The point you kept making is to the publics benefit. The "Public" is doing fine. They are taking artists work with little or no restriction. It's the artists that are suffering. Saying that there will always be artists is very sad in a sense. You are saying that no matter how miss treated artists are they'll still keep producing. Yes we will but some of us may restrict our work from the public. I have been a working artist for over 23 years and have seen my livelyhood shrivel to the point of starvation. My career is turning around mostly because I have changed directions. I have already determined that any of my work that I deem "important" I will not publish. Isn't it sad that a writer feels he should restrict work he considers to have real value because in part the public feels they already own it. The decision is not made because of the posts but they have convinced me that I am right in doing it. The public should benefit from contributions artists make but the artist should benefit as well. There's too much ugliness and destruction in the world. The world should support artists efforts not tell them their work only has value when it is free.
Hey why don't we sit on the corner with a tin cup?
I'm not a musician. I'm in the film industry. My original post said entertaiment industry. We are facing similar problems and I have great sympathy for the artists.
I used to know a lot of groups that made money as bar bands. They never made much off the albums. Now everyone is willing to play for free so most of the paying gigs turned into selling their t-shirts. Now everyone is saying they don't want to pay for their albums unless they feel like it. Personally my family needs to eat a lot more than you need a free album. Grow up. If you want free music it's because you're cheap not some noble right of free flow of information.
Laughable analogy. It's still coming from the standpoint that the public owns the work not the artist.
As to limited time, how about natural life plus fifty. Still falls under the constitution. Much more reasonable. I want my children to benefit from my work not some one who thinks they own what I do because it's only artwork. Freedom of speach means freedom to seek access to the material. Not that the material itself should be free. Why in all of the responses are artists being singled out in society as contributing nothing of any real monitary value? When people had little choice but to pay for music they were happy to do so. Give them a taste of getting it for free and they are like animals defending a rotting carcass. My quote of god given right to steal was closer to the mark than I realized.
"I sincerly hope that all musicians that create for the sole purpose of making money quit too. It'd make for a higher signal-to-noise ratio."
I take from this quote that you believe true artists should work for free. No real artists create solely for money. We'd have to be massocist. The returns generally in no way compensate for the effort. Maybe we are massocist given the responses I've gotten. If the public thinks so little of artists why do we bother?
listening to an artist work is a privilege. It's naive to believe that artists and the entertainment industry can survive without money. We're not all rich. That's a tiny number the rest struggle. It's sad that people believe that artists shouldn't have the right to control their own work and that public has the right to do with it what they will. Copyrights are there to protect artists. Without them what's the point? More than one writer in the past has chosen to keep his work from the public. Maybe they are they smart ones. Why let the public benefit from their work if their opinion is the artists shouldn't be paid for having access to it.
I didn't have the time to do more than scan your responses but they are nothing new. I haven't had a single response that supported an artist's rights. The whole thing sickens me to the point where I have to say why bother. Why create if everyone benefits but the artist. You mention prior to 1710. Well prior to 1710 artists were little more than slaves to patrons. I take you yearn for the good ole days. Based on all the responses I definately say all artists should seriously consider throwing in the towel and saying to hell with an unapprecitive public. All the whinning about the rights of the public to take from an artist at will is sad and pathetic.
There's some confusion. That wasn't my quote. My reasoning was that copyrights for artists should never expire. Why is it right that after 17 years anyone can take an artist's property.
You don't know poor until you've been an artist. I'm stunned that every single response effectively says an artist should expect to be paid for his work. I've got an idea. An artist's work is free to everyone but an artist can take anything he wants as compensation for providing his work to the public. I write a novel or song so I get to go into a store and grab a TV or two. Sound fair? How exactly do you expect artists to eat if they can't charge for their work. The argument that copyright laws are wrong is childish. You just want to be able to steal from artist and feel good about it. If you really want to feel good hold up a liquor store.
I take it your stance is artists don't create anything of real value. That's a blue collar attitude that if you didn't break a sweat you didn't do anything that has real value. Engineers draw prints. They don't physically build anything. Should they not be paid for their work.
