A Potential Problem with Intellectual Property Rights

If intellectual property rights are taken too far, Mark Kurlansky, the author of Salt: A World History, could have a legal right to keep Dubya from reading his book and seems inclined to exercise that right:

What does it mean that George W Bush, a man who has demonstrated little ability for reflection, who is known to read no newspapers and whose headlong charge into disaster after cataclysm has shown a complete ignorance of history, who wants to throw out centuries of scientific learning and replace it with mythical mumbo-jumbo that he mistakenly calls religion, who preaches Christianity but seems to have never read the teachings of the great anti-war activist, Jesus Christ, is now spending his vacation reading my book, Salt: A World History?

What does it mean that he's reading a book by an author with a liking for preposterous cliches and run-on sentences? What does it mean that he's reading a book by an author who's unable to fit contrary evidence into his world view?

Speaking of intellectual property rights …

If a juror's inability to understand something becomes a reason to award a plaintiff $253 million, then how much will be awarded to plaintiffs on the basis of this diagram (seen via Boing Boing)?