If technology advances to the point that it becomes possible to clone someone from a strand of hair or fingernail clipping and someone does this with me (or any US citizen) in a county when cloning is not outlawed, and brings little astro back into the US at some point, have they violated any copyright (or related) rights I may have to my own genome.
Ha! I love hollywood. Actually, fingernail clippings contain no DNA, and hair only does if the root is attached. Besides that, however, I don’t think genes can be copyrighted, but the can be (and are) patented.
Copyright only applies to written material, movies, sound recordings and the like. It does not apply to natural objects.
It applies to software too, and technically DNA is software, of a sort. I think if someone created a strand of DNA for a new completely new organism from scratch, for example, he could make some claim to it being copyrightable.
Ooh! I get to provide a cite for an astro question (I always open your threads - they are invariably fresh and original).
SciAm did an article about this: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00039325-4D85-1CC6-B4A8809EC588EEDF
Wasn’t there a case where the exwife of a man had wanted to use the mans sperm to impregnate herself (I believe it was from a spermbank)
I don’t remember what the outcome of that case was, but I’m not sure if the court ruled in his favor or not. I think this was along time ago, or perhaps and episode of Law and Order 