The MPAA Is Going After Schoolchildren

Pirating Creativity
by TRAVIS EBY

For years now the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has been trying its best, unsuccessfully, to enforce its “intellectual property” claims upon those who would dare share and distribute media. They are of course not the only ones trying to get IP enforced; we have seen the same trends in music and gaming. Since it has long become clear that they cannot stop the sharing of media on the internet, the MPAA is going for the gold: Get pirates when they are young. In other words, the MPAA has gone to work getting its mission inserted into the public school curriculum.

A nonprofit group called the Center for Copyright Information, supported by the MPAA and other groups, is in the early drafting phases of a school curriculum to teach children the supposed value of copyright. Of course, this whole plan is not without critics. Some argue that Hollywood studios and music labels are simply trying to promote their own biased agendas, while others say that such a curriculum would use up valuable classroom time needed to simply cover the basics.

There are two fundamental things for us to look at here, and they are both highly problematic. These are public education and intellectual property.

Public education is an environment wherein children are taught that there is such a thing as objective authority figures. This may not be overt, especially given how many well meaning and sincere public educators are out there, but the fact remains that public schools are among the first places where children start to be molded into compliant, servile people. There is not a whole lot of room for individuality, and even less room for questioning the teacher’s lesson plans. It is the perfect place to instill far-reaching values, such as statism, when children are at their most intellectually vulnerable.

Intellectual property is a ruse the political class uses to control free market — a clever tool to inhibit competition. There is no logical way to own something like an idea, and there is no logical argument against people sharing information, including media of all kinds. By enforcing claims on “intellectual property,” the political class inhibits competition, innovation and creativity.

But they would have us believe otherwise. They argue that IP protects creativity, that it protects competition, and that it protects the market. But if this is truly the case, then why would so many be fighting to undermine it? They also argue that sharing their supposed intellectual property is hurting the industry and costing people jobs. This of course flies in the face of the billions of dollars the movie industry, the music industry, and the game industry rake in every year. But they would still seek to get these regressive values into the minds of schoolchildren.

The fact of the matter is that sharing information, including media, is a massive check against the mandated market control of these big media groups. In many ways it has actually served to help them due to more people having access. It has also pushed them to innovate and make their products worth more to the general consumer. In other words, real market forces have created arguably better products. For years IP has stifled innovation, and it has been through revolutionary market forces that we have seen some exciting changes in the media industry. One such example is the Steam video game client that, while still a player in IP, has been making more and more quality games available for dirt cheap. In many cases, some will stop pirating because the games they might be interested in are available for so little money.

In short, not only is IP a regressive, anti-freedom framework, but the notion that they are so desperate that they would seek to get into the minds of children means that they are scared. Not to mention that their efforts will most likely meet with derision from the older siblings of these kids and create even more media sharing than before, thereby furthering their own demise.

Simply put: They are losing. Let’s keep it that way.

Agenda 21 Meets Global Corporate Takeover in the Trans-Pacific Partnership

July 28, 2012

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism


The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “is a key trade initiative” that the Obama administration claims is “seeking to support jobs for American workers by boosting American exports to the dynamic Asia-Pacific region, promote manufacturing, innovation, and entrepreneurship, and at the same time, reflect in the agreement important values on key issues such as worker rights and the environment.”

However, the agenda of the TPP is a securitization of customs and border patrol services, telecommunications, corporate competition policy that directly affects immigration, corporate investments, and the addition of intellectual property rights with focus on copyright limitations.

The TPP, held in secret, is in actuality a multi-national trade agreement that seeks to extend intellectual property rights across the globe; creating an international enforcement scheme.

In a White House statement , Obama seeks to incorporate America with Canada and the other TPP countries in a “next-generation regional agreement that liberalizes trade and investment.” The press release explains that TPP will build upon “the commitments of NAFTA.”

The TPP defines intellectual property as:

• Copyright
• Trademarks
• Patents
• Geopolitical indicators

The leaked document drafted as the US TPP Intellectual Property Rights Chapter clearly states that negotiators for Obama are actively pushing for the adaptation of copyright measures that further restrict that is outlined in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and other similar international treaties.

There is an initiative to control global IP enforcement by the UN under signatory treaty wherein nations will be mandated to enact domestic laws that have been worded to reflect the provisions in the TPP agreement.

As in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA), that places federal agencies in control of digital “locks” and enforcement of over=blown statutory damages on claims of copyright infringement; as well as restricting the US Congress from altering existing IP governances as changes in technology and innovation demands such elasticity.

