Proprietary Grapes Come With Draconian End User License Agreement (vice.com) 223
They did EULA to a grape. A company put an end user license agreement (EULA) on a bag of grapes: "The recipient of the produce contained in this package agrees not to propagate or reproduce any portion of this produce, including 'but not limited to' seeds, stems, tissue, and fruit," read the EULA on a bag of Carnival brand grapes posted on Twitter by user Tube Time. From a report When you purchase a bag of delicious and sugary Carnival brand grapes, you enter into an agreement whereby you will consume the grapes and do nothing else with them. This kind of warning against reproduction is something we're used to with digital products like video games, but is jarring to see spread to the world of consumer produce. "It's always shocking and more than a little absurd to find these licenses on everyday consumer products, especially at the grocery store," Aaron Perzanowski, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University and the co-author of The End of Ownership, told Motherboard in an email. In the broader world of agriculture, however, there's actually quite a lot of precedent for this. And patented seeds with specific restrictions is a constant sore point for farmers. Agriculture giant Monsanto has patented a whole host of proprietary seeds that are weed- and insect-resistant, and threatens to sue farmers who harvest and replant them from year-to-year. In fact, the Supreme Court has already ruled on this.
I promise (Score:3, Funny)
I'll do better (Score:5, Insightful)
I promise not to buy shit from that company, or any other US company that tries to do the same trick. Because all these "intellectual" "property" tricks come invariably from the US.
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Yeah, they definitely need to get better at verbing their nouns, either that or unplug all webcams just in case.
If you didn’t sign a contract... (Score:3)
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probably not at all. thats what makes it dumb. it tries to make it seem special or something I guess.
besides how the grape tastes depends a lot on where it was grown anyways.
Re: If you didn’t sign a contract... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If you didn’t sign a contract... (Score:5, Interesting)
If the grapes are not patented, then you are probably right. If they are patented, then it probably would stand up. Use patent law says: In the case of a plant patent, the grant shall include the right to exclude others from asexually reproducing the plant, and from using, offering for sale, or selling the plant so reproduced, or any of its parts, throughout the United States, or from importing the plant so reproduced, or any parts thereof, into the United States
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Re:If you didn’t sign a contract... (Score:4, Informative)
Seems to me that specifically allows (by conspicuously not listing them) planting the seeds though.
Plant patents covers asexual reproduction (except tubers), although you can patent seeds etc. for the full story https://www.uspto.gov/patents-... [uspto.gov]
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Due to the way that plant genetics work, grapes are a lot like apples. If you plant the seeds, the resulting fruit will be nothing like their parent. Plants that produce fruit that is palatable to us are the exception, not the rule. The only time you do this kind of thing is when trying to develop new strains, and then you'd expect maybe 1 in 100 plants to produce acceptable fruit.
Re:If you didn’t sign a contract... (Score:5, Interesting)
Almost, but not quite.
Apple trees in production are a mix of a "head stock" spliced to a "root stock". The root stock is a variety of apple that produces good roots. The head stock is a variety of apples that produces tasty fruit, and provides the name we see in the store (Red Delicious, Granny Smith, Fuji, etc).
If you take a seed from an apple and plant it, you will get genetically appropriate fruit (plant a Fuji seed, get a Fuji apple), but the apples harvested from the tree won't taste the same. The roots of your plant aren't very good compared to the production tree, so the fruit won't be as sweet or as large because the tree wasn't as well supplied with water and nutrients.
IIRC, grapes grown for eating are grown with a similar root stock/head stock thing.
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The root stock doesn't affect the taste of the fruit, it affects the hardiness of the plant. So if you graft Red Delicious onto a crabapple root, you'll still get Red Delicious fruit, but a much hardier tree.
Similar thing with grapes. The French wine industry, for example, owes its very existence at this point into California. Nearly a century ago, the vineyards in France were pretty much wiped out due to a root blight that ravenged the vines there. As it turns out, the cultivars that were being grown in Ca
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What if you take them out of the bag in the store and put them into a produce bag and take that to the checkout? Would the EULA hold then? Honestly, EULA's and the like have distorted contract law beyond recognition, so maybe it would.
