Creator's Rights
VATICAN CLAIMS TRADEMARK ON JESUS
In a controversial move which many industry observers saw an inevitable upshot of the increasingly rigid bounds of intellectual property law, the Catholic Church today filed to have the name and likeness of Jesus Christ declared to be their "trademarks". Simultaneously with the filing, Pope John Paul III issued a Papal Bull warning other branches of Christianity to "cease and desist from using images and names of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the Holy Birth, and related events and persons" without obtaining the necessary licenses.
"We were there at the beginning," said a spokesmonk for the Vatican (GSX: VAT). "The image of Jesus, and all the rest of it, were clearly created by and for the Catholic faith. When the other branches of the religion formerly known as Christianity went maverick and divorced themselves from Catholicism, over the ages, they lost their right to use the intellectual properties of the parent company, er, church. It's as simple as that."
The Catholic Church is a privately-held, not-for-profit organization.
NEW COPYRIGHT LAW UPHOLDS RIGHT TO MONITOR QUALITY
The President today signed into law a bill which is intended to allow trademark owners to prevent abuse of their trademarks. In effect, any depiction or mention of a trademarked name is now subject to approval by the owner of said trademark; violators risk fines, imprisonment, or both.
"Public image has long been recognized as an immensely valuable commodity to any business; this law simply allows businesses large and small to protect their image investment, and prevent it from being vandalized by competitors and mean-spirited individuals who want a free ride on our coattails," said a spokesman for Warnerfox-Disniacom.
GLOBAL COPYRIGHT CLAIMED
An unexpected message from the Universal Creator today alerted world leaders that God plans to assert his ownership of copyright on all global landmasses and ocean formations. The announcement, which was received in the form of email apparently delivered to every computer in the world (and initially rejected by many as spam), also stated that copyright symbols would soon be relief-etched (as "landmarks" and "watermarks" , respectively) onto all continents and into undersea rockbed in all major oceans.
God stated that He had no current plans for licensing the world, but would be reviewing several proposals. "I have an awful lot of time and energy invested in this property, and I want to be sure that any development maintains the quality of that effort," God stated, concluding that he although appreciated various efforts to keep the world's surface from deteriorating prior to his reassertion of legal copyright, he no longer believed that the current usage was in the planet's best interest.
Speculation in the industry rumor mill has centered around a possible big-budget action-adventure thriller using the Earth™ as a setting.