Proprietary Grapes Come with Draconian End User License Agreement
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It would be more interesting with something with a bit more free will. Someone will eventually patent a dog breed. A boy dog will meet a girl dog and they'll have dog babies. Do you put the dog in prison for patent infringement? Do you kill the babies?
All I can say is that nobody really cares about soybeans or grapes, but it will be a mess when the result is cute and fluffy.
It's the same as if your dog attacks someone - even if it's "in their breed" it doesn't matter, you as the owner are responsible for its actions. If the dog is particularly aggressive it might be destroyed though.
I think the dogs are a bit of a red herring here, drug patents are generally accepted by most of society, and it's patenting a natural process that happens when you throw the correct chemicals together under the correct circumstances. The "it's just chemicals reacting, nobody loses anything, nobody is hurt" argument will not get you anywhere.
What then?
At the end of the day it's up to the judge to decide what a reasonable punishment should be, which may be based on the reasonable precautions that you did or did not take. If you can't accept that then just don't own an un-neutered patented dog. I'm not sure why you find this so complicated or unreasonable.
And contrary to copyright, patents actually expire in a reasonable amount of time.
This is not necessarily the case for a quite large number of genetically modified organisms. Many do not propagate without human intervention, as I believe is also the case with seedless grapes.
Animal breeds are more subjective. There isn't really an analogous way to pin one down a create consistent copies. If the hypothetical dog company could do this kind of cloning, they would probably spare themselves the hassle by producing only sterilized clones.
what they can and do do, though, is refuse to certify the parentage. and other breeders, with which you would want to breed for purpose of heritage, will refuse you.
I think I recall they make you pay a deposit, which is refunded when the dog is "fixed".
Food, crop and patents on life in general are pure evil. That'a the ultimate in consumer culture right there.
'You have the right to consume the food we produce for you, but we are the only ones who may produce it.'
That's legislating control over life itself to companies and corporations.
How can anyone possibly believe it's reasonable that someone could be punished because they popped some seeds into the ground and tried to grow some fruit?
Agriculture has been the cornerstone of human society for thousands of years. What gives somw corporation the right to tell people they canmt practice one of the oldest human trades in existence?
Is there a reason why it's any more evil than patents on machinery or other industrial processes? Is it just because "life is sacred"? It's only plants and livestock. I'd be much more concerned if it extended to humans, but we're not at that point yet.
>'You have the right to consumer the food we produce for you, but we are the only ones who may produce it.'
>That's legislating control over life itself to companies and corporations.
>Agriculture has been the cornerstone of human society for thousands of years. What gives somw corporation the right to tell people they canmt practice one of the oldest human trades in existence?
So? You can still grow grapes, just not the specially engineered/bred ones. Also, it's limited to 20 years, so you can grow all the cotton candy grapes you want two decades from now.
You can always buy someone else's grape, but sometimes there's only one cancer med.
The correct price is 0, just looking at it from first principles.
But we don't like that because then these "idea products" have no incentive to get made, so we pretend like supplies are limited, we limit them with patents, we limit them with DRM, we limit them with laws, pretend it's scarce so the market can price it.
To many, this is an acceptable result. Buuuut... must we use a market for absolutely everything? Even if it's clearly broken in this use case and we're just pretending it works? The fact that we are pretending is fine, even when someone's life is on the line?
I think we need something like bug bounties for information. I think we need a different kind of market for novelty.
Non sequitur. Ideas generated (/recorded, transformed, interpreted, etc) by human labor or human capital are scarce because human labor and human capital are scarce.
> must we use a market for absolutely everything?
Certainly not, the more applicable question is whether the change we make to the status quo results in better conditions for people. Every economic system has strengths and weaknesses.
I don't disagree with the concept of a "bug bounty for information" but I'm struggling to come up with an idea of what that would look like in a way that is either more effective or different than patents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_grants_in_the_United_S...
Pharma grants have their own issues. Our current mixed system with both private investment and public investment allows us to leverage the strengths and weaknesses of both allocation schemes.
That may seem pedantic, but that distinction is the thing we charge for access on.
The reason I'm harping on this is to make it black and white crystal clear, that the existing system we are using is a kludge. It would be shocking if such a system was flatly the best way to do things.
No idea what's better, but there are much smarter people out there than me.
How much effort in the medical industry is devoted to me-too treatments that don't really expand our therapeutic vocabulary? How many writers were focusing on writing Law & Order: Food Truck Inspectors Unit instead of something more distinctive?
I think that maybe we need to look into UBI for creatives: we'll pay you a comfortable living as long as you're regularly producing some deliverables/signs of progress, but you don't get to drag everyone else down with patents and copyrights when you're done. We could probably finance a lot of singers at 50k per year for the cost of one Rolling Stones tour.
I addressed this in an earlier thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24761841
Doing any other kind of farming will simply become unviable.
This is way outside my area of expertise, but my understanding is the patent would only prevent others from monetizing the patented technology for x period of time.
That to me would be the key difference. In this case the claim is you can’t even grow the grapes in your own yard non-commercially.
Is it illegal to infringe on a software patent even if you’re not distributing or profiting from the software you wrote?