The restrictive nature of the TPP is evidenced in such obligations as:

•  Strict punishment over temporary use of copyrighted material without the holder’s authorization
•   Import bans on “parallel goods” from foreign nations wherein copyright authorization is required
•   Extend copyright terms beyond 70 years as agreed in the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of IP
•   Enact laws that treat copyright violation and technological protection measures as separate offences regardless of proof that copyright infringement has occurred
•   Classify copyright infringement as a criminal offense
•   Complete adaptation of the DMCA Internet Intermediaries copyright safe harbor regime

In June of this year, Senators Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, Ron Wyden and Robert Menendez wrote to the Obama administration requesting transparency regarding the TPP talks. In the correspondence, the Senators conveyed : “Groups essential to the success and legitimacy of any agreements are not being provided the opportunity to provide meaningful input on negotiations that have broad policy ramifications. If Congress and the broader public are not informed of the exact terms of the agreement until the conclusion of the process, then the opportunity for meaningful input is lost. The lack of transparency and input makes passage of trade agreements more contentious and controversial.”

This amicable request has fallen on deaf ears as the Obama administration continues to shroud the TPP talks in secrecy.

The propaganda in the public forum is that the TPP is a sort of Free Trade Act (FTA) which masks the massive profits that corporations stand to gain and the elimination of those currently employed as multi-national business is converted into a weapon of mass destruction .

Outsourcing, which was endorsed by NAFTA over a decade ago, would be enhanced under TPP, where manipulation of governments by mega-corporations could ensure profit margins increase exponentially.

Within TPP is an UN-like tribunal of attorneys that would govern legal disputes, enforce through international judgment complaints regarding governmental regulations and oversee adherence to corporate operations despite independent right of sovereign nations under international mandate.
Ron Kirkland, US Trade Representative for the Obama administration believes that public interest and national sovereignty must be cast to the wayside under global governance that is in line with multi-national corporate agendas that serve the global Elite.

Corporate control over natural resources through the use of international tribunals that will rule over environmental issues, land use, public health, and any and all laws or regulations foreign or domestic that apply. Those tribunals would be seated by private sector lawyers operating under the UN and World Bank (WB) demand for taxpayer compensation of domestic regulatory policies because corporations must be paid back for “expected future profits”.

In basic terms, with the aid of tribunal “courts” corporations can put pressure on governments to weaken their environmental policies at the whim of the multi-national company with the backing of international mandate.

This has happened already in various places around the world:

• Chevron used investor tribunals to invade Ecuador and commit toxic contamination of indigenous areas
• Renco Group Inc used investor-tribunals to pollute Peru with residue from smelter factories without having to clean up their mess
• Pacific Rim Mining Corp, while mining for gold, contaminated natural water sources with cyanide without punitive action against them by coercing governments to rewrite water policies

The TPP rewrites domestic law to fit international accord with corporate interest. Whether it is environmental or social issues, the TPP allows the end result to be in line with the profitability of the endeavor. All globalist schemes are wrapped up nicely in the TPP agreement. By empowering multi-national corporations, as they have done with the central banking cartels, the global Elite are ensured their one world government comes to fruition.

How Hollywood’s Own Reality Undermines Its Position on Internet Policy

Credibility Lost

by RICHARD FORNO

The furor over the latest legislative proposals to address online copyright infringement in the United States have cast the major American intellectual property companies – most notably, the entertainment industry — in a very negative light within the global Internet user community.  I join with technologists, scholars, and industry observers who are amazed at the level of concentrated outcry over a single technology policy issue and hope it represents a more civic-minded Internet population when it comes to matters affecting Internet users both in the United States and around the world.

Much of the controversy surrounding The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) [1] and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) [2] pertains to how they were drafted and their potential adverse consequences to the Internet itself, if not society generally. While a prolonged analysis or description of these proposals are beyond the scope of this article – but can be found quite easily online – they represent the latest attempts by the intellectual property (IP) industry (although ‘cartel’ might be a  more appropriate term) to further extend its reach into cyberspace to enact what it believes are necessary measures to protect its copyrighted property such as movies, music, and software.  Unfortunately, these legislative proposals were conceived and developed primarily by industry lobbyists with little input from Internet engineers, cybersecurity practitioners, or other subject matter experts who understand the technical, legal, and social consequences should these proposals, as written, become law.  The secrecy surrounding the drafting of SOPA and PIPA are reminiscent of how these same industry organisations were adamant that the international  development of 2011′s controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) occur in secret with little if any public consultation, comment, or discussion.[3]

