Reason #3 to ignore copyright
Target owns my family portrait!

Not only that, but they will continue to own it for the next 95 years!

So here's the deal: 90 years from now, Grandma Becka (my daughter) has passed away. My great-grandchildren (who are in their 40's, BTW) want to put together a little display that includes a family photo of Grandma Becka and her family when she was two years old, but all they can find is an old 5x7. So my great-granddaughter, Ariel, whips out her portable lifestorage media assistant organizing communication and optical recording device, scans the image, and instructs the nearest thermal imaging device to print it out at 10x14. THE LITTLE THIEF! She just totally violated Target's copyright and deprived them of potential revenue!

Here's what she should have done. She first needs to track down the copyright owner. Target was absorbed by Wal-mart in 2014. Then Wal-mart purchased the European Union in 2046 and then collapsed under its own weight in the great depression of 2051. Its assets were mostly redistributed among the European people, but the intellectual property rights were purchased by MGM-SONY-TURNER-WARNER (a division of the company that owns absolutely every entertainment and media company, Jedi's Inc.) They then sold off the portrait studio rights to some guy on Google-eBay for $15 in 2063. His G-bay ID was 1337j3rk. There the trail runs cold. So she hires a private investigator who tracks 1337j3rk to a guy in Des Moines named Gil Svenson. Gil has completely forgotten the G-bay purchase he made when he was 15, but he immediately demands $5000 for permission to do one reprint/enlargement. It is now 6 months after the funeral anyway, so Ariel decides not to.

Now if you think the above scenario is ridiculous, you are right. EBay and Google will never merge.

- posted by Dave @ 6:30 PM