A the lawyers gain more and more strength over our society, I think the notion proposed in the story, that someone could actually own a word we use all the time, to be legitimately frightening.
Don't you?
A Legalistic Thing Called Love by Daniel Clausen
Moderator: Editors
- Lester Curtis
- Long Fiction Editor
- Posts: 2736
- Joined: January 11, 2010, 12:03:56 AM
- Location: by the time you read this, I'll be somewhere else
Re: A Legalistic Thing Called Love by Daniel Clausen
Peculiar and amusing little bit of fantasy.
Not gonna happen. In order for his plan to be effective, he'd have to get worldwide rights, in every one of 6000+ languages, just to keep damn near everyone from just grabbing a substitute and thumbing their noses at him. No one could live that long, and besides, the pissed-off public could just pass the word to all use his 'property', in public, on the same day, and dare him to sue them all. A sort of vocal version of a DoS attack.
How would he enforce it anyway?
Fun story, though, and I think the point of it isn't so much about owning a common word as it is about the kind of person who'd be obsessed with doing that.
Not gonna happen. In order for his plan to be effective, he'd have to get worldwide rights, in every one of 6000+ languages, just to keep damn near everyone from just grabbing a substitute and thumbing their noses at him. No one could live that long, and besides, the pissed-off public could just pass the word to all use his 'property', in public, on the same day, and dare him to sue them all. A sort of vocal version of a DoS attack.
How would he enforce it anyway?
Fun story, though, and I think the point of it isn't so much about owning a common word as it is about the kind of person who'd be obsessed with doing that.
I was raised by humans. What's your excuse?