Read Patry On Copyrights With Me

As I study “intellectual” “property” “rights” with a view to writing something sometime, I am obliged to read the best works on the topic.  I keep coming across references to a work by one William Patry, a copyright lawyer.  Now note that designation, not “intellectual” “property” “rights” lawyer, or patent lawyer (although he is one), merely “copyright lawyer.”

In fact, he bills himself (and no doubt his clients) as the “most prolific scholar of copyright in history.” He also defines himself as a centrist on the topic of copyrights. In his book he is given to such citations as “the greatest speech ever given on copyrights”.  Which, of course, the most prolific scholar would be in a position to assess the greatest speech, wouldn’t he?   Well, talk about an opportunity to get in some serious lawyer-bashing.  This guy is leaves himself wide open.

And since he is not anti-copyright, he is necessarily to me an implacable enemy.

Now, having said that, the book is probably the best thing written on copyrights, ever.  He is probably the most prolific scholar of copyright in history.  The thing is a stunning tour de force.  It’s a mere 200 pages of content, and I am only through page 84, but I must pause and report.

Only at page 84 and he has destroyed all arguments for “intellectual” “property” “rights”.  And I mean he catalogs each one that is used today, traces the history of the argument, and destroys them.  All of them.

He examines the pro-IPR data regarding the losses incurred by industry.  This is a particularly delightful section, demonstrating the entire oeuvre is bogus, and forensically it could not rise to the level of social interest.  There is nothing to support the claims of losses by anyone in any industry.  Now, I have said the same thing many times, from a practical level, but Patry hits it from a forensics angle.  All taxpayer money directed at enforcement of “intellectual” “property” “rights” is now clearly a waste.

Nonetheless, the full federal power of policing of “intellectual” “property” “rights” is brought down upon 12 year old girls.  Edgar Bronfman, when not leveraging the holocaust to shake down Swiss bankers, and Jack Valenti are the villains in this piece. But the gallery of pro-IPR rogues is vast.  I suppose if Diane Von Furstenberg had made her greedy demands before the book was printed she too would have been included.

And Patry is no idiot savant who solely mastered copyrights, he ranges outside his field with breathtaking perspicacity.  Like a Chomsky-grade linguist, Patry takes on metaphors used in the copyright wars to defend  “intellectual” “property” “rights”.  He  asks us to pause and reflect on in what way is a 12 year old girl like a pirate?

Let me add some visuals:

Pirates - Plunder, Murder, Rape, Mayhem

12 year Old Girl Who Downloaded a Song

Pirates vs. downloader. Does this matter?  Well, very much.  As you see, a 12 year old girl who downloaded a song feels the weight of the law, like a pirate, if we call her one.  If Federal Prosecutor can call Aaron Swartz a pirate, the Federal Prosecutor can hound Swartz literally to death.  And did. China is so taken by the pirate argument its new laws in fact make provision for the death penalty of copyright violators.

The Chinese have responded to the dilemma by activating and, on occasion, carrying out copyright protection laws passed 10 years ago. Last month a regulation made infringement of international copyrights a criminal offense in extreme cases. It means pirates could be executed, although no one is known to have been jailed so far.

So far Patry has destroyed any basis for “intellectual” “property” “rights” and destroyed any argument for damage done by violation thereof, and exposed the moral bankruptcy of anyone advocating “intellectual” “property” “rights."  Not much left.  Not bad for 84 pages.  Not to mention if his book has any effect, he'll no doubt save lives.

Yet he has asserted a few times there is a warrant for copyrights, and I will read through to  see what this warrant is. He is not anti-copyright, he is anti “intellectual” “property” “rights."  Get the book and join me.

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Getting to Buyers as a Start Up

I can tell when someone is on the wrong track in a business start-up, that they are headed for failure.  I will hear them say:

1. I know this will sell.

2. I don’t think this will work.

Number 2 usually is associated with the price or costs being too high, or the impression thereof.

