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Who owns your body? If you do not personally own your body, who does?

Does the State? Does a supernatural entity? Do your parents still own you?

Despite fighting wars in the name of “freeing slaves,” humanity is by-in-large still enslaving one another through acts of fiat legislation. One such instance involves that of organs. Do you own your organs? If you do not, then who does? Regardless as to how you answered, the unfortunate reality of the situation is that the State claims ownership of yourself and your bodily parts — organs included.

Furthermore, this mental ownership exercise can continue to the microscopic level, including that of genes. Who owns your genes?

While these questions of ownership run around in your mind a germane tangent that meanders into this topic is that of genealogy. The National Geographic Society, along with IBM, has put together an endeavor called the Genographic Project. Basically they are trying to get individuals throughout the entire globe to self-administer a test – swabbing your inner-mouth cheeks – whom in return then send these samples back to National Geographic labs for further analysis.

Unsurprisingly, the project is not without its critics who believe the native indigenious people around the world are being exploited by, in their own words, racist scientists. The word “biopiracy” appears several times in their press release condemning the project, which is seen as “eugenics” in nature – suggesting that the results may be used to prove one group is inferior to another. They also suggest that firms may try to commercialize and “patent” whatever oddities or new things they discover.

This same claim of “biopiracy” was recently leveled upon Google whom is helping J. Craig Venter of the Human Genome Project fame. Several years ago Wired magazine published a detailed writeup of Venter’s latest project, which is to sail the seven seas in search of microbes and fish whose DNA he can analyze and hopefully “patent.” Google is reportedly allowing Venter to use their computer resources to analyze and catalogue each genome.

The issues that are being skirted around by all parties involved on both sides of these projects is the issue of property, what is it and who can own it? This is where “intelletual property” (e.g. patents) and the State do a great job of perverting contract law. If I own my body, then I own everything in it, including my DNA. One firm in San Francisco believes that I can copyright my DNA, ultimately suing for copyright infringement. The market for such as service, is being touted as a way for celebrities and VIPs to protect their image and “likeness.”

Sooner or later, the State and proponents of IP will have to face the music in terms of what “intellectual property” is and is not. While this is being sorted out, one thing is for certain: it is not physical.

If it is not physical, then is not property in the classical definition of the word. So assuming that IP concepts such as copyright and patent are heretofore invalid, then how can this quagmire surrounding native peoples and microscopic fish genomes be sorted out?

Another question that should be asked is, can things in nature, things that nature invented, be patentable? While it may be the case that a scientist discovered “gravity” can someone “patent” it? You may laugh at this example, however this is precisely what has happened to the field of biology, as firms and universities have been granted patents for what nature actually built. Techdirt recently highlighted one such instance,

Metabolite claims a patent on the discovery of a correlation between raised levels of the chemical homocystein, and a defficiency in two B-vitamins. This is a naturally occuring phenomenon, but the company demands a royalty any time a B-vitamin defficiency is tested using this knowledge. As the court itself has put it, the case revolves around whether a company can “claim a monopoly over a basic scientific relationship used in medical treatment”. If so, we’ve noticed that legs tend to kick when a mallet hits the knee; it seems like a good way to test a patient’s reflexes. Our application is in the mail.

When the dust clears, in terms of free-market libertarianism, the issue of “biopiracy” should be non-existent. Neither Google nor Venter own anything more than the fish they caught. Similarly the National Geographic Society does not own the people or their genomes it has received samples of. Nor can these firms “patent” something they do not own, such as the various genomes at stake.

By granting a monopoly on research and development in these areas of discipline to these firms, the State and proponents of IP are simply hindering economic development and retarding innovation. Innovation such as the ability to discover genetic predispositions years in advance – deadly defects that may go unnoticed until it is too late to fix and repair.

And if you do not own your body, let alone genome, then who owns your voice?