Fatwa #24 for the Priceline Negotiatah!

while your hardworking muftis have oodles more to say about patents and copyright, i want to put these issues aside for the short term whilst we cogitate a bit. and i think it's fitting that we end (for now) with an affirmative fatwa.

in an earlier fatwa, i mentioned an ongoing segment about truly awesome ideas that couldn't get made in today's intellectual property environment, called

Great Ideas You'll Never Get to See, or, Thanks, Sonny Bono!
imagine that a mysterious bomb malfunctions, causing every character William Shatner has ever played to enter our reality in pursuit of the real William Shatner. imagine that they are joined by a lunatic quasi-religious sect of Bruce Campbell fans, called Campbellians, who cut off their own right hands in devotion, and hope to kill Shatner for their own nefarious ends. imagine that during the story, Shatner gets punched in the face by t.j. hooker, and that the cartoon kirk from the animated star trek series makes an appearance during which his companions discover that he is literally two-dimensional and can't be seen from the side.

but wait!
destiny, she is kind to this one.
this story exists!
"Shatnerquake," self-published by Jeff Burk,
can be purchased here:
http://www.amazon.com/Shatnerquake-Jeff-Burk/dp/1933929820

note that before and after the story, the author thanks his muse (Denny Crane!) and begs that his muse not sue him. which is a charming, if lamentable, approach to the current lay of the land.
i call it the Radiohead approach: like Amp Live, you do an end run around the faceless megacorp opposing your use of material, by appealing directly to the authors of said material.

i urge you to buy and consume this delicious fruit of a possible future in which intellectual property laws make some kind of sense.
we can make that future happen!
Big Deal, tell 'em how.