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THE LAW IS A ASS for 08/06/2002
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment # 156
Originally written as installment # 138 and published in Comics Buyer's Guide issue # 756, May 13, 1988 issue
Another mail column? Seems every time I turned around, I found another lost letter from that huge sack of mail that Don and Maggie gave me. I couldn't get away from all that mail. It was like I was tied to the frelling mail.
Is that what they call mail bonding?
******
THE LAW IS A ASS
Installment # 156
by
BOB INGERSOLL
I was wrong. (Hardly the first time, by the way. Surely not the last. Sometimes I don't even know why I bother getting up in the morning. No, wait, I 'm wrong again, I do: Breakfast!)
I thought I had answered every letter that Don and Maggie gave to me at the 1987 Mid-Ohio Con in a recent two part column. Then, I was preparing for a trip to Florida and decided I had better take care of the paper work that had been cluttering my desk for months. And, as I shoveled out the papers (I discovered that my desk top is dark brown, incidentally) and found, to my horror, that three letters had been misplaced and gone unanswered.
I say horror, not because I dislike getting the mail or doing letter columns -- I don't and I don't, respectively. I said horror, because three persons who sent me mail thought, after reading my last letter columns, that I was ignoring them.
I wasn't. I don't ignore readers. If it weren't for readers, I wouldn't write these columns. No, really, I wouldn't. Writing a column without readers would be an utterly futile act. I get enough futility in my day job as a public defender.
So anyway, now I'm in Florida and have just made myself a large screwdriver; I want to take this opportunity to correct my mistake in misplacing the letters and answer them now. But you probably guessed that, didn't you?
Mark Schiyver (You probably have to forgive me on that last name, Mark, I'm not sure if I read it properly) of Pulaski, New York told me that he wished the column could appear a little more frequently than it does. Thank you for the compliment, Mark. I wish it could, too. Unfortunately, my new responsibilities as supervisor of the Appellate Division for the Public Defender Office takes up so much of my time, that I don't have time for the important things in life any more. Basically in any given day, I can sleep or I can write a column. At present, I alternate one night of eating, one night of sleeping, and one night of writing. Simple survival, I'm afraid, precludes me from altering this arrangement.
Mark also wrote me about an error he saw in Iron Man # 225. In it, Tony Stark's lawyer made the claim that evidence illegally seized by a civilian (here Tony Stark and Scott (Ant Man) Lang) would not be admissible in court. Mark said this statement didn't jibe with other columns, I've written about the "Silver Platter Doctrine." Thanks for remembering, Mark. As I said, if it weren't for you readers, I wouldn't do this column.
I've indicated before, if a private citizen, acting on his own and not in concert with the government, seizes evidence illegally and gives it to the police, the Fourth Amendment does not automatically preclude the evidence from being introduced into court. The Constitution only controls governmental activity. It does not prevent private citizens from making illegal searches and seizures and handing their findings over to the police on a silver platter. Such "Silver Platter" evidence is admissible, because there was not state activity involved.
Mark said he had written the creative team and had pointed out this mistake. However, he also said that he felt it would mean more coming from me. There, Mark, they heard it from me. Do you think anyone listened this time?
Before we move to the next letter, however, there is one point about the Silver Platter Doctrine, I have to discuss with the readers. The characters you see in comics like Iron Man or Any Man, who break into criminals lairs and steal evidence for the police, are trained professional fictitional characters. Do not attempt their actions at home. Why? Because if they get caught, the worst thing that will happen to them is they'll get written out of the series for a while. If you real life people try it, you could get killed. Or worse yet, you could be tried for theft and have me as a lawyer.
Alan Sumwalt of Wichita, Kansas asked me if the court room scenes in the movie From the Hip are accurate. I don't know; I haven't seen the movie. However, Alan, you're at least the third person who's asked me to do a column about that particular movie. Maybe I will. Of course, I think I'll see the movie first, so it'll be a while. I haven't figured out how to fit movies into my three day rotation. I haven't even seen Fatal Attraction yet.
Alan also asked me a question about copyright law -- a question I've been asked by several different readers. It goes something like this: "I've created my own comic characters/stories and want to send them to various publishers for their consideration. But before I do this, I want to copyright the creation. How do I do this?"
You already have. Under the copyright revision law of 1976, any original creation is automatically copyrighted by the creator at the moment of its completion. Nothing need be done in order to secure the copyright. All you need to do is to affix the copyright symbol, (C), and the year you completed it to the work in order to give the world at large notice of your intent to maintain the copyright and your copyright is secure.
