All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. ...

-- John Donne

Jonathan Lethem wrote this 'remix' in the February issue of Harper's Magazine.

He elicited a response from Larry Lessig in the April issue (which is not yet available online).

Consider a side dish of Richard Posner's The Little Book of Plagiarism, which Publishers Weekly calls "a fascinating historical tour of the subject, [in which] he dismisses the idea that good art must be totally original." Taken on its own, it seems preposterous that anyone would confine "good art" to that which is "totally" original. (What is?)

The Ecstasy of Influence: A plagiarism | Harper's

Last Friday, Xavier Becerra, a Democrat of California, and Dave Weldon, a Republican of Florida, sponsored the Genomic Research and Accessibility Act, to ban the practice of patenting genes found in nature.

k wrote:

I couldn't find the bill on THOMAS ... I look forward to reading the bill ... perhaps someone else can find it ...

The bill is in Thomas as HR 977: Genomic Research and Accessibility Act. It's quite short:

To amend title 35, United States Code, to prohibit the patenting of human genetic material.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

February 9, 2007

Mr. BECERRA (for himself and Mr. WELDON of Florida) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

A BILL

To amend title 35, United States Code, to prohibit the patenting of human genetic material.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Genomic Research and Accessibility Act'.

SEC. 2. PROHIBITION ON PATENT OF HUMAN GENETIC MATERIAL.

(a) In General- Chapter 10 of title 35, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new section:

`Sec. 106. Prohibition on patent of human genetic material

`Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no patent may be obtained for a nucleotide sequence, or its functions or correlations, or the naturally occurring products it specifies.'.

(b) Table of Contents- The table of sections of chapter 10 of title 35, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

`106. Prohibition on patent of human genetic material.'.

(c) Applicability- The amendment made by subsection (a) shall not apply to a patent issued before the date of the enactment of this Act.

RE: Patenting Life

You can’t patent snow, eagles or gravity, and you shouldn’t be able to patent genes, either. Yet by now one-fifth of the genes in your body are privately owned.

The results have been disastrous.

Patenting Life