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They're not sterile, but they will sue you if they find you've been growing seeds from last year's crops.
Or if your neighbours crops have germinated in your lands
I don't think they've successfully sued anyone for that. The few cases I saw last time I looked people were intentionally germinating or saving/selling seeds.
So uhh... hypothetically if one were to live next to a cornfield and acquire some seeds from said field cough somehow cough, would those purely hypothetical seeds grown in one's garden then constitute corn piracy?
Asking for a friend of course.
You wouldn't download a corn would you?
Saving seed for the farms own use is expressly allowed under plant variety protection and patent laws in the U.S.
This is why the seed companies created contracts that they require all growers to sign before being allowed to purchase GMO crops. The prohibition from saving seed is from the signed agreement not from the patent or PVP.
Say if you got grain from the farmer for your bird feeder. Then if you happen to use the grain as seed to plant some for next year's bird feeder --- completely legal. You are not bound by the agreement between the farmer/seed company. Unless you try to sell the grain/seed to another person. Then you are in violation of the seed companies patent in the U.S.
Remember that corn shows a severe amount of inbreeding depression. So the F2 plant will not produce as much as the farmers F1 did the year before.
That is a reason why most farmers like to purchase seeds every season anyways. It's way more predictable and you may want to change the strain depending on many variables.
Farming, especially commodity crops like wheat, is an extremely risky business. Taking out some risk is often worth it.
Modern farming is way more complicated and scientific than most people realize. The portrayal of farmers as bumbling idiots in popular media is not helping.
It would constitute theft.
Why invent technology to control people when you can just use the law?
No they won't.
They will sue you if you take your neighbors pesticide resistant seeds, sow them, douse them in pesticide so only the resistant ones survive, and sow your entire field with them.
You should be allowed to do that.
I agree, but you aren't. I think all IP law is stupid, but until i'm president of the universe, it's still the law.
Yes, they will.
You're taking the approach of an independent farmer that didn't sign a contract with Monsanto. What you said mostly aligns with that scenario.
For the farmer that did sign a contract with Monsanto, that is a standard and required clause, and they do enforce it.
Classic piracy. The original product is still there; you're just making a copy.
I mean, I totally agree with all forms of breaking IP law on ethical grounds. But I also recognise that it's still breaking the law right now.
Why "but"? Why are those two statements viewed as contradicting each other in tone?
You getting downvoted for stating what's factually correct while still disagreeing with it is classic shooting the messenger.
The messenger is getting shot for not bringing receipts. I was about to shoot them too, then I retrieved a receipt: https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2024/01/05/dissecting-claims-about-monsanto-suing-farmers-for-accidentally-planting-patented-seeds/
I have read these receipts and literally the first story is about Percy Schmeiser, a farmer who used seed from plants grown on his own land that had been "contaminated" with genes from a neighboring farm. He had never signed any contract with Mansanto and didn't take the seeds from his neighbor. Plants on his property were "contaminated" through natural means.
It then ends with a brief note about 700 farmers who settled out of court and lumps them under the guilty umbrella because they settled.
But worst of all, this site that this article is posted on is a propaganda mouth piece for Monsanto. It is owned and funded by the same guy owns and funds Monsanto's PR company.Sure, I don't disagree. The difference is I had a source to criticize. You know what info I was working with and can guage how reasonable my claim is. If you go around to people convinced of something and say "Nuh uh", it doesn't matter if you're correct, you'll be laughed out of the room.
Isn't classic piracy boarding ships and taking all their shit at gunpoint?