David Weinberger posted something today on JOHO the Blog that reminded me of one of the minor problems I have copyright law (The words of the prophets are written for $14.95):

Remember Rael? No, not Rael Dornfest. The French "journalist" and lying clone meister who has been appointed ambassador by the extraterrestials who created life on this planet. In fact, the ET's dictated a book to Rael to set the planet straight. And yet Rael charges $14.95 to buy it. Why haven't the aliens cut Rael down with a laser death beam beam for not posting the whole book for free on the Web? Did Isaiah hold out for foreign rights? Did Ezekial hold on to the film rights? Did Jeremiah run blog ads?...

Why? Well, among other reasons, it doesn't seem that we have to worry about the incentive to create the works. I would also consider the works fact-based, since there is generally no claimed human-based creativity involved. Furthermore, where a text is supposedly authoritative, there would seem to be problems with the merger doctrine. When every word is important for doctrine, you really can't separate the idea from the expression, they are one and the same. Authoritative religious works are often functional as well, and you can't copyright functions.

Of course, the courts don't seem to agree with my position. In fact, I would say that copyright has often been used to protect established religion to the detriment of newer religious groups. Gee, wonder why that is?

More about the book here: Raël's The Message given by Extra-Terrestrials.