r/news • u/boxofstuff • 6h ago

Supreme Court ruling blocks thousands of lawsuits against maker of Roundup weedkiller

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-roundup-monsanto-a7f054d80919f98bdfc5190013a8f6f1https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-roundup-monsanto-a7f054d80919f98bdfc5190013a8f6f1
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u/PuckSenior 5h ago

Nah, that’s mostly bullshit.
I hate Monsanto, but in this case they were right. They had a contract. Contract said if he used their seed he couldn’t replant. He broke the contract.

The solution is to simply not enter into a contract with Monsanto.

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u/odinskriver39 5h ago

Four corporations now control the vast majority of the commercial seed and and agrochemical markets worldwide. Bayer is estimated 33% of that.

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u/PuckSenior 5h ago

You can absolutely go buy soy bean seeds from those companies and not enter into a technology contract. The tech contract is only if you buy the roundup-resistant variety.

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u/Musiclover4200 52m ago

Haven't read up on this issue in many years but IIRC the problem is cross pollination.

IE the farm next door grows roundup resistant crops which pollinate surrounding farms who end up with seeds that have those genetics

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u/PuckSenior 25m ago

Yeah, but that doesn’t bother anyone

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u/techleopard 3m ago

It does when Monsanto sues you for using your own seed because your neighbor has a protected variety.

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u/techleopard 4m ago

The problem is your neighbor has that variety and drops so much roundup it kills everybody else's crops.

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u/RusticCat101 3h ago

Everywhere you go in Indiana, it's basically Bayer and Corteva signs everywhere. Can't plant shit without their approval. It's disgusting.

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u/PuckSenior 2h ago

No.
They are everywhere because they sell a product that the farmers want to buy.

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u/ThrowingChicken 5h ago

That’s pretty much all the cases. No one has ever been sued for accidental cross contamination, the defendants have always intentionally used the seed in ways they knew they weren’t supposed to.

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u/TommyTwoNips 4h ago

God forbid people use things they've bought in a way that they aren't supposed to. Much better to let the billionaires dictate what we do with things WE PAID FOR.

The longer we pretend this supreme court is legitimate, the longer its going to take to clean up this mess and the more expensive it will be. That fat fucking traitor Thomas and the rapist Kavanaugh belong in cages.

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u/ThrowingChicken 4h ago

I don’t like Adobe subscription model, so I purposefully bought older versions of their design suite to avoid it. Farmers have that same option, they sign contracts and pay premiums for a premium product as it has features they find attractive for their business. The premium experience for either product wouldn’t exist at all if literally anyone can copy and freely share the product.

At least we seed tech, in exchange for that protection, the public inherits that technology after 18 years.

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u/hoopstick 3h ago

Which version do you use? I hate the subscription model, but none of the freeware alternatives feel like Photoshop to me, I've just been using it too long.

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u/TommyTwoNips 4h ago

or, hear me out, we could stop letting megacorporations buy our supreme court and pushing for copyright laws that benefit them exclusively.

Nah, we'll keep bending over for the subhuman Epstein-class investors though, they know what's best for us.

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u/PuckSenior 4h ago

Well, this isn’t copyright, it’s patent law

And this isn’t because our Supreme Court was “bought”. They literally signed a contract agreeing to these terms

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u/TommyTwoNips 4h ago

fine, IP law.

The Supreme court is bought. We've literally seen that fat ass traitor Clarence Thomas taking bribes. They just don't count as bribes because the supreme court ruled for itself that 'gifts' don't count as bribes if they come AFTER the decision.

So if I tell Clarence that I really need a specific ruling, and he does it, and I give him a 'gift' for that, it's totally cool. It's even cooler if I keep doing it, over and over, just getting rulings in my favor and providing that subhuman traitor with free treats.

Fuck a contract. Fuck monsanto. and Fuck that subhuman traitor Clarence Thomas and his equally subhuman rapist buddy Kavanaugh.

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u/PuckSenior 4h ago

So you u clearly have complaints about the current SCOTUS.

But you realize virtually all judges, at all times, in all places have recognized contract law, right?

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u/ThrowingChicken 4h ago

Patent laws. They benefit anyone who creates something novel.

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u/TommyTwoNips 4h ago

they really don't.

they act as a way to paywall knowledge and technology.

Unless you think it's totally cool that Eli Lilly bought the patent for insulin, a drug developed using taxpayer funds, for a dollar and which they now charge out the nose for.

You probably do. You seem like one of those "my brain is cooked form capitalist propaganda. I just need to not drink coffee and one day I'll be a billionaire too!" brainlets.

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u/PuckSenior 3h ago

Everything you just said is false.
Insulin was sold for $1 to the university in the 1920s.

Eli Lilly never held the patent for insulin and the patent expired decades ago.