Both thoughts are delusional. The fact is, any such assessment is entirely the province of the customer, and you cannot know until you’ve talked it over with customers, the buyers.  So the question I get is “How to reach the buyer?  Do I call and make an appointment?”

Now assuming you are working as a start-up, and your value in the marketplace is a new solution to a problem (another topic) and you are approaching the specialty stores, then the answer is you will never reach a buyer yourself by telephone, or any other approach as a seller.  Why would a big shot buyer who is responsible for a million dollars an hour moving out of several stores spend 30 minutes with you? So as a business start-up, you never try to sell your products, or even get orders starting out.  This is not contradictory.

As I said earlier in the week, if you do not have customers you do not have a product.  Well, which comes first, the product or the customer?  The chicken or the egg?

Well, business start-up is when you have a (pregnant?) chicken about to lay an egg, you have both at once.  How so?  First you get your product idea as laid out earlier. Then you need to assess your idea to find out if there is customer potential.  So you have to get the idea in front of buyers, but without trying to sell.  You only want feedback, enough feedback to warrant having samples made of your idea.  Feedback to the degree that you feel you would get enough orders collectively from as many customers as necessary to cover the suppliers’ minimum order requirement in a workable amount of time, profitably 

As past partcicipants have scolded me, I do not emphasize how little it takes to have enough "new" to get to this point.  OK, there I said it.  So on to the process.

In the sales game the first step is approach, then qualification, and then agreement on need, and so on, but in the start-up process you’ll need only go as far as “agreement on need.”  Don’t start a business, or put a dime into anything, until you have these three steps covered.  After that you can turn the job of actual selling over to a professional, an independent sales representative, who will make the sales calls to the right people. 

Your job is to set it up for the sale rep to go in for the kill.  The first time youn ever speak to a sales representative is when you can name buyers who desire to place orders for your products now.  (Which will come later.)

Sticking with Plan A (search this website for the meaning thereof) you are first visiting stores to assess the viability of your idea, by visiting as a customer of the store (true) trying to buy your idea (true).  You want to get to where a buyer says  "it is a good idea and does not exist.." by working up through the clerks who first greet you to a decision maker.  I use the formulaic “visit each of six stores six times each” to convey the idea that this is a process of working your way up from the welcoming clerks to a decision maker, by means of several visits to each of several stores.  Back and forth, more or less.  But in any event, your “approach” (as in the sales process) is to try to buy your idea.

Your “qualifiaction” is to push your inquiry up to the level of decision maker, one who can buy.  This is the person you want to hear say "it is a good idea and does not exist.." 

Agreement on need is when that person, with authority to buy says "it is a good idea and does not exist.." 

With several stores affirming that, you can proceed with design and sampling of your idea.  With that affirmation, doors along the path to samples open rather easily.

So you go into stores with only an idea, and only as a customer of that store. But what if the decision maker, buyer is working off-site?  In smaller stores, say single unit specialty store, the owner is the buyer so there you have no problem getting to a decision maker for feedback. In bigger specialty stores, such as say Neiman Marcus, the official buyer is no doubt unreachable.  

But the department manager inside a given store no doubt has soome authority to buy some rpoduct to test out in her department (and share the experience of any success with other buyers).    Because we sell new, we necessarily are given small orders to start.

On page 200 of my book there is a Nordstrom PO, for some seven stores, giftware item, total order amount about $200.  This is typical.  People usually assume such an order would be some $20,000.  Not true.

“New” is necessarily untested, so buyers want to test out new, since no sane buyer will ever take a risk on a product. And if they see new that they want to test, the next question is "what is the minimum..?"  In-store buyers can typically have a budget for small test orders of new , promising products.  In any event, no buyer is going to go heavy on anything new.  Over time you may see order quantities rise if the item has proven to sell well, but usually more business is a result of more design changes based on new iterations in response to buyer feedback.  Look at the evolution of the Apple computer, especially the first one.

