From Nukees, by Darren Bleuel

It used to be simple: you'd sit down in front of your computer/typewriter/pad of paper/stone tablet and chisel/whatever you use to write with, and you'd write. And when you were finished, assuming that you hadn't copied important portions of someone else's book word for word, it was your story: it didn't matter if it was Yet Another Fantasy About Slaying a Dragon, or Yet Another Space Opera About Overthrowing the Evil Galactic Overlord, it was still legitimately your story.

Heck, some fantasy authors have made their livings -- respectable livings -- by retelling the Lord of the Rings over and over again. And have copped to it.

Double heck, some of Shakespeare's most famous plays were based on histories written by Raphael Hollinshed.

That era, it seems, may be something that has passed on; if it has, we can thank the US patent system for it. Just when you think the Patent Office couldn't get any more incompetent, someone goes and patents a storyline.

Seriously. Patents a storyline.

From Lost and Found, by Matt Milligan.

Edited 6 Sept 2005: I've been meaning to update this article for days, and I've been irresponsibly lax in not doing so. It has been pointed out by a reader that what the MPAA has done in Delhi is in violation of the Indian constitution, and will inevitably be overturned by their Supreme Court. This is a very good thing. That said, that the MPAA managed to convince a magistrate to authorize something that violates Indian law doesn't make me feel much better about the situation.

The Motion Picture Association of America is concerned about piracy -- specifically, about people pirating movies and distributing them on bootleg DVDs and over the internet. They're so concerned that they have even set up a space on their website where they publish press releases about the war on digital piracy. These press releases are usually in Microsoft Word format, occasionally in PDF format, and proudly announce all the victories that Hollywood has achieved in its never-ending war against the people who illegally sell their product at a price much closer to what most of it is actually worth.

A PDF of a press release for July 26, 2005, for example, positively crowed about four lawsuits they filed in Waco, Texas against individuals who were illegally downloading and swapping movies online using peer to peer software. A Microsoft Word version of a press release for July 28, 2005 describes similar action taken against three individuals living in Rochester, New York.

Reading through these press releases, one wonders if the MPAA might be encountering a problem in regards to scale. Only four people? Only three people? Doesn't it take an awful lot of time and effort to catch people in the act of piracy? Isn't a three or four person lawsuit a rather unsatisfying return on your investment?

The MPAA apparently thinks so, because a press release issued on July 27, 2005 reveals a new, more efficient method of catching pirates: get a judge to give you the authority to search anywhere you want, in an entire city.

The city in question? Delhi, India, population 13,782,976.

That's right: the city has homes and offices for 13,782,976 people, and the MPAA can tell the police to search every single one of them. Just in case.