000

B.Dewhirst is right.

There is no right to “intellectual property” because there does not exist such property.

Ideas cannot be owned. If someone wants to protect an idea, than he should not tell. Everybody has the right to copy everything in the case he has not agreed otherwise.

By: Tom Marcinko

Tom Marcinko — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:03:57 +0000

Douglas Adams would have loved this. “…so any antibodies your immune system may have produced during your vacation on Jaglon Beta 12 would be subject to confiscation by the Planetary Health Service…”

And yes, it’s tragic that patents have kept medicine out of the hands of people who need it.

By: Quine

Quine — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:44:48 +0000

Something I’m not seeing in most of the articles on this and why it’s coming up is that these nations often get completely dicked over on the vaccine. They provide research data free and then end up paying a ton to whoever comes up with the cure, if they can even afford it.

The paranoid rambling bits aside, I suspect this is an angle to get some sort of quid pro quo, but unless this is somehow a necessary step in the eyes of the law, it’s pretty fucking retarded.

By: Paul Boccaccio

Paul Boccaccio — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:36:36 +0000

Along the same lines as DarrenT, if they’re claiming ownership, wouldn’t they be culpable, or at least assume some risk, if somebody caught their IP protected disease? Does international law have categories for gross negligence?

By: Kian

Kian — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:18:41 +0000

Will customs check to make sure your not smuggling viruses? ^_^