It does not take much to achieve “new” enough to be new enough to test.  If you work too hard on design, then you very well may run ahead of market feedbaclk and have to undesign undesired features which prove unbeneficial from the market feedback.   Again, each iteration you are only looking for enough orders to cver the suppliers minimum order requirement, over and over.  You are not looking to build up more volume, you are looking to have the same minimums more frequently.

If at any point in this process you reveal or imply your intention to be a vendor to this store, then any possibility of ever selling to the store ends at that moment.  The secondary reason is becuase at this point you cannot possibly know if you will ever be a vendor to that store.  Even with an affirmation”it is a good idea, it does not exist” you still have no idea whether you can come up with a sample of the idea agaisnt which the buyer will ever place an order.  You kill your business aborning because you said too much.  Calm down.

The primary reason the process is ended the moment you reveal you intend to start up a buisness is that it will be strike 10,001 against you.  10,000 other wannabees have preceded you into the store.  10,000 wannabees have wasted the buyers’ time with their "cool product they found", or the tedious attempt at emotional blackmail of the “fair trade” item, drooling excitement of the “can’t fail, Oprah-bound” idea.  The buyer’s miserable experience of all of those others count against you personally and totally if you reveal your intentions at this point in the process.  Just don’t do it.

it is necessary and sufficient in starting up to get from buyers (who believe you to be a customer) "it is a good idea, but does not exist."

Get there.

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Export Food And Beverage Seminar Seattle

If you or anyone you know has a small food business wants to expand sales overseas then Seattle Community College is hosting my 3 hour intensive seminar on Monday, July 22, from 6 to 9 pm.

In essence you'll learn how to make an export sale no more difficult than a domestic sale, and how to actively and passively market worldwide.

It is an intense three-hour orientation, or reorientation, since little of what you've heard about exporting is true, and to get your facts straight means you can manage sales into the exponentially growing agricultural export market.  After the live class, email assistance in executing what you learned is available, so the course never ends.

Full details and to reserve your spot enrollment can be found here.

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A Key Reason We have Economic Problems

Of all the reasons we hear for our economic problems worldwide, there is one key factor I never see addressed: definition.  People are terribly confused because even the people who are right are so extremely sloppy with definitions that their readers are bewildered.  Those who are "in the know" generally translate on the fly, so they can "get it."  But the vast majority of readers, say of Pater Tenebrarum, really have no idea what he is saying, or worse, take what he says at face value, To wit:

The banking cartel relies on the fiat money system remaining intact; the legal privilege of fractional reserve banking provides it with what is an essentially fraudulent profit center unparalleled by any other in the world (fraudulent in terms of traditional legal principles, but not in terms of the current law of course). Not surprisingly, ever since the completely unrestrained fiat money system became operational in the early 1970s, the financial sector's share of corporate profits has inexorably risen and finally eclipsed all other sectors of the economy.

Now Tenebrarum knows well what money it.  Today it is gold and silver, as it has been for most of the history of mankind.  In WWII, it was money, and you could tell because when Allied businessmen sat down in Zurich to settle up on what Allied businessmen had sold to Nazi businessmen, the Nazis were obliged to pay cash (gold and silver), because the allied businessmen were not extending credit to the Nazis.  Cash only. (Or coin, which Lapin suggests is from the Hebrew "chan" and and made it to China as chen and Japan as kane.)

So when Tenebrarum says "unrestrained fiat money" that is shorthand for 

1. gold is money
2. currency is warehouse receipts for gold in a bank.
3. credit is a loan against gold in a bank.
4. fiat currency is credit against nothing in a bank.


So if you take part of #4 and part of #1, and drop the chain of definition, you get a shorthand "unrestrained fiat money."  So we end up with uninitiated people assuming from this that "money" as in "unrestrained fiat money" is as good as gold, and the initiated knowing it is not.  Even the initiated sometimes get confused, and in a way that Mish Shedlock has, in yeoman effort, clarified.