Apparently, developing laws to protect intellectual property on the Internet are exempt from Washington’s alleged desire for greater transparency in the policymaking process. It also represents a shift in how technology issues previously were dealt with in the earlier days of the Internet — i.e., involving all stakeholders in a public forum to reach a mutual consensus on a given matter.  Such one-sided practices can lead to proposals like SOPA and PIPA, which indeed may endanger the effective and secure operation of the Internet, harm innocent Internet users, establish a “shoot first” policy based on accusation not proof, and potentially present assorted constitutional concerns over due process and online freedom of expression.  [4]

Concerns over the technical and legal ramifications of SOPA and PIPA were voiced publicly by companies like Google and Facebook and a veritable Who’s Who of Internet Engineering[5]. These concerns subsequently were marginalised or ignored[6] by American legislators wanting to enact them into law quickly while minimising public discussion about their potential consequences.  In response, the Great SOPA Blackout of January 18^th, 2012 was launched by major Internet companies, prominent Web sites, and individual luminaries to protest and raise public awareness of these proposals, building upon the successful online protest the prior month against Internet company GoDaddy.Com, a longtime SOPA supporter.[7]  The significant public attention brought to these proposals during the January 18^th Blackout forced legislators to realise these proposals might be a political problem for them; even before the one-day protest ended, politicians began scrambling to distance themselves from these proposals, including several of their original sponsors.[8][9][10]  Political support turned so quickly against SOPA and PIPA that the president of the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) publicly threatened to cut off campaign support for politicians who didn’t support its legislative desires once it was known that Congressional leaders and the Obama Administration had removed those proposals from active consideration in their current form.[11]

That said, the enforcement of copyright on the Net is an ongoing concern for Hollywood and represents an significant, if not apocalyptic, problem to the entertainment industry, as evidenced in recent years:

• 2005: MPAA claims $6.1 billion in losses due to “continued camcordering” of movies in theaters. [12]

• 2005: US Chamber of Commerce reports 750,000 jobs lost due to online ‘piracy.’[13]

• 2006:  A study based on Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) data from the Institute for Policy Innovation claims the US economy loses $20.5 billon a year from movie ‘piracy.’[14]

• 2011: In a letter to the New York Times, the US Chamber of Commerce’s Mark Elliot says online ‘piracy’ threatens more than 19 million American jobs.[15]

Clearly, the entertainment industry is suffering tremendous financial losses due to online theft.  More frightening, the potential job losses have increased from 750,000 in 2005 to more than 19 million in 2011. This stark news suggests there must be severe financial and employment losses for the entertainment industry resulting from the online ‘piracy’ of its products. These statistics and predictions must be true — after all, these are ‘industry numbers’ being reported!

Interestingly, despite this gloomy news, the MPAA reported that “global box office receipts reached an all time high” of $29.9 billion in 2010 — and soon after announced new statistics showing how movie ‘piracy’ is killing its industry and destroying jobs. [16]

MPAA can’t have it both ways. Either it is losing money and laying people off due to ‘piracy’ or it’s making profits hand-over-fist and keeping its industry very much alive and profitable. Either way, it’s offered up some very misleading statements about its profitability and well-being in the face of an alleged epidemic of online theft that only draconian measures like SOPA or PIPA can address.

Similar antics were used by the MPAA’s musical counterpart, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) over the years to describe its alleged financial woes due to online theft.  In the case of music, iTunes destroyed the decades-old concept of “album sales” — yet recording industry statements and news articles continued to suggest that “declining album sales” was a direct consequence of the online ‘piracy’ problem rather than acknowledging that increasing number of customers now purchased individual tracks from iTunes instead of full albums. [17][18]

Nevertheless, these manipulated statistics are invoked by the entertainment industry at every opportunity to justify and perpetuate attacks on technology, customers, and the Internet itself while ignoring societal evolution and the evolving expectations of its customers.  I do not dispute that the theft of copyrighted materials on the Internet is a problem and needs to be addressed, but we must be mindful of the statistics presented by the entertainment industry on this issue and not blindly accept their view as reflective of reality. Unfortunately, like all pieces of propaganda, repeat it often enough and the audience will believe it’s true.

