Disclosure of bias: I'm ideologically against the idea of messing with fundamental aspects of life (and the basis of agriculture) for the purposes of copy protection. That said, I very much agree with you. I'd like to explain though and at least elaborate on my biases :)
What you might see would be e.g. the spread of the copyrighted genes without the terminator genes rather than some farmer grovelling through a pile of seeds trying to find something viable. Or descendants of copyrighted plants growing where they shouldn't be - because the ones that could, did. It seems to me that even if you have the terminator genes, as a "corporate innovator", you still need IP protection. A reasonable and conservative person should assume things fuck up at scale and especially with viral technologies like, say, life.
On the other hand, if terminator genes work well, they start looking like a bad idea. For a start they're strategically bad for any nation which might ever be at war or subject to terrorism, due to the fragility of centralised seed production and distribution.
Also, the idea that the terminator genes would spread to other plants (e.g. http://discovermagazine.com/2003/aug/featgenes which I never was too worried about) starts to look more like a real thing.
I appreciate that bias and appreciate your admission, but I don't share it. I view life as a hungry equilibrium. It has existed on this planet for a long time, and has endured much worse shocks than Monsanto can produce. In the long run biologists will simply see the contributions of intelligent life as another source of genetic variability. That isn't to say that humans always have good ideas about genetic changes: consider the dachshund. Only planetary-scale events have the potential to really screw things up for life per se.
I think we can agree that as harmful non-inherited transmissible genetic variation goes, the terminator gene (if it actually works; do we really know why Monsanto didn't buy Delta & Pine?) is probably the least worrisome. A gene that acts against reproductive fitness is not one that will ever be common in nature. As for other variations, patented or not, I expect most will be out-competed outside carefully controlled environments. Few domestic chickens live long in a predator-rich environment. Roundup tolerance itself is unlikely to enhance fitness in the absence of someone willing to pay Monsanto thousands of dollars every year. Those few human-created variations that can establish themselves in wild populations, if we ever discover such, I'm just going to call evolution. The spectre of the super-weed seems silly to me: the essence of a weed is that, in the absence of human intervention, it crowds out plants that humans like. Roundup is only agriculturally valuable for cultivation of varieties that tolerate Roundup; if weeds gained that tolerance it wouldn't be a net loss for humanity.
What you might see would be e.g. the spread of the copyrighted genes without the terminator genes rather than some farmer grovelling through a pile of seeds trying to find something viable. Or descendants of copyrighted plants growing where they shouldn't be - because the ones that could, did. It seems to me that even if you have the terminator genes, as a "corporate innovator", you still need IP protection. A reasonable and conservative person should assume things fuck up at scale and especially with viral technologies like, say, life.
On the other hand, if terminator genes work well, they start looking like a bad idea. For a start they're strategically bad for any nation which might ever be at war or subject to terrorism, due to the fragility of centralised seed production and distribution.
Also, the idea that the terminator genes would spread to other plants (e.g. http://discovermagazine.com/2003/aug/featgenes which I never was too worried about) starts to look more like a real thing.