The bogeyman of inflation will not automatically happen with printing currency, electronic or otherwise.  Inflation will not happen unless all that funny money is spent into the economy.  The only entity doing so right now is government, and we will pay in time for that, O, how we will pay, but the really big run-up of funny currency is sitting on the balance sheets of countless USA corporations, unspent.  No one is spending for the simple reason big business knows he who goes first will be slaughtered worst.  There is nothing but crap to invest in, and if you offer to spend money, absolute crap will come forward.  How about some nice Highrise buildings?  How about some woefully o overpriced land?  How about another dotcom that will never see a profit?  No, the people sitting on credit are awaiting a renaissance that will never come, because we cannot have it without falling prices, and as Tenebrarum is pointing out, correctly, our political regime is dependent on the banks, and their ability to create credit out of nothing.


USA can only turn-around by a profound re-ordering of our economic system.  Ain't gonna happen.  Especially when the conversation cannot even begin, for lack of definition of terms.You'll know the economy is recovering when housing prices fall 60-80%, commercial real estate as well, gas goes down to $15 a barrel, food is cheap, etc.  We'll see that after the extreme pain of the crack-up when QE ultimately fails.  The longer it is delayed, the worse it is for all of us.


Update:  No sooner than I posted this the Nikkei goes down 8%.  Let's hope this is a beginning of a massive price drop all along the economies on everything we buy.

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China - Pakistan Trade Relations

You would not know it, but China has a built in public relations problem with Muslims, whereas USA has none whatsoever.  Nonetheless, China is doing well with Muslim countries, such as Pakistan, where USA attacks with drones.  Absolute madness.  China and Pakistan share a border, and plan to cooperate:

"China and Pakistan would like to closely link China's (plans) for expanding domestic demand and developing the western regions with Pakistan's plan for developing its domestic economy," Li said.

The plan carries "great strategic significance in maintaining peace and improving livelihoods in China, Pakistan, South Asia and even the whole of Asia", the premier said.

...

Tariq Fatemi, former Pakistani ambassador to the United States, said the visit is crucial in drawing up an economic roadmap for the incoming government.

Nice touch, FORMER ambassador to USA.  You se he has moved up to more important things. We have third string politicians getting in the way of first string business people.  Too bad.

There should be a rule, no elected official in USA is allowed to leave the country while in office.

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You Have No Product If You Have No Customer

A fellow was claiming the other day I had said something that profoundly affected his approach to his business start-up.  He quoted me as saying "You don't have a product if you do not have a customer."  (I don't recall saying it, but it sounds like me.)

Any product or service is a solution to a customer.  If you do not have customers, you have no product or solution.  The only way to prove you have a product is to get sales from customers.  Then you know.

If this is profound, ok.  If I said it, ok.

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Live World Trade Boot Camp Seminar Los Angeles

If you want to start up and you'll be in the Los Angeles area June 29, 2013, I will be offering an all-day seminar on small business international trade start up at Orange Coast College.   It is an intense exercise coming at every aspect of getting launched.

One participant in my last seminar came up to me at the first break and said "You know, you never introduced yourself."  That's right, this seminar is about you, not me, and I don't waste any of your eight hours.  And yes, you'll leave with your head reeling, but you'll have after course email access to me for help proceeding.

Full info here...***

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Los Angeles Area Live All-day Intensive Import Export Seminar

If you want to jump-start your import business with a live seminar in the Los Angeles area,  I will be offering an all-day seminar on small business international trade start up at Orange Coast College, Los Angeles Area, June 29, 2013.  Full info here...***

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Online Statistics Course

Seattle Teachers’ College Introduces New Online Course: Introduction to Statistics

Seattle Teachers’ College has a program that makes it easy to take high-quality, noncredit online courses. Seattle Teachers’ College has partnered with ed2go to offer hundreds of online, instructor-led courses and is pleased to announce the launch of "Introduction to Statistics." 