Alan asked me what forms from the copyright office he needed to submit to the copyright office in order to register the copyright. First, Alan, you don't have to register the copyright at all, in order for it to be valid. It is already valid. However, your ability to sue and enforce the copyright can be affected by the date you register the copyright. Therefore, it as advisable to register it as soon as possible.
Let me repeat: although it isn't required by the law that you register your copyrights, you still should register your copyrights.
As to which specific form to use, I don't know. I'm not a copyright attorney, so am not familiar with all the forms the Library of Congress uses. (And before the rest of you think how many forms can there be -- remember this is a governmental agency we're talking about. Our government has forms telling us that under the Paperwork Reduction Act, it is cutting down on the number of forms used.) I don't know which specific form is the most appropriate form for a comic story. If I were to answer your question, you'd probably get the wrong answer.
I advise consulting an actual intellectual property attorney or sending a copy of the material to the Library of Congress and asking them which form you should use. At least, that way, you should get the correct answer.
Or the Web. They have lots of answers to these questions on a Web page the Government runs to answer such questions. You can find it at http://www.loc.gov/copyright/title17.
Finally, we have a letter from Roger Norris of Willoughby, Ohio. Roger gets the award for the strangest questions of the month. First question: if Dracula were tried for murder, could he defend himself on the grounds that he died in the 15th century?
No. Death is not an defense. Seeing as no one who is dead has ever been prosecuted, no one ever thought it was necessary to make it a defense.
Oh, Roger wanted a serious answer. Probably not. Even if we assume that the court would believe this defense was true and not an attempt at an insanity plea, Dracula has a form of unlife and a knowledge of right and wrong. Therefore, I think a court would rule, even if he weren't liable for anything that he did before he "died" -- like impaling half of central Europe -- he would be still liable for anything he did in his unlife -- like giving the rest of Europe fatal hickeys. If the courts are flexible enough to adapt to me, they're flexible enough to adapt to the problems presented by new legal concepts, such as vampires and unlife.
Roger asked me about the occurrences in an old Mighty Crusaders comic, # 9 to be exact. I did a column about that very story about three years ago. Nothing could make me relive that particular story now, Roger. You'll have to find the appropriate back issue of CBG in the back issue market. (Hey, Don and Maggie: Do I get my selling back issues kick back now, or do I have to wait for Roger to buy the back issue?)
Finally, Roger asked me a question about a complicated scenario in which a super-villain, he chose the Owl, wants to retire with his ill-gotten gains. So the villain writes a will leaving his money to his secret identity, clones himself, transfers his mind to the clone, kills the original, proves in open court that he is a clone of the original, argues that because the original is dead he is not responsible for any crimes committed by a dead man, also argues that because the dead man is still alive in clone form no murder has been committed, and collects the money. Roger wants to know if this plan would work.
No.
Aside from worrying about such abstract problems as, is a clone of one's self the same person and can he inherit from himself, we have a basic flaw in the plan itself. So, fortunately, we don't have to worry about the legalities of whether killing your own clone is a murder or is a clone legally the same person as the dead original. We have a technicality we can get out on.
The Owl stole his money in the first place, he does not have legal right to own it. Therefore, he cannot bequest that money in his will. One can bequest only as much title that one had originally. The Owl had no title, so couldn't bequeath any title to his clone.
Thank goodness for technicalities. I wouldn't want to answer the question the other way. After all, if the Owl kills his own clone, maybe he committed suicide and can't inherit anything. Maybe he did commit a murder and can't inherit, because an heir can't benefit from committing a crime. Maybe you want to contemplate such conundrums, but I don't.
Either they, or the screwdriver I just guzzled, make me dizzy.
******
BOB INGERSOLL, CBG columnist, Cleveland based public defender, and reknowned windmill tilter, was reminded of a joke by Roger's question. It seems that a millionaire cloned himself, so that his clone could attend to all the boring details of the millionaire's buisness, while the millionaire, himself, is free to play golf. Unfortunately, the cloning process had a flaw: the clone delighted in using the foulist, most obscene language imaginable. The millionaire decided he couldn't allow such a profane version of himself to exist, it would be an embarrassment. So he decided to kill it. He consulted his attorney to see if killing a clone of yourself is a crime. His attorney advised it is not, because, if you're still alive, how can you be prosecuted for killing yourself? With this answer, the millionaire drove his clone up to the top of a cliff and pushed the clone off to its death. True to form, the clone shouted obscenities all the way d! ow! n to its demise. Two days later he FBI arrested the millionaire, because, as everyone knows, it's a federal offense to make an obscene clone fall.
Well, I never said it was a good joke.
BOB INGERSOLL
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