I've gotten a lot of this artists don't create anything of real value attitude. If it has no value why do you listen to it? Does it only have value if it's free? Catch 22. It had a significant value before there was an easy cheap was of duplicating it. Now the attitude seems to be the artists should be thrilled that I bother to take their music.
Every response I've gotten all come down to people don't want to pay for music. Without copyright laws there is no incentive to provide an artists creations to the public. Copyright laws need to be revised to protect the artists from being forced to sign away rights forever in order to get published. Why can the record companies maintains rights indefinately and the artist loose them after 17 years?
"Hello Apples, meet Oranges. A house is physical property. It can be taken away. A song can't be taken away unless I take all your tapes and erase your memory of it. The law plainly intends for copyrights to eventually expire, why can't you (and the RIAA) accept that rather than trying to sue everybody into submission?"
As to apples and oranges, is the basic theory blue collar labor has value but artist create nothing of value? Their artwork is their physical creation. To say they did it without getting their hands dirty so it has no value is rediculous.
"You must remember that copyright is a government enforced monopoly. The government is granting the artist an exclusive right to copy so as to encourage the creation of intellectual works. "
How exactly are you proposing artists support themselves if they can't protect their work?
"Taking that work without compensation is stealing.
No, it's not. "
Maybe there's a better word in the English language. What are you suppose to call it when some one takes your commercial property without paying for it?
As to pervasive, what percentage think it's okay? so far I haven't gotten a single response that thinks it's not okay. Maybe pervasive isn't the best word. Unanimous is closer to the truth.
Based on the responses I've gotten I sincerely hope all musicians say to hell with it and quit. I've never heard such a pious load of horse shit as I've heard today. "we're only hurting the record companies", "if they don't want their music stolen they shouldn't let it be played on the radio". With that logic taking an apple from a fruit cart isn't stealing because he left out there in plain sight. There used to be a term for everything should be free and equal. It was called communism. Every single response has been rationalizing the fact they are taking from an artist and don't want to pay for it. Picture a world where most artists just say screw it and stop writing and performing. Is the theory that they should all work at a 7-11 and perform for free because you're too bloody cheap to pay for music?
It's like I always say. China is one of our best customers for films and music. They buy one copy of everything.
According to your theory on marketing there is nothing wrong with one a single copy of an album being bought and paid for with the rest of the copies being taken from that.
Call it what you like. If you are doing it to avoid paying for music it's stealing.
What will everyone do if artist throw in the towel and no longer "atempt" to sell their work. Duplicating digital files that are copyrighted is illegal for a reason. Is it okay to xerox books to avoid paying a writer for his work? Most of the people responding I'm sure would still see no problem. I'm in the film industry and saw a similar thing happen when video tape rentals came in. It became nearly impossible to release an independent film theatrically so they were stuck with tapes sales. Rental houses decided they didn't like independant films so they largely stopped buying. It decimated the low budget film market. In the music industry the larger companies will untimately survive. You are hurting the smaller artists. Instead of bringing down the big corporations you'll bring down their competition and ultimately limit the selection of music. Duplicating music in an attempt to avoid paying for it is still thieft. Saying it's okay because you are only hurting the big companies is still rationalizing.
Traditionally artist go on tour to promote albums. Some artists don't tour. Are you saying to them "tough luck". The record companies may make the bulk of the money but a portion still goes to the artist. Every response I've gotten has been people rationalizing the fact they want something for nothing and to still feel good about it. You're hurting artists. Deal with it.
I don't even know where to begin. First off I have a real job and it's not in the music industry. Second You contridicted yourself by saying "You can't own an idea." then mention copyright laws. I agree copyright laws need revision. Coprights should be at least be for nature life and I personally think they should extend to children and possibly grandchildren. What if I were to say you could live in your house you built for 17 years then we get to take it away from you. An artist has a right to their own work. To say they should give it away because you say so is absurd. You aren't being asked to work for free neither should they. I only made it through half your e-mail. Too much rambling. I'll restate what I said in another response. Grow up. Accept the fact you just want to think it's okay to take what you want without paying for it. Rationalizing doesn't change the facts.