Participants in this course will learn to apply basic statistical procedures to data and understand how to use this information to make better decisions. They'll gain techniques to summarize and describe data with charts, numbers, and graphs; see how to calculate and interpret probabilities; and grasp the basics of statistical inference. 

This course is part of Seattle Teachers’ College’s growing catalog of more than 300 instructor-facilitated online courses. Through well-crafted lessons, expert online instruction, and interaction with fellow students, participants in these courses gain valuable knowledge at their convenience. They have the flexibility to study at their own pace combined with enough structure and support to complete the course. And they can access the classroom 24/7 from anywhere with an Internet connection. 

New sessions of each course run every month. They last six weeks, with two new lessons being released weekly (for a total of 12). The courses are entirely Web-based with comprehensive lessons, quizzes, and assignments. A dedicated professional instructor facilitates every course; pacing learners, answering questions, giving feedback, and facilitating discussions. 

You can enroll for this course here...

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Medicine in America - You Suffer So Others May Be Rich

No one went to prison for what the Centers for Disease Control did to Americans of some African ancestry with the Tuskegee experiments.  Medicine in USA is wide open for charlatans, scam artists, snake oil salesmen, etc, because we have foolishly replaced caveat emptor with an FDA and a CDC.

Today it is much worse than in the 1970s, when the CDC was running the Tuskegee experiments.  See how "consultants" create panic for a medicine, and then clean up when congress pays off big time big pharma.

The Los Angeles Times breaks a scandalous story of a Pentagon advisor who lined his own pockets while creating an imagined scenario where currently available antibiotics would be ineffective due to germ resistance, requiring a back – up plan – a multi-million dollar drug that has cost $334 million so far. The developed drug, raxibacumab (for short, raxi) costs $5100 per dose, according to the LA Times report.Called "a horrible conflict of interest," the scaremonger served as advisor both to government and the developmental drug company, taking money from both sides by conducting seminars that government health authorities attended and gaining fees from the drug company as well. Pentagon authorities say they knew nothing about the consultant’s conflict of interest. The developmental drug company eventually sold to a Big Pharma company for $3.6 billion and the consultant, who had purchased 3000 shares, must have reaped a giant gain.

Never mind there is already an effective, cheap, plentiful cure for anthrax called a bacteriophage.  Problem is, you cannot patent a bacteriophage (a virus that eats anthrax and is found naturally in pond scum, etc.)   If you cannot patent it, it cannot be monopolized, so you cannot rip taxpayers and consumers off at the point of a gun, the operative heart of "intellectual" "property" "rights."

Think in terms of doctors who still use maggots to clean up a nasty wound, since it is faster, cleaner than drugs and devoid of side effects.  And for a perfect example of USA medicine in practice, let's listen to a doctor who uses maggots:

"After two or three failures of conventional medical or surgical therapy, maggot therapy should be considered for non-healing wounds, especially those which are infected or contain dead tissue [gangrene]," said Ronald Sherman, a doctor at the department of pathology at the University of California at Irvine.

Excuse me doctor.  If maggots always work, and the conventional surgery or medicine does not, why not always use what works?  The reason is BigPharma first, patients second.  People who find that offensive do not go into medicine.  People who think that is just fine, do go into medicine.  It is a downward spiral (or upward spiral from the point of view of bigpharma.)

And never mind, like the cure for syphilis denied the victims of the CDC experiments of the 1970s, we've known about bacteriophages for a very long time.  Google bacteriophage and anthrax.  Here is a study from the 1960s.  Note the Slavic surnames.  Under Communism, there are no "intellectual" "property" "rights."  There is no capitalist abuse of consumers.  (There's communist abuse, but hey, that's for another day.)    So with no need to play the patent game, bacteriophages, a cheap, effective, plentiful antidote to anthrax was developed.

Slate magazine did an article on Georgian cures -

 New antibiotics are being discovered. But it takes 10 years and at least $800 million to bring an antibiotic to market, according to theInfectious Diseases Society of America. 

