This is one of my many grand schemes as part of my master plan.

Right now I am currently working on this latest invention of mine (patent pending, so don't get any ideas, mofo's). It is a machine that will print out every possible combination of letters, numbers, spaces, and symbols of up to approximately one thousand pages. I need to work out a few bugs with the mail service, but once I am finished, I will own copyrights on all new books, stories, jokes, anecdotes, movie scripts, sitcom plots, documents, etc. - provided they are under the one thousand page limitation. However, this will not result in any of these industries grinding to a halt. Everything will continue as normal except all authors will pay royalties to me in exchange for the use of my works. Expected gross income is estimated to be in the hundred of millions and possibly billions of dollars, and all with very little overhead.

I will also have BBS posts that have yet to be posted, the empeg FAQ written backwards in Portuguese Pig Latin, detailed accounts of top-secret government agents' various missions in the year 2096, and detailed writings explaining the secrets of life. All this and more will be in my possession when I am through.

Where's tanstaafl when you need him?

When your program has printed out The Library Of Babylon by Jorge Luis Borges, go and read it

Peter

"once I am finished, I will own copyrights on all new books, stories, jokes, anecdotes, movie scripts, sitcom plots, documents, etc"

You will also be very poor, because that is a lot of paper. Even hard drive space to store all of that information would be expensive. In addition you will get sued for anything under 1,000 pages that has already been written, unless of course your program is smart enough to weed previous works out.

For a capitalist, you don't seem to grasp how un-capitalistic your ideas on intellectual property are.

Hey I didn't share this information for negative feedback. I was looking for encouragment and morale boosting comments such as, "way to go, buddy", "I wish I would have thought of that!", "go get'em, tiger", or even a simple "good luck" would have helped push my ego up a notch.

By the way, I wouldn't violate copyrights for existing documents, as I wouldn't be selling already copyrighted material.

By the way, I wouldn't violate copyrights for existing documents, as I wouldn't be selling already copyrighted material.

Now that would take some intelligent decision making on your part to decide which works were actually already in existence, and which ones were new. Add to that that you'd actually have to GET a copyright on every work that you wanted to protect. Even if you wrote it first, unless you had proof you did it (like a copyright) you wouldn't be entitled to anything.
To make any kind of reasonable profit, you'd have to read through them all and decide which ones had already been written, and which ones were actually worth copyrighting. In the end, this defeats the purpose of what you’re trying to do. I think your energies would be better spent using your inventive imagination to actually think up and write a story. THAT might make you a profit.

All documents produced will automatically be sent to the US Copyright Office in Washington DC. Any documents that would violate current copyrights or are uncopyrightable, will be denied a copyright. All copyrighted documents will be stored in a warehouse, both on paper and on hard drives. When someone comes out with a new book for instance, they will apply for a copyright, be denied and directed to the holder of the copyright, which would be me. They will contact me and negotiate a royalty fee.

you'd actually have to GET a copyright on every work that you wanted to protect

Untrue. If I write something, it's already copyrighted. I don't have to get a copyright for it.

See this for more copyright myths.

Similarly (and here I'm unsure), if d33Zy's program generates something that someone else has already written, that's not in violation of copyright -- he didn't actually copy it. He'd probably have to turn up in court with all of the output of his program to prove it, though.

If, without reading a book, I somehow manage to write a word-for-word identical book, that's not violating copyright, as I understand it.

Library of Babylon

I had never heard of it or the author, but searching for it brought up a bunch of philosophical websites. It looks interesting, and I'm gonna have to go check a copy out from my local library now (or create a copy). But I would like to point out that my personal library created by my machine will be finite. I could start an infinite one, but that would require infinite documents....too much hassle.

I've always been intrigued by the intricacies of the human mind. Well, rather, human minds smarter than this.

"If I write something, it's already copyrighted. I don't have to get a copyright for it."

My understanding, though I could be wrong, is that if you can't PROVE you wrote it before someone else did, then you will loose in court. I actually meant to imply this in my post because I know one way to get "proof" of when something was done is to mail it to yourself. A date stamped by the post office would count as proof in court of when you wrote a document.

Still, in the end, paper, ink, or hard drive space is going to be the real limiting factor.

I could start an infinite one, but that would require infinite documents....too much hassle.

