[Solar-general] [Fwd: Article: "Biopiracy or Bioprivateering?" By Richard Stallman @ Heinrich Boell Foundation]

[Beatriz Busaniche]

  	Biopiracy or Bioprivateering?
by Richard Stallman

For decades, new drugs have been found in exotic
animals and plants. Genes from rare species and
subspecies are also useful in producing new
breeds, whether by genetic engineering or
ordinary cross-breeding. The drugs, and nowadays
the new breeds as well, are typically patented.
This causes trouble for developing countries that
could use them.

Patent monopolies on plant and animal varieties,
on genes, and on new medicines, threaten to harm
developing countries in three ways.
First, by raising prices so far that most
citizens have no access to these new
developments; second, by blocking local
production when the patent owner so chooses;
third, for agricultural varieties, by forbidding
farmers to continue breeding them as has been
done for
thousands of years.

Just as the United States, a developing country
in the 1800s, refused to recognize patents from
advanced Britain, today's developing
countries need to protect their citizens'
interest by shielding them from such patents. To
prevent the problems of monopolies, don't
establish monopolies. What could be simpler?

But developing countries need support from world
opinion in order to do this.  It means going
against a view that companies strongly
advocate: that biotech company investors are
entitled to monopolies, regardless of how they
affect anyone else.  It means going against
treaties that these companies have prevailed on
the US to force through threats of economic
warfare on most of the world.

To challenge an idea which is backed by so much
money is not easy. So some have proposed the
concept of "biopiracy" as an alternative
approach. Instead of opposing the existence of
biological monopolies, this approach aims to give
the rest of the world a share in the profits from
them. The claim is that biotechnology companies
are committing "biopiracy" when they base their
work on natural varieties, or human genes, found
in developing countries or among indigenous
peoples--and therefore they ought to be required
to pay "royalties" for this.

"Biopiracy" is appealing at first glance, because
it takes advantage of the current trend towards
more and bigger monopoly powers.  It goes with
the flow, not against.  But it will not solve the
problem, because the problem stems from the trend
that this concept legitimizes
and fails to criticize.

Useful varieties and genes are not found
everywhere or with even distribution. Some
developing countries and indigenous peoples will
be lucky, and receive substantial funds from such
a system, at least for the twenty years that a
patent lasts; a few may become so rich as
to cause cultural dislocation, with a second
episode to follow when the riches run out. 
Meanwhile, most of these countries and peoples
will get little or nothing from this system.
"Biopiracy" royalties, like the patent system
itself, will amount to a kind of lottery.

The "biopiracy" concept presupposes that natural
plant and animal varieties, and human genes, have
an owner as a matter of natural
right. Once that assumption is granted, it is
hard to question the idea that an artificial
variety, gene or drug is property of the
biotechnology company by natural right, and thus
hard to deny the investors' demand for total and
world-wide power over the use of it.

The idea of "biopiracy" offers the
multinationals, and the governments that work for
them, an easy way to cement forever their regime
of
monopolies. With a show of magnanimity, they can
concede a small part of their income to a few
lucky indigenous peoples; from then on, when
anyone questions whether biological patents are a
good idea, they can cite these indigenous peoples
along with the fabled "starving genius inventor"
to paint such questioning as plundering the
downtrodden. (This behavior pattern is widespread
among business today.  For instance, the "music
industry" lobbies for increased copyright powers
in the name of musicians, who they like to call
the "creators", while paying musicians only 4% of
the companies' total income.)

What people outside the developed world really
need, for their agriculture and medicine, is to
be exempt from all such monopolies.
They need to be free to manufacture medicine
without paying royalties to multinationals. They
need to be free to grow and breed all sorts of
plants and animals for agriculture; and if they
decide to use genetic engineering, they should be
free to commission the genetic modifications that
suit their needs. A lottery ticket for a share of
royalties from a few varieties and genes is no
compensation for losing
these freedoms.

It is indeed wrong for biotech companies to
convert the world's natural genetic resources
into private monopolies--but the wrong is
not a matter of taking someone else's rightful
property, it is a matter of privatizing what
ought to be public. These companies are
not biopirates.  They are bioprivateers.


Copyright (C) 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001 Richard
Stallman Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire
article are permitted in any medium provided this notice
is preserved.
------------
Related information:
Report
Working Conference
WITHIN AND BEYOND THE LIMITS OF HUMAN NATURE
http://www.boell-latinoamerica.org/en/nav/5.htm

The Big Down: Atomtech - Technologies Converging
at the Nano-scale.
http://www.etcgroup.org/documents/TheBigDown.pdf

Syngenta -- The Genome Giant?
http://www.etcgroup.org/article.asp?newsid=493




-- 
Beatriz Busaniche
http://www.d-sur.net/bbusaniche/