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Google Accused of Bio-piracy
Simon Phillips writes "ZDNet is reporting
that Google has been accused of being the 'biggest
threat to genetic privacy' this year for its plan to create a searchable database of genetic information. From the article: 'Google was presented with an award as part of the Captain
Hook Awards for Biopiracy in Curitiba, Brazil, this week. The organisers allege that Google's collaboration with genomic research institute J. Craig Venter to create a searchable online database of all the genes on the planet is a clear example of biopiracy.'"
Gnetics?
OK, if theres piracy going on, wheres the torrent stream?
liqbase
There are much better things to go after google for if you don't like them (*cough*censorhip*in*China*France*Germany*US*Unwa
The monopolization of genetic information is a serious issue - people are trying to do stupid things - like attempting to apply copy protection measures (both physical and legal) to life. Life attempts to copy itself & tradional copyright / patent laws should not apply.
Unfortunately, these awards look like shameless self-promotion rather then a serious attempt to tackle the problem.
My pics.
I can understand the meaning of pirate as in someone who sails the seas and acts in piracy - stealing others' belongs by force.
I recognise the notion of piracy as in copying material which has been copyrighted, conducted by a 'pirate'. But I prefer the term copyright infringement.
But what the heck is 'Bio-piracy'? Because privacy and piracy sound vaguely familiar isn't reason enough, IMHO. Naming the awards 'the Captain Hook awards' seems even more facetious.
From TFA, "Google, in cooperation with Craig Venter, are developing plans to make all of our genomes Googlable to facilitate the brave new world of private genetically-tailored medicines" does not equal piracy, IMHO.
And to tackle their argument, they have not outlined why genetically tailored medicines are bad, not why holding them in private hands is wrong. And private means exactly what? The copyright to GNU/Linux is held in private hands. And Google giving public access to work done by the human genome sequence project seems a lot better than letting all research in the hands of a very small amount of drug companies, those that are most interested in profiting from keeping information 'secret'.
The information is being put out for "free." (advertiser supported). But wouldn't this actually be a boon for research scientists? Better searches than BLAST maybe?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you are someone with the resources to even do anything with this type of information, you will most likely be able to obtain it through sources other than Google.
This guy's the limit!
Google is monopolizing genetic resources by putting genetic information online for free?
Sounds to me like these guys are a bunch of kooks who are attacking any large company who uses the words "genetic" and "database" in the same sentence.
Google is one of the biggest, so they automatically attack.
Why is it that when a company makes information private, they are considered greedy and secretive, but when a company makes information freely accessible over the internet, they are considered pirates?
Register the editry.
I guess they're after some Yarrr-NA.
:)
Ouch, sorry about that
Making data publicly available at no charge is evil and advancing the privatisation of genetic data. That makes sense. Torvalds, Cox and Stallman must be evil for all that Free software. The Gutenberg Project must be pure evil for making all that literature publicly available - who knows what Evil Corporations(TM) might do with that information? Seems to me that this 'bio-piracy' malarkey is a thinly veiled primitivist agenda.
This made me spit out my coffee... Arrrrg!
There's a balance between communication and proliferation. There really is.
If a person is being tested for a degree on material, they shouldn't have access to the answers. But if a person is working in the field, they *should*. And if a person is curious, they probably should too.
This is just taking it too far. There may be justifiable reasons why evil corperation X in country Z shouldn't have access to information Gamma, but what real difference will it make if they can google for it. There's a much greater chance of them screwing something up if they're evil than getting something right.
Weight that against the 1000's of corperations/individuals/research groups also looking at information Gamma and doing something promising, and google is, on average, doing a good service.
I have to google for facts that make our research institute run literally daily. Usually its simple stuff like " what the hell is bentonite and how much can we put in this beaker without breaking something." or "what the heck is this photoflo stuff. It works great for this demonstration experiment, but we can't find the bottle..." a short google later, and we have a home brew wetting agent made, in the tank, and making the flow over a glass edge laminar just as we wanted.
Biopiracy? Please: Communication is a *vital* part of the scientific method. Shure, 1/1000 it might bite someone in the ass. But without modern communication pathways, we wouldn't have all these cool toys or long lives in which to buy more toys.
-=fshalor
Best explanation I could think of as well.
I read this and said WTF?
then I read teh story and said WTF?
then I read your comment and said Ahhh!
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
There are billions of years of prior art. And the argument that know one would research them otherwise is crap to... First to market in the drug world is the driving force. Even if... does that mean people can patent translated segments of ancient languages if they read them first? These people should cram grapes in their noses!
Huh...and I thought patenting genes (including ones the appear in MY body) was the real example of biopiracy.
What Google is planning certainly isn't going to stifle innovation like gene patents will--for if lack of patents ever harmed research governments can and would supply funds for researchers.
Looks like one of the April fools stories slipped in a bit early.
