Mother Jones mocks intellectual property in a story "Intellectual Property Run Amok." Despite my distaste for people who don't get jokes, I am going to dissect this a little, partly because I've always been intrigued by how what one finds funny can be determined by, of all things, political assumptions.

IN 1982, Motion Picture Association of America head Jack Valenti told Congress that “the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.”

Yes, that is funny, in retrospect. Though it might not be nearly as funny, had dual-deck VCR's ever been unleashed.

A DAY AFTER Senator Orrin Hatch said “destroying their machines” might be the only way to stop illegal downloaders, unlicensed software was discovered on his website.

And so is that. But what do they mean, on his website? His server? Why would Orrin Hatch have a server? A "website" isn't a computer. Furthermore the Senator was talking about self-help by content owners (unleashing viruses and so on into P2P networks) and I doubt he would accept that the arguments in favor of this are any less strong because he had a silly staffer.

But let these first two be a lesson against overkill.

BILL GATES had the 11-million-image Bettmann Archive buried 220 feet underground. Archivists can access only the 2% that was first digitized.

Well, yes. The reason Bill Gates did this was because the archive was literally falling apart from old age, and moving it underground into controlled conditions stopped the deterioration. By all means, though, empower "archivists" to plunder the vaults in the name of the people, and lose the photos.

... And

MICROSOFT UK held a contest for the best film on “intellectual property theft”; finalists had to sign away “all intellectual property rights” on “terms acceptable to Microsoft.”

This I just don't get... it sounds like a standard contract to me.

ONLY ABOUT 5% of patents end up having any real commercial value

Well, yes, they're at the cutting edge, one never knows what will catch on. What percentage of small businesses succeed?

NEARLY 20% of the 23,688 known human genes are patented in the United States. Private companies hold 63% of those patents.

Who else would hold them? The government? Would that be preferable?

...

GEORGE FOREMAN has earned $113 million by lending his name to a grill.

A very good grill. And he also lent his appearance and considerable charisma.

FOR INCLUDING a 60-second piece of silence on their album, the Planets were threatened with a lawsuit by the estate of composer John Cage, which said they’d ripped off his silent work 4’33”. The Planets countered that the estate failed to specify which 60 of the 273 seconds in Cage’s piece had been pilfered.

Now that is funny, but, again, more because pretentious modern music is absurd than because of anything to do with IP.

A FRENCH DIRECTOR had to pay $1,300 after a character in his film whistled the communist anthem, “The Internationale,” without permission.

And so is that. I take it the communists are particular about their copyrights?

LAST YEAR Disney and other media companies sued two small L.A. shops for selling $15 piñatas of Winnie the Pooh, The Incredibles, and Nemo.

Yes, well, you have to defend your mark. Nothing new about this.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.’s estate charges academic authors $50 for each sentence of the “I Have a Dream” speech that they reprint.

I take it that is reprinting the whole, not simply quotes taken out as "fair use." Seems fair to me. King almost lost his copyright to this speech by distributing it without a formal copyright notice.

THE VILLAGE PEOPLE refused to let their songs be used for a documentary called Gay Sex in the ’70s because they want to be thought of as “mainstream.”

That's only funny if you think that it is funny that the Village People want to be thought of as mainstream, but has nothing to do with IP.

What the heck is the point of all my dissection? I'm not really sure. I think I wanted to point out that a reductio ad absurdum (did I spell that right) argument only works effectively for things that are really absurd. And that the more one knows about the strange world of IP, the more normal it seems. Not that there aren't problems.