The question for me is, what does the EULA provide that the patent protection doesn't already provide? You already can't legally grow them and sell them or grow them for your own consumption or to give to others without a license (with the exception that you can grow them for
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The 'agreement' is just so you know you do not have the right to propagate them. It doesn't 'change' anything. It does make it harder for you to claim you didn't know you couldn't propagate them.
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I'm not so sure. Since things from the grocery store don't customarily come with a EULA, it's quite common to simply rip open a package without paying attention to the fine print.
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It seems to me someone looking to get around patents on an industrial scale would check to make sure they were getting exactly the breed they want.
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"Your honor, we just invested millions in planting some rando grapes we bought from the store., and were not looking for this brand! We just ripped through the EULA without reading it!"
"That's not what your loan application to the bank says. I'll let you decide which perjury you wish to go to jail for. Ahh why not both?"
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OTOH, someone who plants some at random, gets good vines and then decides to open a home business later may very well not have ever known there was a EULA.
Re:If you didn’t sign a contract... (Score:4)
It does make it harder for you to claim you didn't know you couldn't propagate them.
False. An agreement less than an "express agreement" is not an agreement at all, it is merely a notice. You can't create an obligation through a notice.
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EULAs are not valid for end-users. They only apply to free online services (they are allowed to withdraw free services for any reason they see fit), for anything else EULAs are just legal intimidation
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That's not true. EULAs have been found to apply to end users. In fact the key cases centered around boxed software that didn't involve online services.
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well do you have an 100K+ legal team to fight us in court?
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Yes, I do. But I'm not going to waste my money on something this stupid. Instead, I'll spend it on my own theme park with blackjack and hookers. In fact, forget the blackjack.
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Could you cite case law for that right that applies to this situation?
I'm not sure how to square that statement with things like the Plant Patent Act of 1930 [wikipedia.org] and the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970 [wikipedia.org].
A sore point (Score:5, Funny)
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It's not really an EULA. It's a notice that the patent holders grant you no rights. Patent law prevents you from making a copy of the product unless there's explicit permission to do so. If you don't accept the agreement then you still don't have any rights.
Can't help thinking this is not how patents are meant to work but what do I know?
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Not sure about grapes but for the EULA I have on my sperm, all my partners have to sign a contract before they receive it for reproduction or otherwise. I require this specifically to ensure enforceability. Better safe than sorry.
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How does this apply to someone illiterate? There can't be any sort of capacity (item 3) [lawdepot.com] in that event, unless there's someone there explaining the EULA or otherwise preventing purchase without describing its contents.
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How does this apply to someone illiterate? There can't be any sort of capacity (item 3) [lawdepot.com] in that event, unless there's someone there explaining the EULA or otherwise preventing purchase without describing its contents.
Ianal but capacity in your reference concerns age and mental competence. My guess is that what comes into play is
#1 Offer and Acceptance: A contract must have an offer and acceptance. One party makes an offer (such as selling goods or services for a quoted price) and the other party accepts the terms of the offer (often by making a payment or by providing their signature in writing).
Re:If you didn’t sign a contract... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Despite how unenforceable I think this is, ultimately the exchange of value can be done via a proxy. Many typical EULAs are. Just because you buy a game from gamestop doesn't make you immune from the EULA with Bethesda or whomever. The contractual obligations flow with the money.
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1) taking advantage of copyright law.
2) not enforceable for things that we don't expect them to say.
These grapes are probably using patent law, and we don't (yet) expect to not be allowed to plant seeds in food we buy.
This means likely that non distribution of things made from these seeds is fine (I'm pretty sure patent law kicks in at distribution or commercialization), and since we don't expect it when we buy produce, it likely doesn't extend any extra protections vs the existing law.