First off I'm not in the music industry I'm in the film industry. How exactly are you supporting the artist by stealing their work? They are getting it from both ends. The record companies have been stealing from them for years now every feels it's okay to take their music. It's easy to rationalize it but try a simple experiment. Walk into a supermarket and pick up a loaf of bread and walk out. Let me know how it goes. And to answer your response it is the same thing. If revenues from CD sales are taken away the artist is left with concert sales. Normally concerts are done to promote album not the other way around. Grow up and admit to the fact you get off on getting something for free and deal with it.
I'm still a bit confused with the pervasive attitude that there is nothing wrong with services like Napster and that trading music is okay. I'm in the entertainment industry myself and things are getting rougher by the day. Where does it say that all intellectual property should be free? Artist have a right to get paid for their work. Taking that work without compensation is stealing. Saying it is because the record companies over charge for CDs is rationalizing the act. If the government doesn't go after Napsterlike orginizations should they go after the individuals doing the trading? Would it be better to let Napster off and give everyone else two years probation? It may feel like you are getting away with something by swapping music but in the long run you aren't. Without the influx of money the record industry will have to downsize. It will be ten times harder for new bands to make it and the selection of music will be a fraction of what it is now. The record companies won't loose in the long run. They already got rich. You'll loose.
And no I've never downloaded music.
An interesting application would be a trickle charger for hybrid cars. If they are inexpesive enough clustering them about the engine could provide a little extra mileage. Every mpg is less oil we have to import and fewer countries the government feels they have to invade.
On a related issue I'm curious why there has been no effort to incorporate solar cells into hybrid or pure electric cars? The solar cells could act as a trickle charger. You may not ever be able to run a car with them but on hybrids and pure electric vehicles they could add more mileage. Most electrics fall a bit short of being worth the trouble but if they were able to recharge from daylight while you were at work the range could effectly double. If their range was 100 miles as opposed to less than 50 I think most people would be able to commute without worrying about them running dry. Even on a straight trip you might be able to extend the range by providing a percentage of power from the cells. The range might be extended from less than fifty miles to more than sixty. Nother side benefit would be charging while stuck in traffic. It's a serious worry in areas like LA. When stuck in stop start traffic regenerative braking would be fairly useless at recovering the losses.
I like the software analogy. As software gets more complicated more conflicts and crashes arise. Genetics is a million more times as complicated. Every species is a software type and every order is an operating system. How well does a piece of code from Mac work in a Windows system? With some adapting it can work but it may have been stable in the Mac but isn't as stable in Windows. As I say now complicate that by a million. There are too many unknowns. We need to take it slow and use more caution. The potential gains are staggering. So are the potential losses.
Foreign as in alien to that species. You keep referring to what's been done for centuries. You need to get more current information. I don't want to rehash my other posts but most of the negative senerios have already happened. They aren't science fiction. Monsanto has had to send people out to manually pull up plants from farmers fields because none of the weed killers would work. GM crops have crossed with related wild species that have lead to new strains of super weeds. It's why Europe has banned most GM products. There are wild varieties in europe of many crops that the GM can cross with. The food allergy issue is still a major concern. There are hundreds of potential problems and many have come to pass and it's a new science. Also people haven't been crossing spiders with goats for centuries. It's a non sensical argument. Cross breeding happens in the wild and may be a major mechanism of evolution. Dissimilar species of snakes cross in the wild. But snakes don't apes in the wild. Then again there are those legends about Nagas(snake people). You might be right.
Did you hear about the farmer in Canada? I believe it was back in 1998 or 99. They had spent 30 or 40 years perfecting their own canola seed stock. They didn't even buy commercial seed. They were organic farmers but used a small amount of pesticide to control weeds away from the fields. He noticed that some of the grain was growing around some I believe powerline towers. He tried using Round Up but it didn't work. He knew several miles away they were using GM canola that was immune to Round Up but he wasn't using their seed. Some guys from Monsanto suspected there was contamination so they trespassed on his property and took samples. The field had been cross pollinated and had GM genes. They sued him for patent infringement and won. They confiscated his seed stock and billed him for the seed he used. They admitted his field had been accidentally contaminated but the courts still found in Monsantos favor. The last I heard he was broke and about to loose the farm. It's not a rumor. I read the court documents off the web. It's like being rapped and the rapist suing you to be paid for sexual favors. It's a sick world.
