Extra Credit blog--free culture

The movie that we watched in class was about free culture and freedom in general from patents and the government that has regulated this. The movie talks about how patents have evolved from using someone’s invention in four years after it was created to a patent extending to forever. This guy David, talks about how we are losing the battle of freedom and that culture is being stolen from people through patents.

First, I found this entire speech to be interesting, but one thing I would like to talk about is the Homer Simpson problems of having to pay $25,000 to the company that owns the Simpsons for a two second background. This just goes to show you how greedy people have gotten throughout society in the last hundred years. Patents were not a forever thing, but as soon as someone got a hold of it and realized they could make a lot of money, that is when it took off. The recession today, where did it start off…The greed of the CEO’s and banks that thought they could make a pretty penny off of someone. Patents have not become as large of a problem yet because it has not put us into a recession. America doesn’t do anything unless there is a problem with MONEY for the CEO’s, and patents are not exceptions!

However, one thing that needs to be addressed is if patents were to become more lacks, like in the 1700s, then the person who made the creation that is being patented will lose money. That is not entirely far for that person to lose money when they have clearly made it as their livelihood. There needs to be some moderation that satisfies the majority of people without the creator losing too much money. Our economy has to come into play at some point. Forever is forever to long lol.

Genetics is where patents will start to have the largest problem in my opinion. This is another problem that needs to be addressed and fixed before it becomes a problem. If you are a geneticist working in a lab and you discover a trait that is expressed on a specific gene, you may patent that gene as yours. The problem comes into play when another trait, say cancer, is discovered on the same gene. The second geneticist cannot do anymore research on that gene without paying the patents and first geneticist money. This problem can cost people there lives, or create explosions for that first geneticist to do whatever they want with “their” gene like put it into an animal to create a mutation. The book Next by Michael Crichton is a wonderful novel about the over use of gene patents. It is not all scientific it is also just a really good read!