Patents and Copyrights

These days we have allowed the rules for patents and copyrights to run riot and out of control.

Imagine firms being allowed to patent the human genome. The human genome is a "Public Good" It rather like allowing an airline to patent the sky it flies in. Or another example would be a hair dye company patenting the colour black and making people born with black hair pay them rent.

The capitalist will tell you that a company has to be "rewarded" for its investment in new products and science. Well, to an extent yes. Not 50 years!!! Perhaps 5-10 years and then automatically it has to go into the public domain.

While copyrights can protect artists such as musicians and writers the actual artists themselves get a very small piece of the pie from sales and its the big fat corporate cats sitting in their ivory towers that rake in all the cash.

If in the future we can redirect the excess value away from personal and corporate pockets and instead reinvest in our people and our planet we will all enjoy a better standard of living. Therefore our mindset will change from being self centrered to being open hearted and wanting to share the things we discover and create with the world. At this point the human race will accelerate its growth , maturity and intelligence.

Motto of this article is that capitalist greed is holding back the whole human race.