I'm very close to the IP abolitionist end of the spectrum. For copyright, give works 20 years of protection. Beyond that you have to start paying hefty fees for 10 year blocks. The fee can double every 10 years. You want a Mickey Mouse ad infinitum copyright? If you're prepared to pay billions for it, go right ahead.
Patents should generally not exist. Software patents should absolutely never exist. The fact that companies game patents so we still have insulin under patent 100 years after its invention by doing minor changes is not just a bad actor, it's a bad system.
GM crops are particularly egregious because seeds don't stay in a field. You can infringe a patent because some animal decided to eat a plant and then relieve itself on your field.
There's another angle though: not only are seed subscriptions (let's face it, that's what this is) just another way to extract the last few dollars from farmers, it's downright anticompetitive. You think the farms Big Ag are operating are paying those fees? Of course not.
On the contrary, I would bet a fair amount that ADM and similar are scrupulous about paying for hybrid seeds from Bayer and similar every year. They may get a better rate for being a very large customer, but that's true in almost every arena.
GM crops are actually one of the areas (along with pharmaceuticals) where patents are most legitimate. Crop plants are literally things that manufacture themselves; the barrier to entry if patents didn't exist would be negligible. No one could justify the effort to create new plant varieties.
People were inventing things long before patents existed. That doesn't mean patents are worthless. Let's not engage in foolishly binary thinking, where "things are invented" and "things aren't invented" are the only two states.
Patents should generally not exist. Software patents should absolutely never exist. The fact that companies game patents so we still have insulin under patent 100 years after its invention by doing minor changes is not just a bad actor, it's a bad system.
GM crops are particularly egregious because seeds don't stay in a field. You can infringe a patent because some animal decided to eat a plant and then relieve itself on your field.
There's another angle though: not only are seed subscriptions (let's face it, that's what this is) just another way to extract the last few dollars from farmers, it's downright anticompetitive. You think the farms Big Ag are operating are paying those fees? Of course not.