InGen, Dinosaurs, and Copyright

Here's a discussion topic for you all:

Do you think the copyright on the InGen dinosaurs technically null and void, assuming InGen was liquidated by Masrani to pay for the lawsuits from JW. Consider a company creates their own product, such as Apple making the iPhone. In the event that Apple is bankrupt, would copying or reverse engineering the iPhone be ethical? Would it be legal to open source the iPhone?

The dinosaurs genomes were patented under InGen, according to Peter Ludlow. When InGen is inevitably defunt, does this mean that open sourcing the formerly copyrighted dinosaur's genomes would be legal or even ethical to do? Now that there's dinosaurs that have been sold off to billionaires the world over, it's only inevitable that they will be reverse engineered by InGen's competitors for any means.

This also brings up another interesting debate: if the dinosaurs are now no longer protected by copyright... are they protected by animal rights laws and endangered species acts? They're no longer owned by a company, but they're still animals. However, they're not natural dinosaurs. Their genomes have been modified from the original source, and holes in their DNA were filled by various modern animals.

Discuss!

CT-1138 wrote:

This also brings up another interesting debate: if the dinosaurs are now no longer protected by copyright... are they protected by animal rights laws and endangered species acts? They're no longer owned by a company, but they're still animals. However, they're not natural dinosaurs. Their genomes have been modified from the original source, and holes in their DNA were filled by various modern animals.

They absolutely shouldn't, but if the writing for Fallen Kingdom is of any indication, the next movie is probably gonna try to push that angle again anyways. That's a peeve of me about the Jurassic Park sequels (mainly TLW and FK), they try to twist the message of the first movie into an animal rights issue, even though it's not applicable to the context of the movies. InGen's dinosaurs are GMO's and, for all intents and purposes, invasive species. You don't preserve invasive species. They are as much of a threat to the environment as humans are. When Ludlow said that quote, he was factually correct, but because he's snotty and dressed in a suit, the movie expects the viewer to side against him.

Fallen Kingdom is the dumbest in that aspect: the dinosaurs are being threatened by a natural disaster that is no one's fault, and yet, for some reason, there's a congress hearing to decide whether or not there should be an intervention to rescue them. And the volcano eruption is described as the "flashpoint animal rights issue of our time". The first time I watched the movie, I kept thinking: "wouldn't activists be more worried about actually endangered species that are being threatened by human interference?"

They also should be considered invasive species when roaming free in Isla Nublar or Sorna. Neither of these islands belong to InGen or the dinosaurs, they belong to the Costa Rican government, and were only leased to InGen. I think it's pretty baffling that the movies never tried to address what the Costa Rican government thought about an american company causing a biological contamination on two of their islands, especially considering that this was a big aspect of both of Crichton's novels. Although, from a meta perspective, I kind of understand why they didn't: because there's no way Costa Rica would want to preserve the dinosaurs, and it would be harder to set up sequels without preexisting dinosaurs.

I've said this before, but the only Jurassic Park "sequel" that tackled this subject correctly was... Jurassic Park: The Game. In the game, you have two opposing views: Gerry Harding and Laura Sorkin. Gerry, the Park veterinarian, believes that it's the responsibility of InGen and its employees to isolate or euthanize the dinosaurs to prevent them from causing damage to the ecosystem and innocent lives. He cares about the animals and doesn't want them to suffer (he's the park veterinarian, after all), but he knows that they have no place in the modern world, and that letting them roam free and unchecked is irresponsible and reckless. Laura, on the other hand, has a background as an animal rights activist, and is presented as the one who helped create the dinosaurs before there even was a Park. Laura has too much emotional attachment to her creations, and wants them to be preserved and to roam free on the island, without human interference, and at times, she is even willing to jeopardize people's lives AND the island's environment to achieve that goal. In the end, Gerry, the responsible one, gets to escape Nublar alive (unless you fail the last QTE), while Laura gets her comeuppance by being gobbled up by the same creature she was trying to set free. If the game played by Fallen Kingdom's rules, their fates would be switched around.

There's a quote of the game that sums this up quite nicely:

Harding: "It's not our rights versus theirs! Our dinosaurs are phantoms - Majestic as they may be - Alive as they may be! We brought them into a world that is no longer prepared for them. And we have a responsibility to keep them isolated and under reign for the safety of our ecosystem. It's not rights, it's responsibility!"

Mr. Robustus wrote:

CT-1138 wrote:

This also brings up another interesting debate: if the dinosaurs are now no longer protected by copyright... are they protected by animal rights laws and endangered species acts? They're no longer owned by a company, but they're still animals. However, they're not natural dinosaurs. Their genomes have been modified from the original source, and holes in their DNA were filled by various modern animals.

They absolutely shouldn't, but if the writing for Fallen Kingdom is of any indication, the next movie is probably gonna try to push that angle again anyways. That's a peeve of me about the Jurassic Park sequels (mainly TLW and FK), they try to twist the message of the first movie into an animal rights issue, even though it's not applicable to the context of the movies. InGen's dinosaurs are GMO's and, for all intents and purposes, invasive species. You don't preserve invasive species. They are as much of a threat to the environment as humans are. When Ludlow said that quote, he was factually correct, but because he's snotty and dressed in a suit, the movie expects the viewer to side against him.

Fallen Kingdom is the dumbest in that aspect: the dinosaurs are being threatened by a natural disaster that is no one's fault, and yet, for some reason, there's a congress hearing to decide whether or not there should be an intervention to rescue them. And the volcano eruption is described as the "flashpoint animal rights issue of our time". The first time I watched the movie, I kept thinking: "wouldn't activists be more worried about actually endangered species that are being threatened by human interference?"

They also should be considered invasive species when roaming free in Isla Nublar or Sorna. Neither of these islands belong to InGen or the dinosaurs, they belong to the Costa Rican government, and were only leased to InGen. I think it's pretty baffling that the movies never tried to address what the Costa Rican government thought about an american company causing a biological contamination on two of their islands, especially considering that this was a big aspect of both of Crichton's novels. Although, from a meta perspective, I kind of understand why they didn't: because there's no way Costa Rica would want to preserve the dinosaurs, and it would be harder to set up sequels without preexisting dinosaurs.

Not only this, but once the dinosaurs kill enough people, and the public demands that the National Guard takes action against them, but wouldn't all this be mute anyway?

I'm interested to see how they tackle this issue in the third movie, because one of the biggest complaints I've seen thrown at FK (and TLW as well) is that the protagonists' motivation (protecting the dinosaurs) is hard to get behind. Especially because FK has Malcolm being the voice of reason and essentially saying humans should just step aside and trust in nature (see what I did there ) but then the whole movie has you following characters trying to stop nature from correcting our mistake.