[PLUG-TALK] Copyrighting numbers

Keith Lofstrom keithl at kl-ic.com
Tue Jun 28 03:08:50 UTC 2005


If you can copyright programs, you can copyright numbers, right?  Thus,
I shall write a program to copyright all numbers representing dollar
amounts between:

$1,000,000,000.00

and

$999,999,999,999.99

Yes, I will need lots of servers to send all these copyright registrations
to D.C., but that is a "mere technical detail".

I will then license the use of these numbers in financial reports.  Let's
say that last year your company made a reported income of:

$2,137,886,424.73

I will charge you a license fee of one penny for the use of one of my 
copyrighted numbers.  You're revised reported income is:

$2,137,886,424.72.

I will charge you another license fee of one penny for the use of another
of my copyrighted numbers.  Rinse and repeat.

Now, I imagine that certain large dollar amounts are in the public domain,
but probably such numbers represent a tiny fraction of number space.  On
the other hand, the public income statements of large companies contain
many of these large numbers, offering many opportunities to ladder down
my "clients".  

What a wonderful moneymaker!  OTOH, perhaps the whole concept of 
copyrighting numbers and other number-representable systems might get
rethought in a vicious attempt to deprive me of my "Intellectual
Property".

By the way, :-) .   I repeat, :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs



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