Tuesday, July 15, 2008

A (silly) comic book law from California

California Business and Professions Code Section 16603 (illegal to require purchase of horror comic book as condition to other purchases): 16603. Every person who, as a condition to a sale or consignment of any magazine, book, or other publication requires that the purchaser or consignee purchase or receive for sale any horror comic book, is guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, or by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both. This section is not intended to prohibit an agreement requiring a person to purchase or accept on consignment a minimum number of copies of a single edition or issue of a magazine or of a particular book or other particular publication. As used in this section "horror comic book" means any book or booklet in which an account of the commission or attempted commission of the crime of arson, assault with caustic chemicals, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, kid.napping, mayhem, mur.der, r.ape, robbery, theft, or voluntary man.slaughter is set forth by means of a series of five or more drawings or photographs in sequence, which are accompanied by either narrative writing or words represented as spoken by a pictured character, whether such narrative words appear in balloons, captions or on or immediately adjacent to the photograph or drawing. (good definition of comics - must have been written by a decent patent attorney) Why isn't "filing a frivolous patent infringement lawsuit" in this list of possible crime horrors?