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So I wonder if the "buy one, get one free" promotion invalidates that? You are in essence getting something which is viewed as valueless. You purchased the first at full price, and a second was made available at no additional opportunity cost. Thus, you can't grow something from the "first" bag, but the second one had no contractual value - nothing was 'exchanged'.
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The grapes are being exchanged for money, but what is being exchanged for the agreement not to plant the seeds? I don't see any consideration offered from the producer to the buyer. The buyer is transacting with the store, not the producer. (Presumably the store is not the EULA's other party since they would not be in a position to enforce it.)
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It is not a contract, it is a license (no exchange required). The grapes are patented, and patent law says the patent holder can restrict propagation of the plants. The license is telling you you do not have that right. You can ignore the license if you wish, but by doing so are in violation of patent law.
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It is not a contract, it is a license (no exchange required).
Good correction. It still doesn't make sense. I know less about licenses than contracts, but I believe a license grants rights subject to conditions. In this case, there is no right granted by the licensor.
The grapes are patented, and patent law says the patent holder can restrict propagation of the plants. The license is telling you you do not have that right.
True. Still not a license, and not binding in any way. Did you read the packaging? "The recipient agrees not to...". It's a faux contract designed to mislead. Plus, given the scare tactics without a patent number, those grapes are probably not patented.
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You are correct. I was just going by what the article said (EULA). It is not a license. It is more of a warning that you don't have a license to propagate.
Re:If you didn't sign a contract... (Score:3)
Steal them
Re:If you didn’t sign a contract... (Score:4, Informative)
it's pretty much settled precedent that companies cannot enforce "shrink wrap" licenses in any meaningful manner and some of the same has even been applied to the "click OK to consent" things that appear on starting software
Re:If you didn’t sign a contract... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really, no. They can't even demonstrate that you read the terms before opening the bag, let alone that there was informed consent on your part. You're not even clicking an "I agree" button, which itself has been challenged in court.
This is no different than dump trucks with stickers like "Not responsible for damage due to loose debris" driving down the highway. Those stickers are wholly unenforceable, but if they scare people into backing off it'll keep the trucking company from being liable for as much damage, so it's a win for them.
Re:If you didn’t sign a contract... (Score:5, Informative)
Eh, no. The grapes are patented. Patent law says you can't propagate the plants. The notice is informing you of that fact, but whether or not you see the notice is not their problem. They don't have to 'demonstate' anything. On the contrary YOU would have to demonstrate that you were explicitly given the right to propagate the plants, and since the only documentation you have is something that says 'I agree to not propagate the plants', good luck with that.
The reason you could win in your dump truck example is because the LAW says they are responsible. The reason you will lose if you propagate the plants is because the LAW says you can't propagate them.
Re:If you didn’t sign a contract... (Score:4, Interesting)
Completely agree, and I should have been clearer on that point, so thank you for calling me out. I was narrowly pointing out that a EULA of this sort is unenforceable, but you are correct that there are absolutely laws and precedents in place that still protect them, which would be true regardless of the presence of a EULA.
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It's still unenforceable, you can't control where people go to the toilet. All it takes is someone vomiting or doing #2 on the side of a road somewhere for those grapes seeds to be planted somewhere, or just leave them out for birds.
Patents on plants are still pretty stupid. It's going to be difficult, if not impossible, to control what happens to the plant, and the law, so far as it's applied, is to prevent farmers from planting the seeds of plants they grew, not preventing the consumer from throwing the s
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People swallow grape seeds?
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The resulting grape vine would be completely different than the parent, so in this case propagating the vine from seeds (if they're present) likely would not be cared about. It would be taking a cutting of the stem, and propagating that into a new vine that would cause an issue. Grapes, like apples/pears/stonefruit etc... aren't really reproduceable from seed (if you want to maintain the quality of the fruit).