People leave their DNA and finger prints wherever they go, and the law is clear that whatever you leave behind is up for grabs. Where is the piracy in making an online searchable database of public-domain information?
You run your research lab based on facts from Google?
The first thing you learn, is the internet is not a reliable source of research information. Have fun on the day you do that google for how much bentonite to put into the beaker, and find out the paper you got it from on the internet was only a draft, not peer reviewed, and had a decimal point in the wrong place.
... from which many ethical and legal issues can and do arise.
Thank God For Google. They seem to be one of the few companies that actually gets the fact that information wants to be free. On top of which, it's just absolutely absurd that ANYONE other than God can get a patent on genetic sequences. It kind of reminds me of that old joke, "In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first make an apple." Anyone who can do that deserves to get the patent for the genetic sequence of an apple.
That's kind of like getting a patent for the number pi. That would actually be a good one. If you have the patent to the decimal sequence that makes up pi, you could really argue that you have a patent on everything, including every genetic sequence. Theoretically, pi will contain every conceivable sequence of digits somewhere in its infinitely long sequencey and thus, anything that can be encoded as a sequence of digits (movies, music, books, genes), can be found somewhere in pi. Therefore, the patent holder for pi is the patent holder for everything. QED.
Quite simple. Because those genes are taken from natively Brazilian plants and animals, used abroad for research then patented. So, if a local small industry decides they want to use that plant for something (a native plant) they must pay royalties to a corporation from a FOREIGN COUNTRY, usually a country where such plants/animals don't exist.
That's what they classify as bio-piracy. Steal native elements from a country and patent them as a property of your corporation, then sell it back to that very country or charge for royalties.
In my pants.
[Apologies. Crude, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity.]
This was a good response, thought you shouldn't have posted as AC. And the mod shouldn't have modded ya down.
/.'eans persist in attacking comments which aren't fully explained. I seem to be plauged with it.
... I couldn't believe they had the students cutting the power on before they had the cooling water flowing. (Even though it states clearly in the manual that the water should be checked before the power is turned on.)
Why do
There is a *lot* of information you can get from reading any single article, website, response, etc. But any engineer worth his/her degree would *never* rely on one source. Even stuff you see in peer reviewed articles can be wrong. (I've seen it!)
However, there is something to be learned even from the wrong article. Sure, I didn't go into this in my comment. I'm sorry I assumed that my point would come across without an explanation.
An example:
Looking up laser howtos the other day for revitalizing our laser lab. Was googleing for hints and docs about a few Spectra Physics argon ion lasers. (Series 2000 and a Stabilitte 2011). One of the first startup procedures I found for the 2000 was from a college graduate student physics lab.
I had to ignore the startup (and shut down too, since that was even worse.) but the howto had one of the clearest tuning procedures I've seen for getting a dummy to safely align the laser.
Should I condem google for providing me with a howto that could result in an incident if there was a water leak? No. I could only blame myself for being stupid.
-=fshalor
Well,here's the deal. There is a situation on the ground, and there are the causes and principles.
The situation on the group is that Genetically Manipulated stocks are appearing on the market. Point 1) some people have a fear of genes as part of Secrets Man Was Not Meant to Know.
Genetics have great promise: GM foods they can produce high yields, resist pests, drouts, all kinds of things. They could greatly relieve world hunger and all kinds of other stuff.
Point 2) in spite of great promise, we have a patent system in effect here. Companies are scouring the world for certain genetic traits in plants, then patenting them and reselling them. They then "manage their rights" by engineering sterile seeds, or milling the seeds before they provide them to famine-struck regions. So your dirt-poor third world farmer suddenly sees his plants being used, the genes being taken, then sold back in a "BRM-d form" so that the big drunk companies get rich.
Genetic testing can improve people's lives: ask anyone who's had a cancer identified via a mutation; Likewise Genetic therapy.
Point 3) Sure they can save lives, but the human genomes are being patented, and people are making money off of our inherent makeup.
Point 4) Only rich companies and individuals have the means to play with genes this way. So by google putting this information out, they are favoring the exploitation of the poor by the rich.
That's the thought underlying it as near as I can make out: it's a combination of irrational fear of the unknown, outrage at shameless exploitation committed in the name of being humanitarian, perfectly reasonable resistance to the closed nature of information, and populist distrust of the motives of the rich and powerful.
google falls into categories one and four more than two and three, which is why most researchers are confused by the ranking. To the other side, the exploitation and privatization of common goods is part and parcel of the capitalist system.
Personally, I'm in favor of mapping all the genes out. And I've got a lovely mutation I'd love to get rid of.
Why use the word "steal" here, though? Are these organisms being smuggled out of the country, or at they being legitimately and legally removed for study? If the latter, anyone accusing them of theft (or piracy) is just rabble-rousing. There may be some legitimate cause for concern regarding local economies, here, but neither piracy nor theft is occurring. And tarring Google with this is doubly asinine.