It takes neither ten years nor $800 million.  That is just one of those "moral panic" nonsense figures, never substantiated anywhere, ever, that is repeated in article after article.  So people believe it.  BigPharma may SPEND 800 million, and what with paying off the people who "oversee" bigPharm, expenses can add up.

There are two ways that phages are currently used in the former Soviet Union, and both pose problems from the point of view of the Food and Drug Administration. At the Tbilisi phage center, phages are personalized: You send your bacterial sample to the lab, and it's either matched up with an existing phage or a phage is cultured just for you. In the United States, by contrast, drugs are mass produced, which makes it easier for the FDA to regulate them.

I've been saying for years this will happen, cures will be tailored to you, and since that will not make money for bigPharm, it will not be allowed by the FDA.  The FDA protects big Pharma.  The way to solve the problem FOR the FDA is to get rid OF the FDA. Under communism, good medicine is allowed.

Phages are also sold over-the-counter in Georgia. People take the popular mixture piobacteriophage, for example, to fight off common infections including staph and strep. These phage mixtures are updated regularly so they can attack newly emerging bacterial strains. In the United States, the FDA would want the phages in each new concoction to be gene sequenced, because regulations require every component of a drug to be identified. To do so would entail prohibitively expensive and lengthy clinical trials.

Exactly.  Every pharmacy on every corner whips out a cure for what has broken out in the neighborhood.  Your local pharmacy has everything it takes to eliminate and anthrax outbreak.  But prison and ruin awaits any pharmacist who would do what is common in Russia here in USA.

And note it fights off common infections like staph.  Staph?  You mean, like MRSA.  That deep-secret #1 killer of hospital patients in USA, who die horrible deaths?  The disease in USA we have such a hard time trying to figure out a cure?  And gee whiz, in USA we just can't find a good one?  That disease, that staph?  And while we let people suffer with MRSA, Tuskegee style, in USA, there is a cure awaiting, over the counter, in Georgia (the Caucasian country, not the state).

In communist Russia, good medicine cold be had.  In capitalist USA, you will go to prison after being swat-teamed, if you survive that.

Using phages to treat infections at home, on the other hand, for the moment seems unlikely. One company recently tried to open a phage center in Tijuana but was deterred by the Mexican government. Phages might be offered someday at clinics on Native American reservations, as a casinolike quirk of legislative autonomy. But for now, U.S. patients at a loss for options may decide that Tbilisi is close enough.

A yes, USA and Mexico have such an interesting relationship vis a vis drugs.  The Indian reservation is a possible option.  Are Indian reservations USA's Hong Kong?

Although the Soviets, (Georgians today) have had the anthrax cure all along, A Rockefeller outfit "discovered" the cure in 2002.  The point is, all of the shenanigans outlined in the LA Times story above occurred well after 2002.  Like the Tuskegee experiments, we are not told there is a cure when we are being abused by the government medicine authorities.

There was once a huge and powerful government agency called the (ICC) Interstate Commerce Commission.  It was created in 1887.  By the 1970s it was probably the most powerful government agency, controlling the movement of anything.  My favorite president, Jimmy Carter, set in motion deregulation that eventually led to its elimination.  It is gone now.  After it disappeared there was tremendous improvement in transportation in USA, we got more better cheaper faster.  President Reagan enjoyed the delayed benefit from President Carter's action, and Reagan got the credit.  (Most people who adore Reagan do not realize the reason they do is for the benefits Carter bestowed on Reagan.)

Getting rid of the ICC brought tremendous benefits to USA.  If we were to deregulate medicine, and get rid of the FDA, we'd see a comparable economic recovery and a renaissance in medicine.  We could replace all of the CDC functions with a good website, let google handle it.  But we live in a capitalist regime right now, and if there is any initiative to make changes, the IRS will target you and the government-controlled media will vilify you.

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Apple And Taxes - Here We Go Again

Corporations cannot pay taxes.  Only end users can pay taxes.  When you buy an Apple product, you pay all of Apple's taxes.