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The problem is that the resulting 'wild plant' will likely contain genes that never would have come into the grape genome in nature. ( resistance to pesticide?) (doesn't freeze until 28F) , who knows. Of course the seeds from GM are supposedly 'sterilized' which makes a person wonder why there is need for a warning at all. For my part EULA's should be illegal and we need to start pushing our congress critters to do that. There should be no 'license' needed. Product sellers should have whatever rights
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If the customer bothers to sign it and mail it back to them, I don't see it wouldn't be enforcible. But why would the customer do that?
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More to the question on why software can be EULA enforceable and why a breed of food cannot.
The effort, skills, and ability involved in writing software vs breeding or generically engineering a particular type of food, is nearly the same. To say to someone their effort in making a grape taste like it does, that could had taken years or decades to get right, costing a lot of money, cannot be protected from some other farmer buying a pack of their grapes for a few bucks, and planting the seeds, so by the ne
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Probably. Just in the same way as you can make the consumer pay money in order to purchase a product from you - you can enforce any terms or additional or restrictions you want on the buyer or the buyer's conduct or business as a condition of the sale contract which every purchaser enters into when buying any of your product... Yes, a contract is formed and completed even at the grocery store's checkout counter; often for cash transactions its only an implied contract,
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Sure, it is "enforceable" however it isn't a contract that the customer signed, it is a signed contract that they were offered.
It serves to bind the company to any terms, and to give the customer notice that the company will behave in whatever ways are described; for example, if the EULA contains a bunch of conditions or "rules" and you break them, then they can cut their relationship with you, and they don't have to give refunds, because you were notified of their intent in those situations.
That is the onl
but they have been re-sold several times. (Score:4, Insightful)
but they have been re-sold several times. So who does it even apply to ??
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It's called the "END-user license agreement" because you're at the end of it. You poor sap.
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Unfortunately license agreements travel with the flow of money, so it applies to you. Fortunately most agreements travel with the flow of money which is precisely why vendors are responsible for warranty claims even if you buy goods from Best Buy or someone else.
How do they enforce on private property? (Score:3)
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This is actually pretty common in the fruit industry. It takes years (potentially decades) to develop a new kind of Apple, or grape, or whatever. Understandably, the organizations that do this want to see a return on investment. What this is about is preventing a farmer from buying the grapes, propagating a new vine from the stems (or similar, as the seeds won't help), and selling grapes that are a clone.
You see the same thing in Apples, though there it's typically more controlled through trademark law rath
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Is pooping them out ok? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just wondering if that's one of the permitted uses, or do I have to buy the Advanced Edition of the grapes?
Re:Is pooping them out ok? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is pooping them out ok? (Score:5, Interesting)
This species is almost certainly a hybrid, so the seeds won't breed true to the original. To copy these you'd want to take the attached stem, clean it well, and place slices into sterile media to grow a callus. Once you have a healthy callus you can add auxin to establish new growth points. These will grow into little rootless plants. When they get to a manageable size they can be rooted with cytokinin and grown out or if you are very careful you can graft them directly onto an existing/established rootstock that is resistant to the diseases and fungi in your area.
Yes, I did just explain how to pirate a grape.
The book I read on this topic is "Plants from Test Tubes, an introduction to Micropropagation".
Re:Is pooping them out ok? (Score:5, Funny)
This species is almost certainly a hybrid, so the seeds won't breed true to the original. To copy these you'd want to take the attached stem, clean it well, and place slices into sterile media to grow a callus. Once you have a healthy callus you can add auxin to establish new growth points. These will grow into little rootless plants. When they get to a manageable size they can be rooted with cytokinin and grown out or if you are very careful you can graft them directly onto an existing/established rootstock that is resistant to the diseases and fungi in your area.
Yes, I did just explain how to pirate a grape.
So, essentially what you did is tell us how to create a cultivarrr!
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You should print that on a t-shirt.
