After reportedly feeding a crowd of five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, Jesus Christ of Nazareth was recently served with formal legal notice from industry trade associations, demanding that he cease and desist from what they charge is an illegal food-sharing operation under the terms of the Miracle Millennium Anti-Replication Act (MMAA).<\/p>\n
Miracle-working rabbis like Mr. Christ, and their alleged property rights infringements, have been the center of controversy in recent years.\u00a0 They\u2019re the subject of a public education campaign by the Foodstuffs Producers Association of Galilee and Judea.\u00a0 Loaves and fishes producers argue that unauthorized replication of food, since it deprives them of revenues to which they are entitled, amounts to stealing. Sympathetic rabbis in synagogues throughout Palestine are reading FPAGJ public service announcements, aimed at countering public perceptions that \u201ceverybody does it\u201d and \u201cit\u2019s just a little thing,\u201d to their flocks:\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t bakers and fishermen deserve to be paid?\u201d\u00a0 Many Torah schools have adopted FPAGJ \u201canti-foodlifting\u201d curricula.<\/p>\n
In related news, the Wine Industry Association of Palestine has complained amid surfacing reports that Jesus, in another alleged act of illegal sharing, also replicated wine at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee.<\/p>\n
Physicians\u2019 licensing boards, likewise, point to alleged eyewitness accounts of Jesus practicing medicine without a license.\u00a0 This unauthorized medical practice, according to widespread reports, has extended to lepers, the lame, the halt, the blind, a man with a palsied hand, a woman with an issue of blood, and assorted victims of demonic possession.\u00a0 The medical industry denounces Jesus\u2019 actions as unfair competition.\u00a0 According to a spokesman for the Galilean Medical Association, \u201cit\u2019s unfair to expect a licensed physician who spent years as an apprentice and who has to cover the overhead from office space to compete with some carpenter who just waves his hands around and heals people for free.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the Embalmers\u2019 Guild has also complained of rumored resurrections of the dead, legal experts say there is no actual statute defining that particular activity as a criminal offense.<\/p>\n
On the other side, a small but growing movement of gustatory property opponents takes issue with the \u201cpiracy\u201d label. They argue that copying food, as an inherently non-rivalrous activity, isn\u2019t theft; because the newly replicated food is created ex nihilo, nobody else\u2019s stock of food is diminished.\u00a0 Fisherman Simon Bar Jonah of Galilee and his brother Andrew agree. \u201cInstead of trying to suppress competition, the fishing industry<\/a> should replace its archaic business model<\/a>. Opportunities are out there for anyone willing to innovate. We haven\u2019t lost a denarius because of Jesus\u2019 food-sharing.\u201d<\/p>\n
But authorities aren\u2019t buying it. Pontius Pilate, Procurator of Judea, recently announced plans to crack down on gustatory property pirates like Jesus. \u201cIf you think I\u2019m going to wash my hands of this Jesus guy, God love him, think again. Replicating loaves, fishes and wine is stealing, just the same as a smash-and-grab at Macy\u2019s. This is a big effing deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next week:\u00a0 Johann Gutenberg, unauthorized book-sharer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the site Center for a Stateless Society, Kevin Carson has posted a provocative piece on Jesus and piracy. Given the source, they presumably won\u2019t mind my reproducing it here (while giving credit where credit is due): After reportedly feeding a crowd of five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, Jesus Christ of Nazareth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,42],"tags":[1828,4871,5677,5780,7502,9186,9188],"class_list":["post-1839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-humor","tag-christ","tag-humor","tag-jesus","tag-johannes-gutenberg","tag-miracles","tag-piracy","tag-pirate"],"yoast_head":"\n
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