It would be the most brilliant prison break ever, had the plan worked. Instead, we now know copyright law is not the ticket out of the hoosegow. Courtesy of a UK newspaper, we have word of the elaborate scheme, carried out in Louisiana. It’s my favorite story of this room temperature day.
It seems four inmates were just indicted for copyrighting their names and trying to hold the warden’s property hostage for breaking copyright law by using their names without authorization. They even hired some dude to take his cars, change his locks and freeze his bank account. Two problems: 1) copyright law wasn’t really applicable (though I wonder–would it have been had the warden decided to make T-shirts with their mugshots and names?), and 2) their repo man was an undercover FBI agent.
If they hadn’t copyrighted their names, I might already be at work on a screenplay for this one. It’s hard to imagine all the detailed work that went into this. Then it went so horribly wrong. They should consider releasing them for creativity. I mean, most people just make license plates.