the bananna problem is from a lack of genetic diversity. It's one of the biggest problems we already had. The goal has been uniformity. It leads to few genetic options. If one population is prone to a desease they all are. Diversity is the only real solution. Genetic engineering to fix nature will be like the little dutch boy trying to stop a thousand leaks with his fingers. We aren't smart enough to "fix" nature. Far better to work with it.
Wrong. Massive difference between selective breeding and crossing species with genetic engineering. We are talking foreign genes. In nature when you cross two species that are a little too different the product is sterile. What happens when they are unrelated. There is no way to be sure of the results. Already there have been problems and it's barely in it's infancy. Also selective breeding isn't entirely benign. The modern over breed corn is weaker and more prone to desease.
We have no idea what the results could be. Most of the flu bugs that have caused the recent pandemics have come from south east Asian poultry. What if these new genes allow for more deseases to cross the species barrier? That has always been a concern with interspecies organ transplants. What if in the extreme cases plant deseases adapt to infect humans? Even if they don't we are mixing human genes with animal genes. There is a serious potential that we will cause a pandemic. It's one minor issue. The scary thing is we don't know and when we do know it will be too late. I'm not saying to stop but put resonable controls on it. When you put a fist full of insect genes in a plant your first reaction shouldn't be "cool let's go plant it in the garden and see what happens".
I totally agree I just try to voice the least extreme potential danger. It's makes it too easy to discount when you talk end of the world. Genetic chaos is the likely outcome if stiff regulations don't happen fast. Most haven't heard of the Terminator gene. Our own Agriculture Department came up with that little gem. It only allows the plant to reproduce one time. It's to prevent farmer from saving seeds. What happens when that gene infects a third world countries crops? They could potentially loose an entire harvest. What happens if it infects the world's supply of wheat or rice?
Slashdot Mirror
The point you kept making is to the publics benefit. The "Public" is doing fine. They are taking artists work with little or no restriction. It's the artists that are suffering. Saying that there will always be artists is very sad in a sense. You are saying that no matter how miss treated artists are they'll still keep producing. Yes we will but some of us may restrict our work from the public. I have been a working artist for over 23 years and have seen my livelyhood shrivel to the point of starvation. My career is turning around mostly because I have changed directions. I have already determined that any of my work that I deem "important" I will not publish. Isn't it sad that a writer feels he should restrict work he considers to have real value because in part the public feels they already own it. The decision is not made because of the posts but they have convinced me that I am right in doing it. The public should benefit from contributions artists make but the artist should benefit as well. There's too much ugliness and destruction in the world. The world should support artists efforts not tell them their work only has value when it is free.
Hey why don't we sit on the corner with a tin cup? I'm not a musician. I'm in the film industry. My original post said entertaiment industry. We are facing similar problems and I have great sympathy for the artists. I used to know a lot of groups that made money as bar bands. They never made much off the albums. Now everyone is willing to play for free so most of the paying gigs turned into selling their t-shirts. Now everyone is saying they don't want to pay for their albums unless they feel like it. Personally my family needs to eat a lot more than you need a free album. Grow up. If you want free music it's because you're cheap not some noble right of free flow of information.
Laughable analogy. It's still coming from the standpoint that the public owns the work not the artist. As to limited time, how about natural life plus fifty. Still falls under the constitution. Much more reasonable. I want my children to benefit from my work not some one who thinks they own what I do because it's only artwork. Freedom of speach means freedom to seek access to the material. Not that the material itself should be free. Why in all of the responses are artists being singled out in society as contributing nothing of any real monitary value? When people had little choice but to pay for music they were happy to do so. Give them a taste of getting it for free and they are like animals defending a rotting carcass. My quote of god given right to steal was closer to the mark than I realized. "I sincerly hope that all musicians that create for the sole purpose of making money quit too. It'd make for a higher signal-to-noise ratio." I take from this quote that you believe true artists should work for free. No real artists create solely for money. We'd have to be massocist. The returns generally in no way compensate for the effort. Maybe we are massocist given the responses I've gotten. If the public thinks so little of artists why do we bother?