The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.”  So let’s dig a bit deeper into the statistics routinely cited by the entertainment industry as it plays the victim of ‘piracy’ in the eyes of legislators and the media to determine if these indeed are facts or merely fantasy:

• 2010: The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) releases a study that, while confirming online copyright infringement indeed is a problem, cast serious doubts on the intellectual property industry’s ‘piracy’ statistics. It also concludes that measuring the impact of ‘piracy’ with any degree of meaningful accuracy may be impossible.[19]

• 2011: A ‘piracy investigator’ working for the entertainment industry describes how the entertainment industry worked to boost its piracy statistics to gain stronger media and political interest in its efforts.[20]

• 2012: Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute notes that the statistics associated with online ‘piracy’ are flawed if not something purely in the fantasies of lobbyists and their paid-for legislators.[21]

In short, great doubts are, and should be, cast upon the statistics used by the entertainment industry regarding ‘piracy’ and the theft of its products.  Therefore, in negotiating with the entertainment industry, lawmakers must be prudently critical in their analysis and due diligence of the facts presented — or, as the late Ronald Reagan famously said, “trust, but verify.”

Sadly, these very metrics, flawed or fixed as they are, continue to define the entertainment industry’s vision of reality and are used by its Congressional lobbyists to garner support for more far-reaching mechanisms to control the flow of information — theirs or anyone else’s — on the Internet in the name of countering ‘piracy.’  After all, the flurry of widespread public criticism of SOPA was dismissed by lead SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith as “not based in reality”; in other words, the reality conveniently contrived by the entertainment industry lobbyists and subsequently believed as absolute truth by Congress.[22]  Such sentiment, if not simply an excessive sense of self-entitlement, also helps explain why members of the entertainment industry have sued foreign governments that do not enact legislation favourable to them immediately upon request.[23]

Therefore, how can anyone take seriously the claims of Hollywood over its declared losses to ‘piracy’?  Not only do the entertainment industry’s statements about ‘piracy’s’ debilitating effects on its profitability conflict with its proclamations about strong annual sales, but it’s been caught basing its actions on a misconstrued sense of reality and groupthink reinforced by an ongoing inability to work with those whose views differ or raise concerns about its agenda. But Congressional lawmakers routinely believe the entertainment industry’s claims and cater to its needs, because they appreciate the flow of money received by enacting legislation favourable to those supporting their political campaigns. [24]

Interestingly, either through a superb act of irony or willful ignorance, the entertainment industry (and Congress) fails to note that the very technologies it lobbies (or votes) against are the ones that continue to make it so profitable over time.  Technological innovations such as the VCR, DVR, iTunes, NetFlix, and yet-to-be-discovered (or invented) services all contribute to the long-term success of the entertainment industry by allowing customers to enjoy entertainment products in a manner conducive to and consistent with the modern age and societal expectations.  For example, the launch of iTunes as the de facto Internet site to purchase music was a direct response to the rampant theft of music over the Internet in the late 1990s when Napster, GnuTella, Limewire, and other services met an emerging customer need (portabilityof a purchased music to multiple devices and over the Internet) that the recording industry chose to ignore. iTunes transformed that mostly criminal venture – obtaining and sharing music over the Internet – into the recording industry’s standard, if not preferred, method of distributing commercial music to customers.

Unfortunately. any new technology in the hands of average customers absolutely terrifies the entertainment industry. An insane fear of ‘piracy’ and zealous desire to protect its digital products at all costs have contributed to the imposition of restrictive technology controls, laws, and legislative proposals that created the uproar we see currently over SOPA and PIPA. Similar efforts over time explain why customers couldn’t easily duplicate VHS tapes in the 1980s, or DVDs in the 1990s, and are forced to watch un-skippable FBI “Anti Piracy Warnings” on DVDs and Blu-Rays in the 2000s.  It’s why you hear terms like ‘safe harbour’, ‘circumvention’, HDMI, HDCP, DRM, TCP, CSS, TPM, ‘analog holes’, ‘broadcast flags’, and things called ‘content protection’ inflicted upon our computers, monitors, video cards, iPods, cell phones, home theater systems, movies, music, and other digital products we might place on our various ‘authorised devices.’ It’s why since 2005 you risk arrest on federal felony charges if you take a photos or quick movie clips of a relative in a movie theater and happen to also catch a film playing in the background.[25] Why? Because you might be a criminal looking to steal digital content.  Even if you’re not, you might be. But that chance that you might be a criminal means everyone must be considered and treated as one, too — and why every new piece of consumer technology is considered by the entertainment industry as a potential Weapon of Mass Infringement. [26]   Remember that in 1982 the former MPAA president famously equated the VCR to the Boston Strangler [27] in terms of endangering the future success of the film industry; yet despite the proliferation of VCRs, DVRs, and streaming video services in the years since, that same industry reported record profits in 2010!