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This species is almost certainly a hybrid, so the seeds won't breed true to the original. To copy these you'd want to take the attached stem, clean it well, and place slices into sterile media to grow a callus. Once you have a healthy callus you can add auxin to establish new growth points. These will grow into little rootless plants. When they get to a manageable size they can be rooted with cytokinin and grown out or if you are very careful you can graft them directly onto an existing/established rootstock that is resistant to the diseases and fungi in your area.
Yes, I did just explain how to pirate a grape.
The book I read on this topic is "Plants from Test Tubes, an introduction to Micropropagation".
This is probably what it's targetted against. Not some single person, but rather a competitor who might try to use the argument they bought it at a store so can bypass any patents or whatnot.
Talk to the lawyers. You buy a car or a book, you don't get to clone it.
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Yes, I did just explain how to pirate a grape.
But if the customer made wine from them instead of propagating the grapes, wouldn't that be a legally admissible derivative work?
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Actually this is wrong. Anything growing from a seed is a different plant and isn't covered by the original patent.
Fortunately plant patent law is both old as the hills and generally accepted as having been implemented fairly fairly and reasonably.
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Just wondering if that's one of the permitted uses, or do I have to buy the Advanced Edition of the grapes?
Hey, if you're going to be morphing the code like that, you're gonna have to pay for a firmware upgrade kit, and maybe a software license, depending on how many lines of whole-wheat bran you've got compiled in there.
Oh, and core dumps are charged per dump. I'd by a 10-pack. The weekend is coming up, and you're not gonna take one of my dumps, buddy.
Re:Is pooping them out ok? (Score:5, Funny)
Forget about that. I'm worried about accidentally butt-dialling an upgrade to my grapes.
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They can fuck off. (Score:3)
Yep. They can fuck right off.
Carnival, eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll make sure to avoid that brand. Don't need EULAs for my food. Plenty of alternatives around.
Re:Carnival, eh? (Score:4, Funny)
Plenty of alternatives around.
Lots of folks like the GPLv3 for their food, but I find the MIT License is best for products like fruit where freshness counts.
Reminds me of the Playstation 2 (Score:2)
Sony kept "marketing" the fact that the Playstation 2 couldn't be exported to Iraq or other countries specified in arms control laws.
Our grapes are so good we have laws to keep people form planting them! What a load of bollocks, they know an EULA isn't enforceable. If one of their rivals started planting their grapes for sale, they could probably hit them on copyright or patent laws depending on how they are sold.
I would go for this... (Score:2)
The grapevine that grew from the seeds you negligently left in the grapes is not my responsibility. Seed dispersal is an expected side effect of eating the grapes.
EULA - How can they tell if it's beem broken? (Score:2)
More worryingly, how could you prove you didn't break it, i.e. prove that the grapes you grew were not from the seeds from their grapes?
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DNA test?
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If you use the grapes to create a couple of plants for your own personal use, they'll never know.
Now if you go and put it on social media, they'll come after you because they have to defend their patent.
The reality is unless you are propagating them on an industrial scale, they won't know and probably don't care.
They just don't want other grape companies profiting off of their work.
the farmer *selected* crops to replant them (Score:3, Informative)
That said it is utterly funny to see it on grocery store bags.
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Even that was based on Monsanto getting away with a lie. They claimed that it was impossible to develop a roundup resistant variety through selective breeding and that it was impossible for the trait to have transferred through pollination. The courts bought it.
Since then, several plant varieties have been successfully bread for roundup resistance using traditional cross breeding that did not include the patented Monsanto varieties and Monsanto's very special genes have been found in weeds growing on the si
Monsanto's been doing this for years (Score:3)
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Monsanto doesn't exist.
Their important seed patents expired before they ceased to exist.
Want to grow Roundup-Ready soybeans? Feel free. They are in the public domain.
3rd world nations avoid GMOs so they can export to the EU.
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They were spun back out as a separate company in 2010.
Monsanto was acquired by Bayer in 2018.
So if they were "spun back out" in 2010, they would have needed a time machine.