listening to an artist work is a privilege. It's naive to believe that artists and the entertainment industry can survive without money. We're not all rich. That's a tiny number the rest struggle. It's sad that people believe that artists shouldn't have the right to control their own work and that public has the right to do with it what they will. Copyrights are there to protect artists. Without them what's the point? More than one writer in the past has chosen to keep his work from the public. Maybe they are they smart ones. Why let the public benefit from their work if their opinion is the artists shouldn't be paid for having access to it.
I didn't have the time to do more than scan your responses but they are nothing new. I haven't had a single response that supported an artist's rights. The whole thing sickens me to the point where I have to say why bother. Why create if everyone benefits but the artist. You mention prior to 1710. Well prior to 1710 artists were little more than slaves to patrons. I take you yearn for the good ole days. Based on all the responses I definately say all artists should seriously consider throwing in the towel and saying to hell with an unapprecitive public. All the whinning about the rights of the public to take from an artist at will is sad and pathetic.
There's some confusion. That wasn't my quote. My reasoning was that copyrights for artists should never expire. Why is it right that after 17 years anyone can take an artist's property.
You don't know poor until you've been an artist. I'm stunned that every single response effectively says an artist should expect to be paid for his work. I've got an idea. An artist's work is free to everyone but an artist can take anything he wants as compensation for providing his work to the public. I write a novel or song so I get to go into a store and grab a TV or two. Sound fair? How exactly do you expect artists to eat if they can't charge for their work. The argument that copyright laws are wrong is childish. You just want to be able to steal from artist and feel good about it. If you really want to feel good hold up a liquor store.
I take it your stance is artists don't create anything of real value. That's a blue collar attitude that if you didn't break a sweat you didn't do anything that has real value. Engineers draw prints. They don't physically build anything. Should they not be paid for their work. I've gotten a lot of this artists don't create anything of real value attitude. If it has no value why do you listen to it? Does it only have value if it's free? Catch 22. It had a significant value before there was an easy cheap was of duplicating it. Now the attitude seems to be the artists should be thrilled that I bother to take their music.
Every response I've gotten all come down to people don't want to pay for music. Without copyright laws there is no incentive to provide an artists creations to the public. Copyright laws need to be revised to protect the artists from being forced to sign away rights forever in order to get published. Why can the record companies maintains rights indefinately and the artist loose them after 17 years? "Hello Apples, meet Oranges. A house is physical property. It can be taken away. A song can't be taken away unless I take all your tapes and erase your memory of it. The law plainly intends for copyrights to eventually expire, why can't you (and the RIAA) accept that rather than trying to sue everybody into submission?" As to apples and oranges, is the basic theory blue collar labor has value but artist create nothing of value? Their artwork is their physical creation. To say they did it without getting their hands dirty so it has no value is rediculous.
"You must remember that copyright is a government enforced monopoly. The government is granting the artist an exclusive right to copy so as to encourage the creation of intellectual works. " How exactly are you proposing artists support themselves if they can't protect their work? "Taking that work without compensation is stealing. No, it's not. " Maybe there's a better word in the English language. What are you suppose to call it when some one takes your commercial property without paying for it? As to pervasive, what percentage think it's okay? so far I haven't gotten a single response that thinks it's not okay. Maybe pervasive isn't the best word. Unanimous is closer to the truth.
Based on the responses I've gotten I sincerely hope all musicians say to hell with it and quit. I've never heard such a pious load of horse shit as I've heard today. "we're only hurting the record companies", "if they don't want their music stolen they shouldn't let it be played on the radio". With that logic taking an apple from a fruit cart isn't stealing because he left out there in plain sight. There used to be a term for everything should be free and equal. It was called communism. Every single response has been rationalizing the fact they are taking from an artist and don't want to pay for it. Picture a world where most artists just say screw it and stop writing and performing. Is the theory that they should all work at a 7-11 and perform for free because you're too bloody cheap to pay for music?
