Copyrights on DNA offered to stars

SAN FRANCISCO -- As if stalkers and paparazzi weren't enough for celebrities to worry about, what if human cloning could some day become so easy that their very DNA could be targeted by over-adoring fans?

That table napkin tossed aside by Ricky Martin could be delivered to an unscrupulous laboratory and voila! ... nine months later, an exact human copy of the Livin' La Vida Loca king is born without his permission.

"It sounds extreme," said Andre Crump, the founder of a startup who sees dollar signs in such a scenario. "But there are extreme people out there who would rather have Ricky Martin as a kid than creating their own."

No one has cloned a human yet, but Crump says it's not too early for celebrities to legally protect themselves against body doubles -- using his company's services, of course.

For $1,500 each, the DNA Copyright Institute will swab saliva samples from customers' inner cheeks, pay established labs to obtain their DNA profiles and store the results in case they're needed for future legal action.

He also plans to apply for a copyright for each client's individual DNA profile -- a concept that draws skepticism from legal experts and the U.S. Copyright Office.

But even if the DNA profiles can't be copyrighted, customers won't go away empty-handed, Crumb says: each will get a framed plaque imprinted with a bar-code representation of the DNA profile.

Congress has been considering legislation to outlaw human cloning, and the Food and Drug Administration has insisted that no experiments can go forward without its approval. But Crump said these measures would do nothing to compensate victims.

"How does Brad Pitt get satisfaction?" Crump asked.

No customers yet

Crump is neither a scientist nor a lawyer, and his month-old startup has yet to find a paying customer. But his background is in marketing, and he sees a market that reaches beyond the rich and famous. Even regular stiffs fear spurned lovers may turn to surreptitious cloning to create offspring, he says.

Still, the U.S. Copyright Office "has never registered a copyright claim in a person's DNA," said its director, Robert Dizard. "Copyright does not protect a person's DNA because it is not an original work of authorship."

The Copyright Office argues that DNA is a generic fact -- like photosynthesis -- that can't be exclusively owned. Genes, on the other hand, can be patented because they have been found to be unique and because exclusive intellectual property was used to discover them.

Stephen Barnett, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said DNA simply can't be protected by copyright as books and computer programs are.

"You have to actually be the author of the creation," he said . "It doesn't look like anyone can claim authorship of DNA except maybe the Almighty."

Texas copyright lawyer Harvey Dunn likened DNA Institute's service to paying to have a star or asteroid named after somebody: a cute vanity purchase without legal backing.

"DNA exists in nature," Dunn said. "And you can't copyright facts of nature."

Going to test theory

Crump is undeterred. Each of us has technically "authored" our own unique DNA profiles. If copyright protection extends to accidental creations -- Jackson Pollock-like paintings from kicked-over cans of paint, for example -- then individuals' DNA deserve protection too, he argues.

Crump says he plans to submit a "volunteer group" of three to five applications to the Copyright Office next month to test his DNA authorship theory. He hopes to have "one or two well-known people" in the test group but declined to name names.

Crump's startup has 10 employees and no headquarters. He works out of his apartment but he's shopping for space in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, where dozens of technology start-ups have recently gone out of business.