This Bacteria is Violating Copyright

Thu
Mar 24 2011 3:19pm

This Bacteria is Violating Copyright

Mycoplasma mycoides caught in the act! What would have been science fiction twenty years ago is now so mundane that it’s caught in the frustrating labyrinth of copyright law.

Back in May 2010, geneticist J. Craig Venter announced the creation of the first synthetic life form, having replaced the genetic code in a Mycoplasma capricolum bacterium with DNA he and his team had created themselves, thus turning into a Mycoplasma mycoides. To differentiate the synthetic code from naturally occuring DNA code, they composed theirs of several quotes, including one from James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man along with a quote from Richard Feynman.

The Feynman quote turned out to be misphrased, but the real oddness arose when Venter received a cease & desist letter from the Joyce estate stating that the work quoted was not, in fact, under fair use, as Venter and his team had assumed. Of course, by then the bacterium had already successfully reproduced. (Can't stop the signal?)

Which brings to mind the question...are we now nearing a point where copyright law can result in the retraction of a life form?

[Via Forbes]

Stubby the Rocket is the voice and mascot of Tor.com. Stubby doesn’t have any DNA, but is not opposed to getting some.

1. Sharat Buddhavarapu

view all by Sharat Buddhavarapu | Thursday March 24, 2011 03:55pm EDT

This is where copyright and intellectual property laws go too far. How can anyone be this ridiculous. With works that important, and attributions that huge, nobody is mistaking Venter's naming conventions as original. I mean if the names of DNA sequences were quotes, and I saw that somewhere, I'd Google it, not assume that some scientist whose papers I can't get through because the writing is so boring wrote some unbelievable quote.

2. carandol

view all by carandol | Thursday March 24, 2011 04:16pm EDT

Presumably Venter is in breach of copyright for the first copying of Joyce, but it was the bacterium that produced subsequent copies. Can you take a microbe to court? :-)

And what happens when we have the ability to encode an entire book into a life form and release it to reproduce in the wild? What if it's infectious? "Sorry, I can't come in to work today. I've come down with a bug. The doctor reckons its Wikileaks Flu. He gave me some antibiotics and said to avoid government agents for the next two weeks."

3. Singularly plural

Thursday March 24, 2011 05:41pm EDT

This bacterium is violating copyright

or

These bacteria are violating copyright

4. Gerry__Quinn

Thursday March 24, 2011 05:44pm EDT

The case has not gone to court (and I suspect it will not). That somebody wrote a cease and desist letter proves little. In any case, I don't see the problem - if one wishes to inscribe literary quotations in bacteria there are plenty of sources where there will be no copyright issues, ensuring the safety of scientists and bacteria alike. Presumably Venter will keep this in mind with regard to future creations.

5. Paul Grosse

Thursday March 24, 2011 06:33pm EDT

Umm if a book that was originally published almost a hundred years ago doesn't qualify as public domain what the hell does.

6. Nentuaby

Thursday March 24, 2011 08:27pm EDT

The Joyce estate is barking up a tree, there. A short excerpt for purposes of literary quotation most certainly is Fair Use... I guess some people and institutions just send out the Cease and Desist letter first and consult copyright law later, if ever.

7. Gamethyme

Friday March 25, 2011 01:54pm EDT

In the US, copyright is based on publication date. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is Public Domain in the US.

In most of the rest of the world, it's based on the date of the author's death. Joyce's writings will enter the Public Domain in the UK next year, for example.

So the life form in question really only violates the Joyce Estate's copyright if it leaves the US.

8. FrancisG

Friday March 25, 2011 02:01pm EDT

The only way for the Joyce estate to have its way is by killing every bacterium of that kind. In other words : The Joyce estate demands genocide.

9. N. Mamatas

Friday March 25, 2011 03:41pm EDT

The Joyce estate is especially, uh, enthusiastic. This recent New Yorker article might shed a little light:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/06/19/060619fa_fact

10. hemo_jr

Wednesday March 30, 2011 11:30am EDT

If I read Joyce, the copyrighted work is encoded in my memory. I am a life form, just as Venter's Mycoplasma mycoides.

If Joyce's estate prevails, am I in violation?

11. MikeK

Monday April 18, 2011 04:49pm EDT

Rumor has it that The Grand Unifying Theory of Phsyics is the intellectual property of the video game company, Valve. Anyone trying to discover or use it will be sued.

12. Ludon

view all by Ludon | Monday April 18, 2011 10:44pm EDT

@#10 hemo_jr

I'll play along. No. You are not in violation because you are a copy you created for your own private use - as long as you keep the copy of the work that that you copied from. If, like with any CDs you may have ripped, you give that copy away but retain your personal use copy then you are in violation.

I think there's a lesson here - don't borrow books from a library to read because if you retain the story after you return the book you could be in violation.

Subscribe to this thread