It's like I always say. China is one of our best customers for films and music. They buy one copy of everything. According to your theory on marketing there is nothing wrong with one a single copy of an album being bought and paid for with the rest of the copies being taken from that. Call it what you like. If you are doing it to avoid paying for music it's stealing.
What will everyone do if artist throw in the towel and no longer "atempt" to sell their work. Duplicating digital files that are copyrighted is illegal for a reason. Is it okay to xerox books to avoid paying a writer for his work? Most of the people responding I'm sure would still see no problem. I'm in the film industry and saw a similar thing happen when video tape rentals came in. It became nearly impossible to release an independent film theatrically so they were stuck with tapes sales. Rental houses decided they didn't like independant films so they largely stopped buying. It decimated the low budget film market. In the music industry the larger companies will untimately survive. You are hurting the smaller artists. Instead of bringing down the big corporations you'll bring down their competition and ultimately limit the selection of music. Duplicating music in an attempt to avoid paying for it is still thieft. Saying it's okay because you are only hurting the big companies is still rationalizing.
Traditionally artist go on tour to promote albums. Some artists don't tour. Are you saying to them "tough luck". The record companies may make the bulk of the money but a portion still goes to the artist. Every response I've gotten has been people rationalizing the fact they want something for nothing and to still feel good about it. You're hurting artists. Deal with it.
I don't even know where to begin. First off I have a real job and it's not in the music industry. Second You contridicted yourself by saying "You can't own an idea." then mention copyright laws. I agree copyright laws need revision. Coprights should be at least be for nature life and I personally think they should extend to children and possibly grandchildren. What if I were to say you could live in your house you built for 17 years then we get to take it away from you. An artist has a right to their own work. To say they should give it away because you say so is absurd. You aren't being asked to work for free neither should they. I only made it through half your e-mail. Too much rambling. I'll restate what I said in another response. Grow up. Accept the fact you just want to think it's okay to take what you want without paying for it. Rationalizing doesn't change the facts.
First off I'm not in the music industry I'm in the film industry. How exactly are you supporting the artist by stealing their work? They are getting it from both ends. The record companies have been stealing from them for years now every feels it's okay to take their music. It's easy to rationalize it but try a simple experiment. Walk into a supermarket and pick up a loaf of bread and walk out. Let me know how it goes. And to answer your response it is the same thing. If revenues from CD sales are taken away the artist is left with concert sales. Normally concerts are done to promote album not the other way around. Grow up and admit to the fact you get off on getting something for free and deal with it.
I'm still a bit confused with the pervasive attitude that there is nothing wrong with services like Napster and that trading music is okay. I'm in the entertainment industry myself and things are getting rougher by the day. Where does it say that all intellectual property should be free? Artist have a right to get paid for their work. Taking that work without compensation is stealing. Saying it is because the record companies over charge for CDs is rationalizing the act. If the government doesn't go after Napsterlike orginizations should they go after the individuals doing the trading? Would it be better to let Napster off and give everyone else two years probation? It may feel like you are getting away with something by swapping music but in the long run you aren't. Without the influx of money the record industry will have to downsize. It will be ten times harder for new bands to make it and the selection of music will be a fraction of what it is now. The record companies won't loose in the long run. They already got rich. You'll loose. And no I've never downloaded music.
An interesting application would be a trickle charger for hybrid cars. If they are inexpesive enough clustering them about the engine could provide a little extra mileage. Every mpg is less oil we have to import and fewer countries the government feels they have to invade. On a related issue I'm curious why there has been no effort to incorporate solar cells into hybrid or pure electric cars? The solar cells could act as a trickle charger. You may not ever be able to run a car with them but on hybrids and pure electric vehicles they could add more mileage. Most electrics fall a bit short of being worth the trouble but if they were able to recharge from daylight while you were at work the range could effectly double. If their range was 100 miles as opposed to less than 50 I think most people would be able to commute without worrying about them running dry. Even on a straight trip you might be able to extend the range by providing a percentage of power from the cells. The range might be extended from less than fifty miles to more than sixty. Nother side benefit would be charging while stuck in traffic. It's a serious worry in areas like LA. When stuck in stop start traffic regenerative braking would be fairly useless at recovering the losses.