Or one document printed on infinitely thin paper (The Book Of Sand, another Borges short story). If you've never heard of him, you should definitely check out the collections Labyrinths and The Book Of Sand; I think my favourite story is The God's Script, which is in Labyrinths. Or just get a "complete works".

Peter

That's right, everything we say on here is copyrighted. I could actually sue FerretBoy in civil court for quoting my copyrighted post without my permission. However, I will grant permission for anyone to copy my posts of up to 3 per person in hard copy form and up to 10 per person in electronic form, EXCLUDING the original post in this thread, which I will charge a royalty fee of one million (1,000,000) United States dollars for every copy either in full or partial context and in either hard or electronic form, as it is very valuable information. This includes any material that derives from my copyrighted material.

All violators will be sued.

A date stamped by the post office would count as proof in court of when you wrote a document.

Until, of course, someone in the court realised that you could just have mailed yourself an unsealed envelope on that day.

Peter

On second look, I see that you did violate my copyright by quoting my original post, and although you do technically owe me a million dollars, I will let it slide just this once since you did not know.

Too bad you've just blown your chances for a patent by publicly disclosing your invention before filing.

-Zeke

"Until, of course, someone in the court realised that you could just have mailed yourself an unsealed envelope on that day."

Again, I'm speaking without real knowledge, but doing something like that is supposedly a fedral offense in the U.S. I only mentioned it because when I recorded a CD, someone told me to do this. I didn't, however, so if someone finds a copy somewhere feel free to copy it at will!

Yeah, I also heard you could do that. And I always wondered what could stop someone from cheating. Like using tape to seal it and then peeling the tape off.

I doubt you'd win in court. I didn't present the quote as my own thought, and you'd probably get thrown out as a frivolous lawsuit.

See my first post - "patent pending". How do you know I didn't apply? Many products are put up for sale while the patent is pending.

I don't know. After reading that link that Roger pointed to, it seems like for just forwarding an email you could theoretically be sued by the original writer. Even if no damages are awarded, you could win the court costs.

I will of course choose not to sue you, because I know a million dollars is hard to come by, and that will be nothing compared to the hundreds of millions I will be making soon.

By the way, if I ever am a multi-billionaire, I will give a million dollars to everyone I ever knew, including everyone on this BBS.

I'll hold my breath

Did I tell you guys about my idea for a perpetual motion machine yet?

Did I tell you guys about my idea for a perpetual motion machine yet?

<homer> Lisa, in this house we FOLLOW THE LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS!!!! </homer>

*cough*

Yup, thats the thread that reminded me of the quote

Did I tell you guys about my idea for a perpetual motion machine yet?

lol. okay, that post made this whole thread worth it.

you obviously have not filed for a patent otherwise you'd know about the relevant clause of non-disclosure and also the part about letting it sit for a year before it goes from pending to enforced.
You can't patent an idea either. You can only patent the plans for the implementation or production of the idea. If you have indeed written a program to do this futile act, you don't actually patent the program as there is nothing new about the program itself unless you've written a completely new language to program in.
Even then, If I had money behind me and saw that there was enough merit in what you were doing that I thought I should make it myself, I'd just do it. I'd even invite you to try and sue me. You'd probably run out of money first though. $1,000,000 is usually the starting fee for international patent Lawyers.

This exact thing happened to a guy I knew who does research and testing for APC UPS's. (except his product was real) He and some collegues developed a system for a linear steppar motor. Had the international patent in the works and operating and a multinational (fujitsu or someone) decided that they'd copy the plans and start manufacture of the design he'd worked on. They had to drop the patent as they didn't have enough money to even hire the lawyer to research their case as they'd put it all into R&D.

If you REALLY want to control a thing you don't patent it. Like the formulae for Coke and Pepsi. But there has to be pretty special circumstances for that.

You could try and hold the copyright for what your program produces, but actively persuing it would be really expensive and you might only win 10% of your cases. Pretty bad economics.

Try here too


here troll troll troll

Hmm, well, too bad, I already built the machine that d33zY is talking about, so no patents or lawsuits for him. I made it a few months ago... but the stupid thing keeps jamming up, so I just tossed it in the corner next to my perpetual motion machine and my universal business adaptor.

If you don't believe me, I can post a picture of it.

Yes, please post pictures.