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If someone steals something that has taken $75 million to develop that might save lives, the naive take is that they are the good guy. However, if we as a socie

If someone steals something that has taken $75 million to develop that might save lives, the naive take is that they are the good guy. However, if we as a society accept that theft as okay in these circumstances, the collateral damage is that companies like Ventria no longer invest large sums of money to develop these life saving improvements and then society ends up without these life saving improvements because they are never developed. From a first order effects perspective, the person stealing the seeds is a good guy. Once you take into account second and third order effects over the long haul, people stealing these developments are undermining the system that produced them in the first place. Without that system in place, society will be worse off long term.

tracker1 7y ago
I'm not convinced stuff that grows naturally should even qualify as protected intellectual property. Personally, I think that IP law has been extended with way too few checks on that expansion and we as a society are generally the worse for it. Patents are emphatically not used for their stated constitutional purpose and should be rolled back favoring trade secrets laws. I also feel that foods/medications must have two distinct, separately owned sources in order to be broadly sold. That's just how I feel about it from a security stance.
- shagie 7y ago
  The full text of the passage about the seeds: > Last year, a Chinese national who was a research professor at Kansas State University was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for stealing valuable American rice seeds — a trade secret — that can be used to treat gastrointestinal disease, antibiotic-associated diarrhea, hepatic disease, osteoporosis and inflammatory bowel disease. So yes, this was prosecuted under trade secret and economic espionage law.

tracker1 7y ago

I'm not convinced stuff that grows naturally should even qualify as protected intellectual property. Personally, I think that IP law has been extended with way too few checks on that expansion and we as a society are generally the worse for it. Patents are emphatically not used for their stated constitutional purpose and should be rolled back favoring trade secrets laws. I also feel that foods/medications must have two distinct, separately owned sources in order to be broadly sold. That's just how I feel about it from a security stance.

shagie 7y ago
The full text of the passage about the seeds: > Last year, a Chinese national who was a research professor at Kansas State University was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for stealing valuable American rice seeds — a trade secret — that can be used to treat gastrointestinal disease, antibiotic-associated diarrhea, hepatic disease, osteoporosis and inflammatory bowel disease. So yes, this was prosecuted under trade secret and economic espionage law.