3 ms·

All of these are examples of actions which could be described in ways that make them sound like non-offenses (ie, a sequence of individual actions which don't s

All of these are examples of actions which could be described in ways that make them sound like non-offenses (ie, a sequence of individual actions which don't sound like offenses if you ignore the context) but which are actually offenses when you look at all of the actions together. You can misleadingly describe 3taps' actions, entering a store you've been banned from disguised, or luring someone to the forest to shoot them, in ways that make them sound legit (please don't be that guy who takes issue with my not presenting them cleverly enough; you don't pay me enough to take the time to make the analogies airtight.) Taking this back to the original point about Monsanto: it's not legal to isolate their seeds and then grow them while using roundup, without first paying the fee to have their patented roundup-ready seeds. Because it's illegal to skip the license fee. Several layers of posts back, you described certain farmers' actions in ways that sound legit, but when you take the actions all together they're clearly attempting to use the special properties of Monsanto's seeds without paying, which is illegal.

thaumasiotes 12y ago
This is going to begin in a somewhat disorganized fashion. You can "misleadingly describe" something by leaving information out, as when I describe fatally shooting someone as "discharging a firearm". But that isn't just phrasing something in a way that makes it sound better, that's leaving information out. In all the examples you've discussed, one of the component actions is a violation on its own; it's not possible to decompose them into actions which are actually innocuous (as opposed to "phrased to sound innocuous"). There is an element of illegality which remains present as you decompose the offense. That isn't true for the case of spraying your legally-obtained Roundup-ready wheat with Roundup. It appears to me that the reasoning here goes "if we do the obvious thing, a patent on Roundup-ready wheat will be worthless, and so therefore we need to contort the legal system until such a patent has value". But that isn't even a legal principle; it's quite possible to obtain various privileges through the legal system such that the normal benefits of those privileges cannot be extracted (even if I have a trademark on White (tm) brand paper, I can't stop other paper vendors from calling theirs white). The need to contort the legal system is an indication that patents on wheat varieties are a bad idea. At root, this is because wheat has volition of its own; it wants to spread. There is analogous law for animals which makes the owner responsible for what (say) his dog does; if that system were adopted here, the licensed RR-wheat grower would be liable for something like facilitating or contributing to patent infringement. I've assumed that a situation where a crime can be decomposed into parts that are entirely legal represents an undesirable twisting of the legal system. The closest analogy I know is the crime of blackmail, which is composed of entirely legal actions (if you threaten to do something illegal, it's actually a different crime, extortion). Legal scholarship is divided over blackmail; many people don't think it should be criminal at all precisely because it involves taking only legal actions. This establishes a couple of things: (1) Even if you don't think there's any value in the principle "two non-crimes don't make a crime", a lot of people do, which makes it a very reasonable criticism of a situation that violates it, and (2) crimes of this kind are extremely unusual, which means it's definitely worthy of comment, and requires a little more justification than a typical law. All of that is basically by way of saying the judgment represents a bad idea, and atypical law. The difficulties involved in giving meaning to a wheat patent suggest that we shouldn't try -- it's the same argument you see against drug and alcohol prohibition, price controls, commanding the tide to recede, etc. Going back to the original comments, I responded to someone saying that "Monsanto has sued someone for having his neighbor's seeds blown into his field, and won" was untrue. I maintain that the person I responded to was wrong, and his parent was correct, because it is acknowledged by all sides that, if his neighbor's seeds hadn't blown into his field, Schmeiser, taking the same actions he did take, would not have been violating Monsanto's patent. The germination of his neighbor's wheat, over which Schmeiser had no control, transformed his legal action into a crime.
- lotharbot 12y ago
  > "There is an element of illegality which remains present as you decompose the offense." Indeed, much of US law centers around phrases like "knowingly" or "with intent". And if you decompose the offense without leaving something out -- specifically, without leaving out the intent to utilize the special GMO property of Monsanto seeds without paying for Monsanto seeds -- then the element of illegality remains in your description. It's not "the germination of his neighbor's wheat" that turned Schmeiser's action into a crime; it's his intent to transform his commercial farm from a non-RR to an RR operation by isolating RR seeds rather than paying for RR seeds. The guy you claim was wrong was actually right -- Monsanto didn't sue the guy because his neighbor's seeds blew in; they sued him because he intentionally isolated those seeds in order to use them without paying for their use. Had the seeds not blown in, Schmeiser would have had no reason to take the actions he did -- but it's his actions following the seeds blowing in, not the seeds blowing in itself, that got him sued. You can argue it's a bad law for other reasons, but the particular approach you're taking is weak.