Please read the first sentence of the Wikipedia article about Monsanto, and notice the verb is in the past tense:
Monsanto [wikipedia.org]
Monsanto no longer exists.
Statement of opinion, or persuasion? (Score:2)
We have no reason to suspect that assertion is true.
Nevertheless, it's apparently the opinion/prediction/desire of the seller. He weirdly thinks/hopes that the customer will agree to some additional terms, despite the fact that he printed those words months before the customer was asked. (Prior to offering these terms to the customer, how could anyone predict what the customer will decide?) But by suggesting the customer already agreed to it,
Not News (Score:4, Informative)
Anyone who's bought roses in the last 3 decades has seen the same agreement. The only difference here is it's food. Ironically most food crops are bred to be dependent on chemicals the average person wouldn't care to have to purchase.
Completionist Chronicles - Dakota Krout (Score:2)
*!* Spoiler Alert ! *!*
It really looks like the grape company read the same book I did !!!
It looks like a seen from the Completionist Chronicles from Dakota Krout :-)
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*!* Spoiler Alert ! *!*
It really looks like the grape company read the same book I did !!! :-)
It looks like a seen from the Completionist Chronicles from Dakota Krout
I thought you were going to say The Happy Hooker.
Weird flex (Score:2)
Imaginary property has gone too far (Score:2)
One use down the drain (Score:3)
"When you purchase a bag of delicious and sugary Carnival brand grapes, you enter into an agreement whereby you will consume the grapes and do nothing else with them."
Does this mean that people can't use the Carnival grapes as sex toys anymore? Now enforcement of that would be an interesting court case.
It's not an EULA (Score:2)
It's a badly worded patent warning. Those are largely irrelevant for private persons. It would only be a problem if you sold them.
EULA (Score:2)
For my part EULA's should be illegal and we need to start pushing our congress critters to do that. There should be no 'license' needed. Product sellers should have whatever rights are proper to them covered under actual law, and likewise for consumers. It should be illegal to use contract law to infringe upon or modify the rights of either the buyer or the seller in normal commerce situations. Contracts are supposed to be for long term agreements that establish a relationship between a service provide
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What are you babbling about? The grapes are patented. Patent law says you need the permission of the patent holder to propagate the plants. This is not a EULA, no matter what some idiot at Vice thinks. It is basically saying 'you do not have our permission to propagate these grapes, so if that is your intent don't bother buying them'. Nothing is 'infringing on the rights of the buyer'.
It Has Already Taken Over Pets (Score:2)
You already encounter shelters and breeders who will not sell you a cat unless you sign a contract on the specifics of how the car will be raised and cared for, and you really have to go out of your way to find a breeder that allows you to bread the pet you purchased off of them.
CRISPR CAS9 and the real world (Score:2)
A few simple ways to get around this (Score:2)
Consult a lawyer
Try to make only clones of the plant that are necessary for figuring out how a plant works and for accessing the ideas, facts and functional concepts contained in the plants.
Use less âoeintrusiveâ techniques, such as observation of the grapes in the bag or asking questions about the grapes, before resorting to planting or cutting up the grapes.
Try to make only intermediate clones of the grape plants. Avoid selling copyrighted grapes unless it is absolutely necessary.
Have a reverse
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Grapes however aren't propagated through seeds. The biology of grapes is such as any plants arising from seeds are unlikely to be the same as the parent strain. Commercially grapes are cloned from cuttings. In this context, the whole EULA thing doesn't make any sense.
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I'm not sure how to square that statement with things like the Plant Patent Act of 1930 [wikipedia.org] and the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970 [wikipedia.org].
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They'd have trouble finding a court where the complaint would have standing. It's not copyright law, you can't copyright eating grapes. I'm skeptical there are patents, but even so you can usually avoid patent issues in most jurisdictions when it is for personal use or for research. (for patent violations, there are usually injunctions that go after the sale and distribution, and civil penalties for damages.)
finally, if the grapes go bad do I have to eat them? I might get sick. What if I throw them away? Is