The Contrarian

It’s been a slow week in the spacetime continuum, but these two items caught my eye that I think are worth noting…

The Wall Street Journal business section has noticed that some license agreements, release forms and other legalese-imbued documents extend rights claims throughout all of space and time, literally.

In a May 15, 2008, “expedition agreement” between JWM Productions LLC, a film-production company, and Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc., a shipwreck-exploration outfit, JWM seeks the rights to footage from an Odyssey expedition. The contract covers rights “in any media, whether now known or hereafter devised, or in any form whether now known or hereafter devised, an unlimited number of times throughout the universe and forever, including, but not limited to, interactive television, CD-ROMs, computer services and the Internet.”

Odyssey said the wording was standard entertainment-law contract language. Jason Williams, JWM’s president, said he feels a bit strange when his lawyers start using “cosmic language,” but it’s prudent.

…

A 189-word sentence in a September agreement between Denver-based Spicy Pickle Franchising Inc. and investment bank Midtown Partners & Co. — which has helped raise capital for the sandwich and pickle shops dotted across the region — unconditionally releases Spicy Pickle from all claims “from the beginning of time” until the date of the agreement.

And November 7 is the 75th birthday of the late Astronomy popularizer, Carl Sagan. Broward County Community College in south Florida is celebrating the occasion with a day of Sagan remembrance and science education. Science luminaries appearing at the event include Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait and The Amazing Randi. Plait writes…

Celebrating his life is a great idea, and the folks at BCCC have a full day planned (the schedule is online in PDF and Word formats). A lot of good speakers will be giving talks, including my friend Jeffrey Bennett (who wrote Max goes to the Moon series of kids’ books), skeptic and “Point of Inquiry” podcast host D. J. Grothe, and NASA astrobiologist and impact expert David Morrison (via satellite). I’ll be giving my Death from the Skies! talk at 4:00 (with David there, I’ll have to be on my toes). They’ll be showing “Cosmos” continuously in one room, with kids’ activities in another. There’s a planetarium show in the evening, too.

That’s it for this week. Here’s wishing things are pleasant within your light cone.