Imagine that you are about to become the first person to create synthetic life. You want to put some sort of meaningful marker into that synthetic life, right?

Clearly Craig Venter thought so, and he chose words from James Joyce:

To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.

This being the present day, the estate of James Joyce thought this to be a breach of copyright and sent a cease and desist letter. The Loom wonders, if it were to go to court and Venter were to lose (which it won’t, and he wouldn’t), might Venter be forced to pay out each time the microbes multiplied?

The idea seems completely ridiculous. Like denying people access to a song that they bought last week because they bought a new computer this week.

Oh.

Dead tree painted and photographed by Curtis Killorn. Found at Dark Roasted Blend.
Webcomic is We the Robots, by Chris Harding.

Today’s a travel day, so we’ll keep it short.

James Joyce’s Ulysses, now available in webcomic.