In the bits of the blogosphere I follow, DRM (digital rights management) is often considered to be a Bad Thing because of the restrictions it places on how the purchaser can use whatever it is that has had DRM applied to it.
How much more uproar would there be if it were conceivable that DRMd songs, for example, could 'infect' or taint DRM free files with copy protection? Just imagine it - viral DRM!
At a time when some of the world's largest media companies are beginning to see value in allowing their catalogue items to be shared, it is maybe worth casting an eye over at the biotech firms, and in particular the seed 'manufacturers', who are developing gene technologies that cause second generation plants to be sterile, thus preventing purchasers of first generation seed from saving seed from the plants they have grown. If I was minded to coin a phrase to describe this approach, Biological Rights Management (BRM) or Genetic Rights Management (GRM) are two that come to mind.
And note that I don't mean BRM in the sense of patents on genes, which is difficult enough to think clearly about. This is about genetically engineering biological reproductive processes so that copy protection is built in.
Known widely as Terminator Technology, there is spectrum of concerns amongst many opponents of this form of genetic engineering, ranging from the purely economic (farmers can't buy seed one year, then save it for the next - they have to buy it in each year) to fears that TT plants may contaminate, through pollination, non-BRMd plants.
Many plants are propagated seedlessly, of course, traditionally through the use of cuttings, and how seedless fruits propagate is another story altogether, but for us to try to engineer in what amounts to copy protection, using approaches that I assume are rather more lab-based than traditional cross or selective plant breeding ever was, concerns me somewhat.
What brought this to my attention was an article in the latest Organic Way magazine, which I still receive having signed up to and never left what was the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA) - now rebranded as 'Garden Organic' - ten or more years ago, when life was more balanced and I still had an allotment!
My interest piqued, I had a little dig around for recent news stories about the state of the art in this sort of technology, and found a news item from the activist group banterminator.org about Monsanto recently buying a company that pioneered the development of Terminator gene technology.
Dvorak Uncensored also picked up on that announcement and had a little rant about it.
Time maybe to start watching this one before the biological rootkits get out of hand? And I don't just mean in the sense of Japanese knotweed!
Posted by ajh59 at September 24, 2006 08:41 PM