[ Thanks to Linux User &
Developer magazine for this link. ]
“Free software and the web have challenged conventional concepts
of ownership – and, not surprisingly, the content and
software industries have tended towards an opposite understanding
of ownership, which extends from the appropriation of things as
disparate as human genes and species of plants to the ownership of
artistic concepts and ideas.“The means for extending ownership over everything and anything
has been a judicial bending of patent and copyright law. A not
untypical example was the patenting in 1986 of the Amazonian
hallucinogenic plant ayahuasca, which led to a South American
tribal council, representing more than 400 tribes and indigenous
groups, visiting the US ten years later to protest against the
decision. Antonio Jacanamijoy, a spokesmen for the Indians,
observed that “our ancestors learned the knowledge of this medicine
and we are the owners of this knowledge…” and this is not an
isolated case. Many more such patents have passed unnoticed and
have gone unchallenged because the cost is prohibitive and the
protesters have no sentimental appeal.”