Are sanitation departments at risk of contributory infringement depending how they process and dispose of sewage containing grape remnants?
b) Grapes don't grow like that. They are a perennial hardwood species and need a cold stratification period before they are viable. So you'd need to poo somewhere where the seed sat over the winter and came up the following spring. Most vines in the wild grow from clones from the sprawling parent, with seed being spread by birds.
c) Don't think the company cares about you. They're worried about large farms in the central valley etc. propagating without license. As I've said elsewhere in this thread I'm not sure why they bothered printing this on the package that consumers see. Propagation agreements are very common.
So why are seeds explicitly mentioned in the EULA?
(Also, why is "but not limited to" in quotation marks?)
Oh, yeah, lawyers.
1. Grapes are almost always propagated clonally, through dormant hardwood. Only grape breeders really grow grapes from seed, and they're not using the seeds from open pollinated grapes like these, they're doing deliberate crosses from pollen. If you could grow out the seeds (hint: you can't, it's seedless) from this grape you would not get something all that similar to its parent, and only maybe 15% of them would even be perfect flowered and fruit bearing. This "EULA" doesn't seem to cover pollen, which I don't think would be legally enforceable anyways.
2. Non-propagation agreements and propagation fees are extremely common. Newer varieties of grapes almost always having a fee back to the breeder.
3. Nobody is making decent money breeding grapes. Most new varieties are from university research departments on constantly decreasing budgets. The propagation fees are typically there to help offset losses.
4. The only thing unusual I see here is printing this kind of label on the package and also the proscription against growing from seed. Not sure why they'd bother. Propagating grapes from a grocery store cluster would be extremely difficult. To get a clone from it you'd need to do labratory tissue culture. To grow from seed you'd need to find the one grape in thousands that freakishly actually produced a viable seed (this variety is seedless) -- cold stratify keep it in the fridge for months without it drying out or getting mold and then plant it out in the spring, and even if you planted hundreds you would be unlikely to get a vine worth bothering with.
EDIT: Also, let's say you actually legitimately wanted to grow or even breed with this vine, and you lived in the narrow climate range where it would succeed in growing. You could probably purchase dormant hardwood cuttings from a licensed nursery for less than $5 a vine. I don't think that's so odious. Or if you're a breeder you might even be able to coax another person with the same passion to mail you some pollen from it for free.
FURTHER EDIT: Part of what might be happening here is that these new table grapes are considered by some to be a bit of a major advancement. The cotton candy type flavours are novel and the nice crisp flesh is desirable, and I believe they have pretty good shelf life as well. So the breeders are trying to protect something that is a bit of a win for them. I imagine in California in particular there is a desire to avoid growers in the central valley from propagating these en-masse without license. I imagine that in about 10-15 years there'll be a bunch of new varieties similar to these out there and it won't be as big of a concern.
Do you grow any weird grapes?
What’s cool in grape growing world these days?
I grow wine grapes, and grow in the northeast (Ontario) so I don't grow anything like this. I grow cold hardy hybrids that trace the majority of their ancestry back to wild vines that are native to eastern North America (which is the centre of diversity for the genus, BTW).
The vines I grow for wine mostly come out of the University of Minnesota grape breeding program; they are pretty bulletproof vines. I could probably grow vinifera here, but it would involve bucketloads of pesticides that I can't be bothered with.
Here's a recent podcast interview with the head of the grape breeding program at the University of Minnesota, if you're interested: https://www.organicwinepodcast.com/e/matt-clark-grape-breede...
I have plenty of "weird" grapes here because I hobby breed. I mainly work (play) with a wild species that is rare in Ontario and around the northeast, called vitis aestivalis bicolor. V. Aestivalis is a species of grape that has lower acids, higher tannins, higher disease resistance, and more neutral flavour than most of the wild grapes -- but it's also a pain to work with because it does not propagate from dormant hardwood easily, so it's been neglected in breeding. Bicolor is its northern variant that is hardy up to about latitude 43, around the southern great lakes region. I am trying to cross it with other, more cold hardy, hybrids to produce something with the lower acids, higher tannin, and more neutral flavour that bicolor has but with higher sugars and more cold hardiness. I have a number of vines here from other hobby breeders that I'm playing with as well.
High quality wine from cold hardy and disease resistant hybrids is still a "Work in progress"; growers, breeders, winemakers, and wine marketers have a lot of work to do still. But it's imperative because vinifera is becoming less and less viable every day and it's stupid to be growing it in places like Ontario. And in any case the same thing every day is boring.
Here's a presentation by an acquaintance doing interesting work: http://amherstcountymuseum.org/grapes.pdf
I haven't posted about them this year, but here's where they were last summer (year 2): https://www.smokingonabike.com/2019/06/23/minnesota-home-gar...
I am growing about a 1/4 acre of Marquette and Frontenac blanc (a white sport of Frontenac developed here in Canada), and Petite Pearl which is from Minnesota, but privately bred by Tom Plocher (http://www.coldclimategrapes.com/petite-pearl.html)
I'm not blown away by Frontenac blanc and will likely take it out and replace it with another white, as the acids are very difficult to work with. Marquette is a fantastic grape overall, but the wine quite neutral to the point of uncharacteristic. Petite Pearl is low vigor, lower sugar, and small tight clusters, but it adds a nice leatheriness to the wine.. thick skins, hangs well, birds don't seem to bother with it like they do Marquette.
