Avoid humming the refrain
The family has to stop jumping from fright when the front door slams closed. I’ve checked, and the only reason for the sudden change of status is that the dog has decided to investigate passersby. Yes, she is attached to the door (a convenient tie point) and she hasn’t learned to warn the rest of us. No big deal.
There’s been a (translated) documentary on for the last hour, dealing with the intellectual property crisis to the south. No, not the past president. The country decided some decades ago to tie their economic plough to the IP horse. Of course, some horses don’t walk in straight lines, and your carefully planned furrows look like the grooves from a phonograph record. Maybe that’s why they insist on passing laws dealing with “piracy” instead of “ploughing”.
No jokes allowed here. The whole IP rights debacle is serious business. Small grooves mutating into deep, wide trenches. This is not about the sanctity of a Spears song. Think pharmacy. Think DNA. Think of someone else holding the patent to you.
We’re going to look back, decades from now, full of wonder at the shortsightedness of legislators. Our Canadian Club isn’t practicing safe lawmaking. We’re going to have a whole new class of criminal behaviour to consider, just as soon as the treaties are signed into service.
I see a time where we’re going to refrain from refrains, out of fear of litigation. No more “Happy Birthday” for the gang at your kitchen table. No more seasonal songs for any of us. The rights belong to someone else.
