Was thinking of this after a conversation I had on a thread about dreams. Someone joked “I was dreaming of the events of The Matrix, then I was woken up by someone worried my dream was infringing the Wachowski’s copyrights”, and it turned into a whole train of thought in my mind, like violating IP law because you stole fire from Zeus which was his intellectual property.
Parents have to pay a fee for the firstname they give their kids. Popular firstnames cost more, gross ones cost less.
The kids themselves have to pay again for it monthly, their whole live long.
Now everyone is going for this and they’re gonna charge more WHAT HAVE YOU DONE
Lineages could claim copyright of children and their works as derivative. Entire families could claim copyright of their descendants and all works related. Each new generation resets the timer on expiration if the copyright expirations still apply.
Royalties every time you use a line from a Disney musical in spoken conversation
Discovery of oxygen.
Stop breathing my proprietary gas!
My time zones! Not yours!
My special ï makes all i’s mine or I’ll sue you into bankrupt poverty.
I own slurred accent (n + 1) and anyone speaking in said accent must cease and desist
Planetary air is free as no one could prove in court that they had any hand in its design or creation.
However the air in contained facility such as a space station or mars habitat is copy protected. Each inhabitant requires a Microsoft 365 style license renewed annually to breathe. Special areas of the habitat or use cases such as atheltic activities require special temporary licenses.
Hmmm Brb: writing synopsis.
That’s basically a plot point in Heinlein’s The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, where visitors have to pay for the amount of air they intend to breathe while visiting the moon.
Also, Idea: invent a copyrightable method of filtering or otherwise treating air. Release your “specially modified” air into the atmosphere. Start charging for every time someone inhales one of your AyreMolecuulz™.
Paying money every time you sit on a chair. Part goes to the owner, part goes to taxes, part goes to the chair maker’s company, part goes to the chair desiger, a drip goes to the chair maker.