A report released ahead of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s inaugural Capitol Hill appearance Tuesday alleges the tech giant took advantage of numerous U.S. tax loopholes and avoided U.S. taxes on $44 billion in offshore, taxable income between 2009 and 2012 — a characterization Apple flatly rejects.

Apple follows the law on what taxes it does pay.  If Apple was obliged to pay more taxes, you would simply fork over more money to Apple who would fork it over to Uncle sam.

The congress that wrote the rules to get companies like Apple to behave the way they do now wants to punish Apple for behaving along the lines indicated by the tax code.

It has begun.  If you have a paycheck, a pension or property (such as a company) you are screwed in USA for at least the next thirty years.

Better get self-employed.

Update: While congress investigates Obama for selectivity abuse by the IRS, the Senate is grilling the Apple CEO for Apple not paying enough taxes, while GE also pays no taxes, under the same laws and the GE CEO (and Obama adviser) gets a pass.


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Supreme Court Monsanto Decision - Farmers: Get Big or Get Out!

The Indiana farmer fighting Monsanto for the right to use seeds he bought from a third party lost his Supreme Court case.

In a unanimous decision, the high court sided with Monsanto Co. in a dispute with an Indiana farmer who sought to cut the planting cost of his soybean crop by relying on subsequent generations of Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready soybean seed.

The case is about patents, and I have no sympathy for any farmer desiring to grow Monsanto FrankenFoods.    But the case has interesting aspects which may be instructive.  

The company developed a genetically-altered strain of seed that is resistant to the herbicide glyphosate. Monsanto sells the new seed under a licensing agreement with farmers that permits its use to grow one crop for sale or consumption.

So you see, there is patent law, and contract law.  Patent law says Monsanto “owns” the seed, and as the owner, Monsanto writes a contract, terms and conditions of sale. 

The company explicitly bars farmers from using the resulting crop to seed future cultivation. The 20-year patent is designed to ensure that Monsanto reaps the rewards of its invention and innovation, and to provide an incentive for more innovation.

OK, that is terms and conditions, the contract.  (Why anyone would repeat the nonsense about “rewards and incentives” I do not know, but that is journalism today.)  That may be fine in the contract, but the farmer bought the seeds in question from a legitimate 3rd party.  

But rather than pay the higher price for Monsanto’s seed, Mr. Bowman purchased soybeans from a grain elevator and used them to seed his second crop of the season.

So there is the problem.  He complied with the contract, and then formed a new one with a grain elevator operator.  A straight purchase and sale of the seeds, out of another channel of distribution.  This would be like buyer a John Wiley  Company Textbook that is $400 in USA in Thailand for $25.  The Supreme Court ruled well on this one, it is allowed.

But not in the Monsanto case. There was no contract with Monsanto at this point. The grain elevator operators stored the seeds to be used to make tofu or flour or soy ink or whatever.  But enterprising farmers figured the seeds could be used to grow crops.  They were right.  Grain elevators operators were selling product they owned.  There was no contract that said they could not.  Farmers were getting a deal.  That would be free trade. Capitalism cannot allow free trade.

“Bowman devised and executed a novel way to harvest crops from Roundup Ready seeds without paying the usual premium,” Kagan wrote. “But it was Bowman, and not the bean, who controlled the reproduction (unto the eighth generation) of Monsanto’s patented invention.”

Note the biblical flourish by Kagan.  The implication that Bowman was some evil genius.  And note the product placement in the Supreme Court decision.  Nice work!   But to the point, no, Bowman was doing what countless farmers have been doing, and that is getting around a stupid law.  Bowman could not afford all of these cases, no doubt this case was representing countless farmers.  For Monsanto, Kagan had to devise and execute a ruling that paid off for Monsanto and Big Ag.

Kagan emphasized that the decision was limited and could not be extended to every patent lawsuit concerning a self-replicating product.

This ruling was for Monsanto only!  Don't expect similar results if your case comes up.

