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Indonesia Stops Sharing Avian Virus Samples

Posted by kdawson on from the intellectual-property-flu dept.

dankrabach writes "Indonesia has apparently decided to play the IP game, with the world's health at stake. The country, one of the hardest-hit by avian flu, has stopped submitting virus samples to the World Health Organization, and is negotiating to sell them to an American drug company that makes the vaccine. They feel slighted when they give away such samples, but then cannot afford the patented vaccines. Logical to me, given the rules of the game; however, can't we come up with some GPL'ish license to free any product based on this data?"

7 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. Pirates! by drewzhrodague · · Score: 4, Funny

    Looks like we're going to have to wait for the pirates to bring a few hundred million copies over through the airports, wide-open borders, by sea, or other means. Couldn't they have put some DRM into this?

    Seriously can't wait to get my copies!

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    Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
    1. Re:Pirates! by crayz · · Score: 5, Funny

      Just wait until the pharm companies find out you illegaly transferred H5N1 IP to your system, and then made *billions* of copies of it. Your doctor will get a strongly-worded takedown notice, that's for sure

    2. Re:Pirates! by Darth_brooks · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh, come on. You're just getting lawsuit happy. Those viruses were for *personal use*, he didn't know that he was also allowing others access to copyrighted materials. It must have been an accidental misconfiguration.

      --
      There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
  2. Option 2 by Dorsai65 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Maybe make pricing inversely proportional to the number of samples provided?

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    --- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
  3. Re:Avian Flu by Sneftel · · Score: 4, Funny

    The penguin lobby is pretty powerful here.

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  4. When viruses are outlawed... by mblase · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...only outlaws will have viruses.

    Hey, I actually like the sound of that.

    1. Re:When viruses are outlawed... by wildwood · · Score: 2, Funny

      Sure, you like it now... but wait until you're locked up for sneezing.

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      normal(adj)- people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots [DECS]