James Joyce Estate Sends Takedown For Joyce Quote In DNA

from the a-portrait-of-an-intellectual-monopolist dept

Wed, Mar 16th 2011 6:36am — Mike Masnick

Craig Venter, who is no stranger to advocating stronger and stronger IP laws -- especially in the area of "synthetic life" -- apparently learned recently how those laws can reach ridiculous levels. In a recent presentation, he noted that his team had encoded a James Joyce quote in the DNA of the "synthetic life" he's been trying to create. However, the James Joyce estate was not amused and sent him a cease-and-desist. Venter notes that he felt that it was fair use to include a quote. The quote was really short:

�To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.�

To claim that this is infringement seems pretty ridiculous. What's unclear from the article, though, is whether or not Venter fought this or just accepted it and agreed to take the quote out. This isn't the first time that the Joyce estate has done stuff like this, including an attempt to stifle a biography by use of a copyright claim. In that case, the estate finally learned that they had no claim when they actually had to pay up to settle the case.

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Filed Under: copyright, craig venter, dna, james joyce, synthetic life

31 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2011 @ 7:07am

To claim that this is infringement seems pretty ridiculous.

How do you figure?
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- John, 16 Mar 2011 @ 7:13am
  
  Re:
  Quoting is fair use, as long as it's attributed. As long as somewhere they say it's by James Joyce, the quote is fine.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2011 @ 8:25am
    
    Re: Re:
    Is the quote copyrighted? If so, it's not nearly that simple. I was asking Mike, so I'll wait and see if he explains what he meant. It's these sort of conclusory statements from him that leave me scratching my head wondering why he couldn't put a little effort into backing them up with a bit of argument or analysis.
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    - btr1701 (profile), 16 Mar 2011 @ 10:36am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Fair Use
      > Is the quote copyrighted? If so, it's not
      > nearly that simple.
      
      Of course it is. That's why it's fair use. Fair use is an exception that allows use of copyrighted material without permission.
      
      If it wasn't copyrighted, then fair use wouldn't be an issue. It would just be plain use.
      
      And yes, what those guys did is perfectly legitmate fair use. Even if it wasn't, I'd just ignore the Joyce estate anyway, because it's extremely unlikely they'll ever have access to either the organism in question or the specialized equipment necessary to examine its DNA to determine whether the encoded quote has been removed or not.
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  - Gerard Leahy, 21 Mar 2011 @ 2:17pm
    
    Re: Re:
    You are probably corrrect - but clearly the length of citation will also be a relevant factor .
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  - Gerard Leahy (profile), 21 Mar 2011 @ 2:27pm
    
    Re: John
    Attribution may not always be sufficient - since the charge is not so much that of "passing off" so much as it is for using it in the first place - length of quote may also be relevant.
    
    Gerard Leahy
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- Greg G (profile), 16 Mar 2011 @ 7:33am
  
  Re:
  Quoting people has been going on for centuries, perhaps millenia.
  
  Og: Ah ah! Ahta! AAAHTA!
  
  tomorrow, inscribed on a stone tablet by Atouk:
  
  Og say "Ah ah! ahta! AAAHTA!"
  
  Og probably never thought about suing Atouk for infringement, let alone the publishers of the stone tablet news.
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- Howard the Duck, 16 Mar 2011 @ 7:34am
  
  Re:
  You need to take that question down. I copyrighted it years ago.
  
  "How do you figure"
  copyright 1998 HD
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- Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2011 @ 8:07am
  
  Re:
  Someone they have a genetic connection to wrote those words to make money and now in a horrible irony someone has written those words into genes presumably with money making in mind.
  
  Genes replicate, if this is not stopped now there will be no controlling the royalty free spread of these biological pirates.
  
  He should be glad of the cease and desist rather than having to pay a fee for each iteration of the information.
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- Mike Masnick (profile), 16 Mar 2011 @ 10:01am
  
  Re:
  How do you figure?
  
  Me stating that it was ridiculous was an opinion, which I believe to be self-evident.
  
  I'm curious as to how you would think that it's NOT ridiculous to send a cease-and-desist here?
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  - Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2011 @ 10:57am
    
    Re: Re:
    Because if the piratical Craig Venter had gotten away with this then there's a chance that James Joyce would've stopped writing.
    
    And that would be a sad day for culture.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 22 Mar 2011 @ 3:20pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Hi Stephen!
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  - Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2011 @ 2:49pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Me stating that it was ridiculous was an opinion, which I believe to be self-evident.
    
    I'm curious as to how you would think that it's NOT ridiculous to send a cease-and-desist here?
    