“We recognize that such inventions are becoming ever more prevalent, complex, and diverse,” she said. “In another case, the article’s self-replication might occur outside the purchaser’s control. Or it might be a necessary but incidental step in using the item for another purpose.”

“We need not address here whether or how the doctrine of patent exhaustion would apply in such circumstances,” Kagan wrote.

Here here, 9-0.  Monsanto gets its own special ruling.

Now, the real point of patent protection is if farmers work around stupid laws, they can be sued and judgements levied.  If the farmer refuses to pay the judgment, the courts will attache his property if he refuses to give up, he will be arrested  If he resists arrest, he will be met with necessary and sufficient force to gain compliance (at this point, he has lost all sympathy from the audience glued to their TV sets watching the nutter defend his farm.)

If he resists beyond what the police think they can handle (or by this point the FBI) he will be killed.  You see, patents are enforced ultimately by violence, and you and I pick up the bill for compliance for Monsanto.

So Monsanto takes out patents.  Monsanto also uses contract law (which is necessary and sufficient to the task of rewards and incentives).  But no where is Monsanto using marketing to advance its business.  It does not need to.  The economics of capitalism mean inevitably Monsanto and the banks will finish the task of mass collectivization of USA agriculture once articulated by Sec of Ag Earl Butts, “”The agriculture policy of the United States is get big or get out.”

That was 1972.  Monsanto has been a big winner in that policy, and small farmers the losers. The Supreme Court agrees with Monsanto.

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Farrakhan on Detroit

You see in Detroit what a downward spiral state intervention n an economy can do.  Motown was doing fine until it began to get protections and subsidies.   The made for a temporary increase in revenues, and that led to malinvestment, misallocation and the public service employees benefits that now have broken the finances of the city.

Detroit could go back to a world class automobile center for the reasons it became one in the first place.  But the claims of all of the retirees on any future activity in Detroit mean there is no hope for one side or the others. Either the retirees' pensions must be repudiated or the hopes and dreams of creative, freedom loving people must be denied.  Yet, if the hopes and dreams of creative, freedom loving people must are denied, those pensioners will be repudiated anyway.

The way forward would be to form on the peninsula upon which Detroit resides a special economic zone in USA such as China has in Hong Kong.  It would take leadership to accomplish this.  Perhaps that leader has stepped forward.

Louis Farrakhan has called on Christian preachers of some African heritage in Detroit to join him in restoring Detroit.

“The city abandoned, crime and violence rampant, and the governor has seen fit to take away the rights of the voting public,” Farrakhan said, referring to putting someone in charge of the city’s finances that wasn’t elected. “I don’t know what democracy really means if you can be given the right to vote and then somebody can take it away.”

Farrakhan may be barking up the wrong tree.  Are Negro Christian pastors leaders?  Or are they too compromised?

Miss Sanger developed a strategy called “The Negro Project.” That strategy sought to employ black professionals and preachers to aid in the extermination black people. Sanger said:
“[We propose to] hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. And we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

I would not limit doubtful leadership to negro Christian pastors, I think the people of Detroit would be hard pressed to find any Christian pastors who have no been bought and paid for.

On the other hand Detroit has remarkable private initiatives that directly replace the odious "public services" that have destroyed Detroit:

There never was an rational argument for city provided police protection, but now that the city cannot provide police protection, private individuals are offering superior service -


Another crazy idea is that a city would provide transportation.  Now that Detroit cannot, entrepreneurs have stepped in to fill the gap.


There is actually an org called Detroit Black Food Security Network such is the fear of being short of food.  Well, private companies again...


Farrakhan is a separatist which makes him an ideal for a movement to separate Detroit from USA.  Given the crazy racist comments on the article above mentioning Farrakhan, maybe enough American would welcome a separate Detroit.  But if Farrakhan wants to revived Detroit, he should ally with people who produce, the small business people who can create a replacement for the government that destroyed Detroit.

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