Four federal inmates were indicted Tuesday on allegations that they copyrighted their names, then demanded millions of dollars from prison officials for using the names without authorization.

More details here.

The American legal community bears quite a bit of responsibility for this. For well over the last decade, they have encouraged and nutured a legal culture that rewards copyright abuse. Federal inmates take their cues from the world around them. Copyright law offered them a "get rich quick" extortion scheme. The sad part is that similar tales happen all of the time. But other people don't get indicted simply because they don't happen to direct their copyright extortion schemes towards federal prison officials.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - IP lawyers are the ambulance chasers of the 21st Century.