I like the software analogy. As software gets more complicated more conflicts and crashes arise. Genetics is a million more times as complicated. Every species is a software type and every order is an operating system. How well does a piece of code from Mac work in a Windows system? With some adapting it can work but it may have been stable in the Mac but isn't as stable in Windows. As I say now complicate that by a million. There are too many unknowns. We need to take it slow and use more caution. The potential gains are staggering. So are the potential losses.
Foreign as in alien to that species. You keep referring to what's been done for centuries. You need to get more current information. I don't want to rehash my other posts but most of the negative senerios have already happened. They aren't science fiction. Monsanto has had to send people out to manually pull up plants from farmers fields because none of the weed killers would work. GM crops have crossed with related wild species that have lead to new strains of super weeds. It's why Europe has banned most GM products. There are wild varieties in europe of many crops that the GM can cross with. The food allergy issue is still a major concern. There are hundreds of potential problems and many have come to pass and it's a new science. Also people haven't been crossing spiders with goats for centuries. It's a non sensical argument. Cross breeding happens in the wild and may be a major mechanism of evolution. Dissimilar species of snakes cross in the wild. But snakes don't apes in the wild. Then again there are those legends about Nagas(snake people). You might be right.
Did you hear about the farmer in Canada? I believe it was back in 1998 or 99. They had spent 30 or 40 years perfecting their own canola seed stock. They didn't even buy commercial seed. They were organic farmers but used a small amount of pesticide to control weeds away from the fields. He noticed that some of the grain was growing around some I believe powerline towers. He tried using Round Up but it didn't work. He knew several miles away they were using GM canola that was immune to Round Up but he wasn't using their seed. Some guys from Monsanto suspected there was contamination so they trespassed on his property and took samples. The field had been cross pollinated and had GM genes. They sued him for patent infringement and won. They confiscated his seed stock and billed him for the seed he used. They admitted his field had been accidentally contaminated but the courts still found in Monsantos favor. The last I heard he was broke and about to loose the farm. It's not a rumor. I read the court documents off the web. It's like being rapped and the rapist suing you to be paid for sexual favors. It's a sick world.
the bananna problem is from a lack of genetic diversity. It's one of the biggest problems we already had. The goal has been uniformity. It leads to few genetic options. If one population is prone to a desease they all are. Diversity is the only real solution. Genetic engineering to fix nature will be like the little dutch boy trying to stop a thousand leaks with his fingers. We aren't smart enough to "fix" nature. Far better to work with it.
Wrong. Massive difference between selective breeding and crossing species with genetic engineering. We are talking foreign genes. In nature when you cross two species that are a little too different the product is sterile. What happens when they are unrelated. There is no way to be sure of the results. Already there have been problems and it's barely in it's infancy. Also selective breeding isn't entirely benign. The modern over breed corn is weaker and more prone to desease.
We have no idea what the results could be. Most of the flu bugs that have caused the recent pandemics have come from south east Asian poultry. What if these new genes allow for more deseases to cross the species barrier? That has always been a concern with interspecies organ transplants. What if in the extreme cases plant deseases adapt to infect humans? Even if they don't we are mixing human genes with animal genes. There is a serious potential that we will cause a pandemic. It's one minor issue. The scary thing is we don't know and when we do know it will be too late. I'm not saying to stop but put resonable controls on it. When you put a fist full of insect genes in a plant your first reaction shouldn't be "cool let's go plant it in the garden and see what happens".
I totally agree I just try to voice the least extreme potential danger. It's makes it too easy to discount when you talk end of the world. Genetic chaos is the likely outcome if stiff regulations don't happen fast. Most haven't heard of the Terminator gene. Our own Agriculture Department came up with that little gem. It only allows the plant to reproduce one time. It's to prevent farmer from saving seeds. What happens when that gene infects a third world countries crops? They could potentially loose an entire harvest. What happens if it infects the world's supply of wheat or rice?