Who owns the bird flu?

Discover Magazine has just published online an article (The Intellectual Property Fight That Could Kill Millions, by Delthia Ricks) from their December issue about the claim by Sita Supari, head of Indonesia's Health Ministry, that flu viruses in Indonesia are the property of the Indonesian government.  This has caused a standoff between Indonesia and other countries as well as the WHO, over access to samples of avian bird flu.  Indonesia has more cases of bird flu than any other country by a large margin, and other countries want access to the influenza samples in order to develop vaccines before a pandemic breaks out.  Supari's stance is that western nations will patent the virus genomes and sell them for profit without sharing the viral information with countries like Indonesia who desperately need treatment.  Without reciprocity of information, she does not want to share access to Indonesian flu cases.

That seems fair enough, but Supari has now cooked up some conspiracy theories and is accusing the U.S. of creating the bird flu and swine flu viruses as biological weapons, presumably to drive up demand for vaccines and drive up the profits of its pharmaceutical companies.  Supari's claims have exacerbated the situation. 

Conspiracy theories aside, the intellectual property questions raised are interesting.  Can elements of biology, like genetic codes or viral genomes, be someone's, or some nation's, property?  What about individual rights to one's own biology (what if an individual Indonesian afflicted with bird flu wanted to give a sample from himself to the WHO, for example)? 

First sexting case to reach a federal appeals court began oral arguments today

Is sexting (sending nude or semi-nude photos of oneself through one's cell phone) by a minor constitutionally protected free speech?  Is it child pornography or some other sort of criminal behavior?  Several sexting cases have arisen in recent years.  One such case has reached the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, located in Philadelphia.  Oral arguments began today.

A few years ago, a group of teenagers at a Scranton, PA area high school were caught with nude pictures of themselves and other students on their cell phones.  The area district attorney at the time, George P. Skumanick, threatened the students with felony charges of producing child pornography unless they attended special sex education classes, went on probation, and submitted to random drug tests.  Thirteen of the students complied; three others challenged Skumanick, with help from the ACLU.  The photos at issue in the case contain images of two of the girls from the waist-up wearing training bras, and the other girl coming out of the shower nude from the waist-up.
 
The ACLU, in its original complaint, claimed Skumanick's actions were a form of unconstitutional retaliation against the children who did not want to be bullied into participating in his "re-education" program.  The U.S. District Court judge in Scranton agreed and enjoined Skumanick from charging the three teens with any crimes.  All documents related to the case, including the original complaint and both party's appellate briefs may be found on the ACLU website here.

Related news stories:
Philadelphia Inquirer article from today
Video and article from WNEP news in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre
Statements issued from the ACLU concerning the case

Founder of UK music file-sharing site held not guilty of conspiracy to defraud

Alan Ellis, the founder of a music file-sharing website in the UK called Oink, has been acquitted of conspiracy to defraud.  The prosecution argued that Ellis received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from Oink users, but none of the money went to the musicians who created the music that was being shared through his site.

Read the BBC article here; read the Times Online article here.