Having written several textbooks and books, I know what a big pain it is to use copywritten material. It involves initiating a legal process with forms, negotiations and if you are lucky permissions. I often just try and rewrite or dump the material to avoid all of that.

Today, Scott Adams reports that, at least when it comes to Dilbert stuff, it is all going to be easy.

Maybe you noticed a new button below the Dilbert comic on the home page labeled “License Me.” Now you can search for a particular strip by key word or date, click a few buttons to describe how you want to use it – for anything from a PowerPoint presentation to a web site to a publication to a coffee mug – enter some credit card information, and you’re all legally licensed in minutes. For example, you can license Dilbert for your business presentation for as little as $19.99, which is the same as free if your boss is paying for it.

Beautiful. This type of thing will give copyright a good name. Of course, I bet that some anti-copyright person is going to object that this move will make it easier to use copyright and thereby undermine the cause of trying to eliminate copyright. To them, I quote Berkeley Breathed, “Pfft.” To everyone else, look forward to even more Dilbert in the next edition of my textbooks.