Encoding DNA as Music for Copyrighting?

superposed writes "A Silicon Valley executive is proposing that biotech companies could improve on the U.S.'s 20-year patent protection for DNA sequences by encoding them as digital music files (Lame Free Registration required) and using copyright protection, which can last up to 100 years. Right now this is just a suggestion, and for what it's worth, the original author of some of the DNA-to-music software thinks its a bad idea. But it's still disturbing somehow."

Comments

Re:If it's my DNA...

[glwtta]

A specific DNA sequence is never patented - what's patented is a sequence plus markup, identifying variations (that occur between different people, or peoples for that matter), such as insertions, deletions and SNPs.

So no, it's not your DNA, nor is it anyone else's.

And yeah, patents are supposed to protect inventions, but then the MPAA and RIAA are supposed to entertain us, rather than intefere with the computer industry through asinine laws (while producing absolute shit in the meantime).

Damn this is stupid.

[seebs]

Copyright protection on the music would not extend backwards to the thing the music was based on. Does no one bother to read the law before spewing about this stuff?

Yes, you might well have copyright to the music. (You might not; if it's purely deterministic, it's not itself a creative work, and is at most a derivative work.) However, a recording of some guy singing Shakespeare does not give you any control over the original text.