Effectively working together to counter online copyright infringement requires trust — trust in the data presented, and trust in the trustworthiness of those you are working with. Sadly, the entertainment industry repeatedly demonstrates it is not to be trusted — and the flawed statistics endlessly cited to further its agenda confirms this belief, as does its repeated inability to work with people and groups whose views differ from their own.  Those working to develop lasting solutions to the very real problem of contemporary copyright infringement must strive towards a mutually acceptable resolution to this problem and realise that a winner-take-all scorched-earth outcome may not be an appropriate solution. Legislation and treaties regarding copyright enforcement that raise serious concerns about Internet security, stability, and constitutionality (i.e., SOPA, PIPA, ACTA) must not be developed in secret by a committee of selected lobbyists but rather in full view of the public and with input from qualified external subject matter experts representing all sides of the issue.  Finally, to reach such a solution, the entertainment industry must abolish its practice of treating its paying customers as potential criminals and overcome its paranoia about technologies that it doesn’t yet control or influence heavily[28][29].

Unlike Silicon Valley, Hollywood considers ‘innovation’ as the process of lobbying for newer and more stringent controls over information and the flow of information in modern society. By clinging to its own version of reality, the entertainment industry demonstrates that it prefers to inflict lasting damage on the rest of the world to protect its antiquated Industrial Age business models rather than evolve with the modern world and so-called Information Age. Moreover, I posit that the entertainment industry’s ongoing and frequently controversial efforts to deal with what it purports to be an apocalyptic threat of ‘piracy’ merely are attempts to justify its legitimacy and self-perceived relevance in a world where the capabilities of quality production, marketing, and distribution of entertainment and other digital products now exist in the hands of Every Man[30][31] and not exclusively One Man[32][33].

Sources.[1] http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3261[2] http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s968/text[3] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/report-acta-secrecy-is-all-the-united-states-fault.ars[4] https://www.eff.org/document/law-professors-letter-sopa[5] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/internet-inventors-warn-against-sopa-and-pipa[6] http://www.gamepolitics.com/2012/01/04/smith-says-reddit-sopa-protestors-are-039not-legitimate-or-large-number039 [7] http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57349913-281/godaddy-bows-to-boycott-now-opposes-sopa-copyright-bill/[8] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71697.html[9] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-57362990-501465/sopa-is-dead-smith-pulls-bill/[10]  http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/harry-reid-pipa-sopa-mpaa-blackout-283549[11] http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120120/14472117492/mpaa-directly-publicly-threatens-politicians-who-arent-corrupt-enough-to-stay-bought.shtml[12] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/pirates-of-the-canadians/article735563/singlepage/#articlecontent[13] http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10213367-38.html[14] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5395218.stm[15] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/opinion/rogue-web-sites.html[16]http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/03/mpaa_box_office_bragging.html[17] http://blogs.hbr.org/research/2010/01/the-itunes-effect-and-the-futu.html[18]http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/02/news/companies/napster_music_industry/[19] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/us-government-finally-admits-most-piracy-estimates-are-bogus.ars(The GAO Report is @ http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-423)[20] http://torrentfreak.com/private-anti-piracy-investigator-spills-the-beans-111003/[21] http://www.itworld.com/security/242587/best-evidence-showing-we-need-sopa-based-govt-studies-never-existed[22] http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120105/04462117287/rep-lamar-smith-decides-lying-about-insulting-dismissing-opposition-to-sopa-is-winning-strategy.shtml[23]http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120112/09203917388/insane-entitlement-emi-sues-irish-govt-not-passing-sopa-like-censorship-law.shtml[24] http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/205491-consumer-group-accuses-hollywood-of-threatening-politicians[25] http://consumerist.com/2009/12/charged-with-felony-after-taping-4-minutes-of-new-moon.html[26] http://www.mpaa.org/contentprotection/camcorder-laws[27] http://cryptome.org/hrcw-hear.htm[28] http://www.dvdforum.org/about-mission.htm[29] http://www.digital-cp.com/about_dcp[30] http://www.apple.com/[31] http://www.youtube.com/[32] http://www.riaa.com/[33] http://www.mpaa.org/

ACLU Will Take Gene Patent Case to Supreme Court

Sunday, October 16, 2011 by Inter Press Service

by Amanda Wilson 

 

WASHINGTON - When Jaydee Hanson, then-bioethics director for the United Methodist Church, spoke out publicly against gene patents over 15 years ago, some in the biotech industry compared his stance to the Catholic Church's persecution of Galileo, the 15th century astronomer who discovered the moons of Jupiter.