    You didn't answer the question, as I'm sure you're well aware. How is the claim that this is infringement ridiculous?
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    - Anonymous Coward, 17 Mar 2011 @ 11:33am
      
      Re: Re: Re: how you would think that it's NOT ridiculous to send a cease-and-desist here?
      I'd be more interested to see your answer to Mike's question, because really...this I gotta hear.
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  - Gerard Leahy (profile), 21 Mar 2011 @ 2:30pm
    
    Re: Mike
    Clearly you are correct in that you have (properly I would say)ridiculed it. Technically I suppose whether it is ridiculous or not has no bearing on the merits of the case .
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- Anonymous Coward, 22 Mar 2011 @ 3:19pm
  
  Re:
  Hi Stephen!
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2011 @ 7:22am

Maybe they just don't want to be involved with DNA manipulation.
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Overcast (profile), 16 Mar 2011 @ 7:27am

Sounds like you found a group of people that all need to "get a life".
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2011 @ 7:33am

When are Homer's family going to finally sue the Joyce estate for nicking The Odyssey?
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- Gerard Leahy (profile), 21 Mar 2011 @ 2:41pm
  
  Re:
  Presume you are speaking in jest here ? - since of course Joyce nicked little if anything from Homer. Usually Joyce the magpie purloined and plundered from everywhere and anywhere including from the great plunderer Shakespeare but always sufficient to weave a garment richly allusional to provide a blanket of hommage to touch and unpick with pleasure and wonder.
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Jeffery, 16 Mar 2011 @ 7:58am

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't copyright length for "Life plus 70 years", both in the US and Ireland? And did not James Joyce die in January of 1941? So would not the copyright have EXPIRED two months ago?
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- Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2011 @ 8:42am
  
  Re:
  Oh, thanks for that. I saw the title of the article and my immediate thought was "Wha? Hasn't that guy been dead for a really long time already?!"
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- coldbrew, 16 Mar 2011 @ 8:50am
  
  Re:
  Nice call.
  
  P.S. Voting is not possible w/o js if you wonder why I make it a comment.
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- Mike Masnick (profile), 16 Mar 2011 @ 9:58am
  
  Re:
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't copyright length for "Life plus 70 years", both in the US and Ireland? And did not James Joyce die in January of 1941? So would not the copyright have EXPIRED two months ago?
  
  Not so simple:
  
  http://english.osu.edu/research/organizations/ijjf/copyrightfaqs.cfm
  
  However, it does appear that this particular quote comes from "A Portrait..." which does appear to be in the public domain in the US... making this C&D even more ridiculous. I wonder if they claimed something other than copyright? Publicity rights?
  
  Or maybe they were going under EU rules, where "Portrait.." goes into the PD next year. But since Venter is here in the US... again that seems like a problem.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2011 @ 8:07am

Venter also inserted what he believed was a quote from the Caltech physicist Richard Feynman: "What I cannot buid, I cannot understand."
Caltech reacted to news of Venter's work by sending him a picture of Feynman's blackboard where the quote was written.
Venter says he going back to correct the error so that the DNA will now read: "What I cannot create, I do not understand".
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2011 @ 9:12am

Well obviously the estate was afraid that this DNA would replicate and become self aware and then proceed to claim it was Joyce. It would then proceed to write slash fiction based on Twilight and ruin the literary world!

Won't someone think of the words!?
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Donny (profile), 16 Mar 2011 @ 10:37am

Saddened
http://english.osu.edu/research/organizations/ijjf/copyrightfaqs.cfm

Good GOD. Seeing that really hit me with how absurd this idea is. Who'll really care about the works by then, except those who've been told to or made to, who'll approach them as dead scholarly institutions, instead of the playful exciting invigorating living creative works they deserve to be read as.

It is a damn shame Finnegan's wake hasn't become a compendium of a thousand genius' wit, instead of just one. And by the time it becomes possible to do that, well who'll really want to try? There'll be a hundred year gap between authors.
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Jeffery, 16 Mar 2011 @ 11:07am

Ok, so I looked over the link provided: http://english.osu.edu/research/organizations/ijjf/copyrightfaqs.cfm

And, given that its from the same group who clearly have no idea how to assert copyright law (the aforementioned James Joyce Foundation), I doubt any of it is accurate. In fact, I re-read the relevant laws, and unless it was published for a corporation (and is, thus, owned by said corporation), life + 70 years is the copyright term of his works. Pretty much all of them are public domain now.

I shall begin publishing James Joyce writings on my blog shortly.
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- Anonymous Coward, 22 Mar 2011 @ 3:23pm
  
  Re:
  I think you'll find that the James Joyce Foundation and the Joyce Estate are quite different (and often opposed) bodies.
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Ccomp5950 (profile), 16 Mar 2011 @ 3:46pm

derivative work?
So, if he created a new life form would it be considered a derivative work of the quote?

Sometimes life is stranger than fiction.
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LASIS_BLOG, 2 Apr 2011 @ 10:00am

How will this claim turn out?
New York Law School's legal reporting blog, LASIS, takes on how this copyright infringement issue would fare in the courts: http://www.lasisblog.com/2011/04/02/copyright-clash-at-the-cellular-level/
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