thaumasiotes 12y ago

This is going to begin in a somewhat disorganized fashion. You can "misleadingly describe" something by leaving information out, as when I describe fatally shooting someone as "discharging a firearm". But that isn't just phrasing something in a way that makes it sound better, that's leaving information out. In all the examples you've discussed, one of the component actions is a violation on its own; it's not possible to decompose them into actions which are actually innocuous (as opposed to "phrased to sound innocuous"). There is an element of illegality which remains present as you decompose the offense. That isn't true for the case of spraying your legally-obtained Roundup-ready wheat with Roundup. It appears to me that the reasoning here goes "if we do the obvious thing, a patent on Roundup-ready wheat will be worthless, and so therefore we need to contort the legal system until such a patent has value". But that isn't even a legal principle; it's quite possible to obtain various privileges through the legal system such that the normal benefits of those privileges cannot be extracted (even if I have a trademark on White (tm) brand paper, I can't stop other paper vendors from calling theirs white). The need to contort the legal system is an indication that patents on wheat varieties are a bad idea. At root, this is because wheat has volition of its own; it wants to spread. There is analogous law for animals which makes the owner responsible for what (say) his dog does; if that system were adopted here, the licensed RR-wheat grower would be liable for something like facilitating or contributing to patent infringement. I've assumed that a situation where a crime can be decomposed into parts that are entirely legal represents an undesirable twisting of the legal system. The closest analogy I know is the crime of blackmail, which is composed of entirely legal actions (if you threaten to do something illegal, it's actually a different crime, extortion). Legal scholarship is divided over blackmail; many people don't think it should be criminal at all precisely because it involves taking only legal actions. This establishes a couple of things: (1) Even if you don't think there's any value in the principle "two non-crimes don't make a crime", a lot of people do, which makes it a very reasonable criticism of a situation that violates it, and (2) crimes of this kind are extremely unusual, which means it's definitely worthy of comment, and requires a little more justification than a typical law. All of that is basically by way of saying the judgment represents a bad idea, and atypical law. The difficulties involved in giving meaning to a wheat patent suggest that we shouldn't try -- it's the same argument you see against drug and alcohol prohibition, price controls, commanding the tide to recede, etc. Going back to the original comments, I responded to someone saying that "Monsanto has sued someone for having his neighbor's seeds blown into his field, and won" was untrue. I maintain that the person I responded to was wrong, and his parent was correct, because it is acknowledged by all sides that, if his neighbor's seeds hadn't blown into his field, Schmeiser, taking the same actions he did take, would not have been violating Monsanto's patent. The germination of his neighbor's wheat, over which Schmeiser had no control, transformed his legal action into a crime.

lotharbot 12y ago
> "There is an element of illegality which remains present as you decompose the offense." Indeed, much of US law centers around phrases like "knowingly" or "with intent". And if you decompose the offense without leaving something out -- specifically, without leaving out the intent to utilize the special GMO property of Monsanto seeds without paying for Monsanto seeds -- then the element of illegality remains in your description. It's not "the germination of his neighbor's wheat" that turned Schmeiser's action into a crime; it's his intent to transform his commercial farm from a non-RR to an RR operation by isolating RR seeds rather than paying for RR seeds. The guy you claim was wrong was actually right -- Monsanto didn't sue the guy because his neighbor's seeds blew in; they sued him because he intentionally isolated those seeds in order to use them without paying for their use. Had the seeds not blown in, Schmeiser would have had no reason to take the actions he did -- but it's his actions following the seeds blowing in, not the seeds blowing in itself, that got him sued. You can argue it's a bad law for other reasons, but the particular approach you're taking is weak.