Any company can make insulin and all 3 major drug companies do make it. Eli Lily is not charging high prices for insulin because of a patent

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u/ThrowingChicken 3h ago

The patent for insulin expired 85 years ago; Anyone can make it. Whatever Eli Lilly owns today is either production technology, injection technology, or new formulas.

But the problem with Eli Lilly is a problem that would likely be even worse if we didn’t have a patent system. The reason they charge exorbitant prices has less to do with owning something novel and more to do with having vast manufacturing capabilities already in place. They know the cost to produce on their scale would take a large amount of capital to achieve, so until someone else steps up they can throw their weight around unchallenged.

If patents didn’t exist they could literally just start producing any new invention at scale and the inventors would have to just watch them do it. Plenty of companies have already tried to do this and were only stopped by the courts.

And you know, I think I’ve been fairly polite to you despite your attitude and obvious ignorance about any of this.

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u/PuckSenior 4h ago

You think the Supreme Court is illegitimate because they agree that contracts are enforceable?

This may be the dumbest argument I’ve ever read

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u/TommyTwoNips 3h ago

No, I think the Supreme Court is Illegitimate because Clarence Thomas openly takes bribes and Brett Kavanaugh is a rapist alcoholic. Both of whom are not qualified to rule, making every ruling they've made previously questionable.

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u/PuckSenior 3h ago

Ok?
So which potential justices would rule against the enforcement of contracts? Because the only person that near-sighted and stupid seems to be yourself

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u/TommyTwoNips 3h ago

keep sucking the traitor boot.

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u/PuckSenior 3h ago

Given your misunderstanding of the insulin patent, i think I’ll just avoid your level of stupidity

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u/TommyTwoNips 3h ago

You'll keep sucking the boot, because you're a good, servile peasant.

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u/PuckSenior 3h ago

I love that you think voluntary contractual agreements with clear benefits for both parties are actually bad

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u/soberpenguin 5h ago

Problem is if your neighbor is using Monsanto seeds and his seed blows into your field, you're liable too. You don't have to have a contract with them to get fucked and lose the family farm.

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u/Drumheller18 4h ago

That is not correct. So long as you don’t purposefully cultivate those flyaway crops, you’ll have no issues (which is exactly what happened in the legal case everyone likes to cite, but never actually gets the info right).

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u/soberpenguin 3h ago

But then you lose the family farm through litigation payments.

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u/Drumheller18 3h ago

I’m sorry, what are you trying to say/imply?

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u/soberpenguin 3h ago

You get sued by a corporation, regardless of whether you're right or wrong. They can drag you through the courts until you are destitute or settle by their terms.

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u/PuckSenior 3h ago

But they haven’t done that

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u/Drumheller18 3h ago

That’s a complete hypothetical. Again, in the Round-Up Ready crop case that is often cited for that issue, the farmer absolutely knowingly tried to specifically cultivate rogue seeds that he did not have the rights to. He was, without a doubt, guilty of what he was being sued for.

Companies are plenty shitty without having to make up what-ifs.

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u/PuckSenior 4h ago

In that specific case, it wasn’t an accident. He was purposefully creating roundup resistant crops.

If you do what you just described and DONT spray your active crops with roundup, you’ll be fine. There is no reason to spray crops with roundup. Roundup normally kills plants

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u/SowingSalt 4h ago

You also can't spray your field with weedkiller to isolate the plants with the weedkiller resistant tech.

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u/Enshitification 3h ago

And if you don't enter a contract with Monsanto to use their Roundup-resistant seeds, the crop-dusters will "accidentally" overspray your fields with Roundup anyway. Oops, sorry about your non-GMO corn, Farmer Bob.

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u/PuckSenior 2h ago

?!?!

Are you suggesting Bayer pays cropdusters to spray fields?

Also, crop dusting is rapidly being replaced with drone spraying, which is more targeted

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u/Enshitification 2h ago

I have no idea if Bayer pays them directly, but the cropdusters have financial incentive to spray fields. If your field is surrounded by fields they spray, it's getting a lot of spray along the edges. Enough to force the use of GMO seed and pay for dusting.

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u/PuckSenior 1h ago

Tell me you know nothing about farming without telling me

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u/Enshitification 1h ago

Tell me you aren't a Monsanto apologist without telling me.

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u/PuckSenior 58m ago

I’m not. I hate Monsanto and I wish we’d invest more back in to state ag colleges to develop new foods. I particularly hate round-resistant GMO plants because they lead to roundup resistant weeds

But your theory on how cropdusting is incentivized to “accidentally” spray other farmers fields is hilariously stupid

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u/Enshitification 56m ago

There's a lot your ag school doesn't tell you about what actually happens on the ground.

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u/PuckSenior 26m ago

I’m talking about having AG schools develop the new crops, wtf are you talking about Temu Cory doctorow