I used that case because it's the most famous one people refer too. Runyon is another famous person. Look, I've watched Food Inc too. Again, show me the case (which I believe does not exist). You showed me a news article. Otherwise this is just someone who has been in a bunch of movies and is suing Monsanto, and is not really an unbiased source (just like I don't link directly to Monsanto's website on the Runyons.)
I don't know what level of evidence would satisfy you, as you seem to have a pre-existing bias against the farmers' claims.
Monsanto attempted to sue, then dropped its case against the Runyons. Given Monsanto's otherwise litigious history, and the damage that would be done to the company if they were to lose a case like this in court, the evidence points in favor of the farmer.
Statements like "I believe (any case) does not exist" and "this is just someone who has been in a bunch of movies" show bias, and tell me that you're unlikely to accept anything short of a full and frank confession from Monsanto that they have aggressively sued innocent farmers.
What do you call a company that pursues cases like the one cited in the CBS News article about Mo Parr?
74-year-old Mo Parr is a seed cleaner; he is hired by farmers to separate debris from the seed to be replanted. Monsanto sued him claiming he was "aiding and abetting" farmers, helping them to violate the patent.
"There's no way that I could be held responsible," Parr said. "There's no way that I could look at a soy bean and tell you if it's Round-up Ready."
The company subpoenaed Parr's bank records, without his knowledge, and found his customers. After receiving calls from Monsanto, some of them stopped talking to him.
"It really broke my heart," Parr said. "You know, I could hardly hold a cup of coffee that morning,"
I won't make any further arguments about this, because I'm not trying to change your mind if its already made up.
It blows my mind that there are people on HN confusing opposition to the horrific practices that Monsanto uses with opposition to GM crops in general. I am a supporter of GM strains of crops, because I think they have proven environmental benefits. However, what Monsanto did to the seed cleaner is no different than blaming BitTorrent for piracy. The only difference is that BitTorrent sites actually have a somewhat possible way to determine copyrighted works from open works.
The seed cleaner is being sued simply because his services are utilized by people trying to cheat Monsanto as well as those who are simply seeking to continue growing their heirloom strains. This isn't justice. This is simply a huge corporation with vast legal resources doing whatever is necessary to prevent theft of their IP rights, even if that involves trampling people that committed no crimes. It is cheaper for Monsanto to put every seed cleaner out of business than to go after the actual IP infringers. But it is not really legal, and only holds up in court because the seed cleaners can't afford to fight Monstanto's legal shield, and too few judges bother to inform themselves on the topic.
I am a supporter of GM strains of crops, because I think they have proven environmental benefits.
I'm not trying to argue over this and I certainly won't try to change your mind, but if you haven't already seen it, this 30 year long study[1] is an interesting read and suggests that organic farming has many benefits over conventional farming and GM crops. I totally understand that the Rodale Institute has an interest in proving this to be the case, but I'd argue that the pro-GM studies are also performed by groups and companies that have an interest in proving their results too. In any case, I'm only trying to offer information on a potential counter-view, not start an argument neither of us could win anyway. :)
I like your analogy of equating going after the seed cleaners with BitTorrent. I'd argue it's way worse than that also because, if my understanding is correct, the seed cleaning is an integral part of the process of reusing the seeds, which is an integral part of cheap(er), more traditional methods of farming. It seems to me like in addition to trying to conduct infringement reduction with a cricket bat instead of a scalpel, they're trying to eliminate the ability for farmers to farm in the way they had for generations and to force them to purchase the GMO seeds by making parts of the process-flow the smaller farmers use illegal. Not to be too gloom and doom but this is pretty gloom and doom. Do we really want these corporations (Monsanto, Dow and their ilk) who obviously do not have our best interest in mind to have almost complete control of the supply of our food staples? I sure don't.
this is not at all like blaming bittorrent sites for pirating
look, you don't understand what this seed cleaner was doing. monsanto does not go around suing every seed cleaner in the midwest just because they could be cleaning roundup ready seeds. they sued moe parr, and they did so because he told other farmers that it was legal for them to clean their roundup ready seeds (which it is not).
I'm curious why it would be illegal to remove debris from seeds (or does "clean" mean something else in this context?). What is Monsanto mixing with their Roundup-ready seeds that they so desperately want to get planted along with the crop?
cleaning is how you transform this years crops into next year's seeds. one of the agreements you sign when you buy roundup-ready seeds is that you don't clean seeds.
basically, by seed cleaning, you don't have to buy more roundup ready seeds.
look, if you think a news article quoting Moe Parr about someone suing him is convincing evidence, i'm not really sure if you'll believe this, but here's some evidence indicating that Moe Parr is in the wrong:
EDIT: Sorry, read that as "where Monsanto sued and won the case" I expect you won't find many cases where Monsanto was sued and lost, since they would be extremely inclined to settle and it would be hard for a farmer to turn down the sort of money that Monsanto has available to it.
I think winning is considered important because of the mistaken presumption that this has some bearing on how Monsanto is conducting itself or the guilt or innocence of the farmers involved. The unfortunate truth is that Monsanto will probably never lose such a case, they will settle or drop a case that they think they have any chance of losing. The legal system in most of the world is such that just threats and intimidation is enough to "win" because of the costs and damage just having a suit drag on will bring a favourable result for Monsanto.
These are not two equally equipped sides engaging in a fair judicial process to settle a contract dispute, pretending that it is such a circumstance is overwhelmingly unfair to the farmers involved.
Ok, then a good starting point would be citations of cases that Monsanto brought against farmers and then dropped. You'd think farmers would make a lot of noise about those, but either way, those cases should be discoverable.
Monstanto's own website says they have sued 145 times and only gone to trial 11 times. In the past I know they have indicated that they have settled more than 500 cases out of court but I can not find a good citation for that.
I personally believe that Monsanto is probably correct in most of their accusations against farmers but the imbalance of power that exists between the two parties means that Monsanto does have something of a free hand to do as it likes regardless of whether it is in the right or not. I am not from the United States but given what I know of the structure of the business down there if you can't use any of their products you will have a lot of difficulty continuing to earn a livelihood as a conventional farmer.
it sets a legal precedent. This is why companies love to settle out of court and to not admit any wrong doings. This is how finance companies are investigated by the SEC, pays a settlement, declares nothing wrong was done and continues on with the practice that got them investigated in the first place.
Because if Monsanto wins then the farmer is guilty, and I'm not interested in condemning Monsanto for suing in cases where they've actually been legally wronged.
(If you wanna debate whether the law should be different then that's another argument.)
Oh yes, obvious conflict and I should have disclosed this major point. I didn't even know it, but that does not excuse me. George Church was an LSRF fellow (independent non-profit fellowship), which are named after the donation company. Thus George was sponsored indirectly by Monsanto in 1984 for working as a post-doc in Gail Martin's lab working on embryogenesis and development.
http://www.lsrf.org/alumni/alumni84.htm