Hanson and 200 other religious leaders had released a statement that DNA in the human body and animals are natural objects and should not be subject to patenting.

"It's kind of like saying two of your genes are in jail, but we are not allowed to report this information to you, even though it would save your life."

Patent supporters in the biotech industry disagree, arguing that "isolated copies" of genes outside the human body should be patentable and that the prospect of intellectual property rights on genes serves as incentive for further research.

On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced it would ask the Supreme Court to rule on a patent by Myriad Genetics, a genetic diagnostics company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, on "isolated" BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 genes, two genes that can have mutations linked to breast, ovarian and prostate cancers.

Those with a stake in the case say any ruling from the court would have a major impact on patient care, scientific research, and rights to access human genetic information, as well on legal doctrine.

The gene patenting case has been moving up through lower courts since 2009, when the ACLU first filed a civil suit in a district court in the state of New York arguing that Myriad's patent on the genes should be invalidated.

District judge Robert Sweet agreed with the ACLU in 2010, but Myriad appealed, and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Sweet's ruling in July, with two out of three judges siding with Myriad, affirming the company's right to patents on the two "isolated" BRCA genes linked to breast cancer.

Facing a mid-December deadline to appeal the lower court's ruling to uphold gene patents, the ACLU decided to move forward with the appeal in time for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, said Sandra Park, an ACLU attorney working on the case.

"We consulted with our clients and made the decision to move forward, given the importance of the issues to patients and scientists," Park told IPS, adding that the Supreme Court would likely make a decision in the spring of 2012 about whether it will hear the case.

More than 4,000 genes have been patented, including copies of genes that make up 20 percent of the human genome, according to Hanson, who now works as a policy director for the International Centre for Technology Assessment (ICTA). In the past, Hanson and ICTA have successfully challenged patents on a beagle and other animals.

In September, Myriad sent the following comment to IPS: "Myriad defended its position in the courts and recently had a favourable outcome. We believe that isolated DNA and cDNA are patent-eligible material, as both are new chemical matter with important utilities which can only exist as a product of human ingenuity."

With its patents, Myriad holds exclusive rights in the U.S. to test the BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 genes for mutations and provide that information to doctors and patients. Those mutations place women at a much greater risk of developing breast cancer and some men at greater risk of developing prostate cancer.

ACLU: Patents make tests cost-prohibitive and block research
The ACLU represents a group of 20 other plaintiffs, including geneticists, pathologists and breast cancer survivor advocates, who maintain that the patents block patient care.

They argue that patients shouldn't have to pay for genetic information they could use to make life-or- death decisions, such as whether to get a mastectomy, especially when other genetic testing providers could offer that information if Myriad didn't have exclusive rights to sequence the genes.

Five to 10 percent of breast cancer cases are linked to mutations on the BRCA-1 or BRCA-2 genes, and those with the mutations have an 85 percent risk of developing cancer. Some insurance policies cover the tests, but other plans, especially those providing insurance for the poor, don't.

According to Park, Myriad chose not to enter into contracts with about half of all insurance programs in states that cover low-income people.

Ellen Matloff, a genetic counselor at Yale for over 15 years and a plaintiff in the ACLU case, said the cost of the test was a real issue for many of her patients.

According to her, "comprehensive" breast cancer test from Myriad for other breast cancer mutations costs 3,400 dollars and a supplementary test for the BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 genes, called the BART test, costs 700 dollars. Matloff said that 95 percent of patients she recommends for supplementary testing don't end up being tested because of its high cost.

"I know that we are missing mutations," Matloff told IPS, adding that the BRCA gene mutations are passed down maternally and paternally. "It is going to impact them, their children, their siblings their grandchildren, their nieces and nephews, and from a clinician's standpoint it is horrifying."

Gene patenting opponents also argue that in a new era in which full- genome sequencing is getting faster and cheaper, patents stand in the way of access to new knowledge about how certain genes are related to disease.

"The whole next phase of [research in] genetics and disease is to understand how genes work together," Hanson told IPS. "It is a huge task, and the patents just interfere with it."

Matloff expressed a similar concern that advanced knowledge about genes without access to that knowledge could create problems for patients and care providers.

"It is almost like saying, 'we have your genes right in front of us, it came out of your body, but we are not allowed to look at it, we're not allowed to interpret it, and we are not allowed to give the information back to you,'" Matloff said.

"It's kind of like saying two of your genes are in jail, but we are not allowed to report this information to you, even though it would save your life."