This year I put Marquette pollen onto the first fruit off of a local v. aestivalis bicolor vine and have a handful of seeds from that. Also put Marquette onto a complex Sauv Blanc x (Aestivales x Aestivalis Bicolor) vine that I grew from seed from Clifford Ambers. Hopefully I can get these planted out next year and get started on more complex stuff after that.
They also sell something called "rosé strawberries" but I haven't found them on the east coast yet.
Who is party to these agreements? If I am a grape researcher/breeder and buy a bag of grapes with this plastic wrapper, why would I be affected by this agreement? If the strains are patented or protected in some other way, then of course those protections would affect the end purchaser, but that is beside the point.
Growers typically buy their vines from said nurseries, who try to insure virus free vines and produce in bulk and do grafting to rootstocks, etc.
A breeder would not usually be affected, because they would work with pollen. If they were working with this vine as a parent (unlikely) they would probably as a courtesy reach out to the original breeder, but they'd just be taking pollen from it, so the "EULA" would not apply.
There are thousands and thousands of grape varieties out there. Most consumers only ever taste a dozen. The genetic diversity bottleneck for grapes comes in general from consumers lack of education and their preferences for the same thing over and over again, usually with a fancy European sounding name so they can feel sophisticated while they drink their wine from a clone of a vine from 800 years ago that had to be sprayed with fungicides every 5 days to stop it from dying.
EDIT: but yes, it has an entirely pointless vibe to it. I am not sure why the marketing of this product is bothering.
I disagree. I just don't understand how those words magically enter the recipient into an agreement.
There are of course other restrictions like patents that apply to everyone regardless of random text put on some plastic, but that's another thing.
Thank you for the information, I'd never heard of this. But I also don't see how this contradicts me.
How does this contradict me? The original text called it an agreement, _not_ me. My point is that it's _not_ an agreement. This is what's printed on the bag:
> The recipient of the produce contained in this package agrees not to propagate or reproduce any portion of the produce, including "but not limited to" seeds, stems, tissue, and fruit.
In this whole thread I'd posited that this does not mean there is any agreement between the end recipient and the producer. Now you say this contradicts me, but it sounds like you actually _agree_ with me. I also wrote this a couple posts up:
> There are of course other restrictions like patents that apply to everyone regardless of random text put on some plastic, but that's another thing.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24800561
I honestly don't understand your point.
There are a lot of people and organizations who make legal statements or disclaimers that have inaccurate or even zero meaning. Sometimes, those who are making these statements are less concerned about being legally correct, and more concerned about influencing those who read the statement.
In other cases, some people have misconceptions about what the law requires of them for protection, and make unnecessary disclaimers. People love to do this with copyright.
From the previous discussion on the article, it appears that no EULA is necessary to prevent you from legally reselling the grapes you grow from parts you buy at the grocery store. That's just a law.
Needless to say they didn't taste very good, mainly very sweet.
I guess it's a bit analogous to software or music piracy - making multiple copies of someone else's original work.
With regular copyright, this wouldn't have been within my lifetime.
Nothing is taken away from anyone, the old mousetrap is still there.
I think a better analogy would be: you invent a new mousetrap, you offer it for $5 for only catching mice, but if it catches a rat they owe you $100. The user has to artificially restrict the fundamental utility of the product or else be subject to legal penalties.
"Life, uh, finds a way" and it's morally hazardous to restrict a customer's control of their physical property for IP reasons.
Addressed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24761841
>I think a better analogy would be: you invent a new mousetrap, you offer it for $5 for only catching mice, but if it catches a rat they owe you $100. The user has to artificially restrict the fundamental utility of the product or else be subject to legal penalties.
I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with this. If anything, I'm for it because it incentives the manufacturer to make effective products. The more effective their mouse trap is, the more money they make. Sounds like a good thing to me. It's not any different than unreal engine/unity charging you a % of your game's revenue as royalties.
On the word "use" in federal statutes, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_v._United_States
and
Problem 2: an EULA is a dangerous twist that goes beyond patent protection. At least patent protection is of limited and reasonable duration, while an EULA is of indefinite duration.
Problem 3: especially considering the scale of modern agriculture and the limited variety that reaches consumers, this is dangerous for food security.
2. EULA is useless, essentially it will be enforced if you plant them and start selling grafts
3. The state can take all it wants for food security, if needed.
At the end of the day though, I am far more concerned about food security than the right of people to profit from IP. You can't simply wave the problem away by stating the state can take all they want. Many democratic states would be hesitant to do that and it would have far more grave long term consequences. If agriculture was more diverse, perhaps that wouldn't be a concern. The problem is the lack of diversity creates the potential to concentrate power over the food supply under the current model, never mind one with strong IP rights.
An "end-eater" agreement that purports to bind the purchaser of a food product is ridiculous.