Byzantine Publishing – The Legal Department Chimes In (Part 4)

A throat was cleared at the end of the conference table.  The Emperor squirmed in his throne as he watched Abe Heifetz from the Legal Department pushed his dignified old bones up to face the staff.  With a low, respectful bow to Emperor Constantine, he began.

“August Majesty,  first let me remind everyone how I have no personal agenda or conflict of interest regarding this book.  Contrary to some who believe my head is always buried in old briefs and Roman law books, I enjoy a good story with interesting characters as much as anybody.

“And in the last 350 odd years, my people have adhered to a hands-off policy regarding Christianity.  Jesus was one of our guys after all.  Whether he was messiah or just meshugener, he was a mensch.  Time will tell.

“The most immediate legal problems you face encompasses our position related to intellectual properties, that is to say ownership, permissions, and assignments of rights.  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all had the same agent, Mannie Beilstein in Nazareth and we can track the transfer of those contracted right back three centuries.  Mannie begat Jacob Bielstein who begat Norman who begat Benjamin, and so on and so on.  Conveniently, Ephraim Beilstein has a branch office near the basilica here in Constantinople.  He reviewed the original contracts with me and says we’re square.  He’ll pocket ten percent of residuals and has his paralegals out tracking down the four Apostles’ descendants and heirs.

“Now Saul of Taurus, who preferred Paul since it made him feel less Jewish and more hip, back then Saul struck his own deal without a manager or agent.  Tough negotiator I hear.  Wanted all his dough up front:  no residuals, no ancillaries.  But he never married and with no rights of survivorship, the copyrights lapsed and are all in the public domain.  We can use his scribbling and letters, edit them, cut and paste them however we want.

“So our bases are covered for these five guys.

“But here’s the rub; beyond these five we’ve got problems.  Thomas, the doubtful one, skipped out to live on an Ashram in India.  We can’t locate any documentation in the old Roman archives...but that doesn’t mean some great-great-nephew won’t show up in court from East Suckistan demanding a significant piece of the action and damages for breach of contract.  Treble damages likely if a judge finds out we knew about it or should have.

“Mary Magdalene disappeared, too.  You all know the rumors about that.  Ran off with Joseph of Aramathea is the current tabloid spin.  That’s a good thing, because if it’s true, even if she had a contract we can’t find, it’d certainly have included a standard morals clause that’ll void it.  But what if James’ Gospel is gospel?  If she and Jesus actually tied the knot, her rights, passed down to their descendents would have priority.  If we include James in the new anthology, we’re risking opening a real can of Worms.  I can imagine a scenario where we end up having to buy back all the copies of our book, while Mr. and Mrs. Jesus H. Christ’s heirs publish an authorized version that piggy-backs off all our publicity and marketing efforts.

“If we had a better feel for the truth of the matter, we’d have a firmer legal standing.  I’ve met with reps from both the Gnostics and the Agnostics and needless to say, no agreement there.  The former insists they know the truth but aren’t telling, while the latter, those smart-ass Agnostics, claim they don’t know anything.  But I think they do and are just jerking our chains.  A wise man described an Agnostic as an atheist without any balls.”

That brought a rare smile from the Emperor and wistful sighs from eunuchs scattered round the table.

“Does that mean all our eunuchs are Agnostics?” someone joked.  The smile disappeared in an instant and Constantine glared across and down the table, his focus settling on one of his sons, a worthless prick interning at the publishing company.

“So, Demetrius tell me, how about you?  Are you Gnostic, Agnostic, or just a jerk wad wise ass?”

Sweat pouring down his face, the princeling was shaking like a leaf:  “I am unworthy, father,” he stuttered.  “ I profess nothing else.  And father...sorry but I’m Constantius, not Demetrius.”

“You’re a constant piece of shit, that what you are.  Come back here tomorrow at sunrise.  And I suggest you get your young wife pregnant with my grandchild tonight.  It just might be your last opportunity.  Maybe I’ll just convert you to Agnosticism and change your name to Constantina.  Or maybe I’ll have hot soup waiting for you...that was your slut mother’s favorite.”  The Emperor’s fiery stare was felt by all, even those sitting quiet with their clenched hands in their laps, acutely aware how Constantine had boiled his first wife, Fausta, to death in her own bathtub.  Back before he was a Christian...sort of.

 “Abe?  Anything else?” Constantine asked coolly, returning to the matter at hand.

“Great Emperor, I know you’re backing the idea of including Mary Magdalene’s gospel, but there’s one more concern I have.  If we go with it...and it’s a great story...there’s a chance we could get sued for libel.  I know it sounds far-fetched, but if it turns out Mary’s not the real author, the whole business about her being a hooker could come back and haunt us.  Libelous character assassination, her descendents could claim.

“I’m aware how Apostles, like Mark and James, say the same thing, but we can repeat their accusations by inserting the word ‘alleged.”  We’d be held harmless.  In any case, they all died poor, so regardless any libel, no one on Mary’s side was going to waste time and money to sue them.  You, on the other hand, sire, have some extraordinarily deep pockets.  Lawsuits might be frivolous or fraudulent, but you got to figure Mary has like a hundred direct descendents by now.  You might be looking at something on a scale approaching a class action.

“And, if you let my take off my legal hat for a second, even if you decided to take some, let’s call it, extraordinary action against her progeny, it might take years to track them all down and there’d still be suits popping up from all over the Empire.

“One last thing, sire, going back to what Leo from Marketing was saying:  if we categorize the new book as fiction we can say and publish anything we want:  literary license, you see.  But if we maintain the book is non-fiction, well, there’s a different set of legal criterion we could trip over.  My official legal advice is to go fiction, but I don’t suppose your bishops and clergy would be too happy with that.  It would make it sound like anyone could start a religion based on a book of fiction about space aliens or whatever.  That could never happen.  No one would ever fall for it, not in two thousand years.”

Emperor Constantine slumped in his throne.  He knew what was coming, but had to ask anyway.  “So Abe, what’s your conclusion, from a legal standpoint?”

“Sire, if we go with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we’re being cautious and safe.  We’ve secured the rights and royalty payments are minimal.  Paul’s crap we have free and clear.  We don’t have a verifiable copy of Thomas’ gospel and we can’t even guess what it might say.  Mary Magdalene and James are just too risky and we could lose the whole shooting match or at least be entangled legally for centuries.  And though I admit it’s my favorite bedtime reading, I don’t see how we can include The Song of Solomon without causing a big kerfuffle with the folks back in Jerusalem.

“You probably don’t want to hear this, sire, but there’s a bunch of so-called ‘birthers’ in Jerusalem who refuse to believe Jesus was born in Israel since ‘Madonna’ wouldn’t admit who his real father was.  They’re looking for a chance to stir up trouble.  And frankly lots of my fellow tribesmen are stinko about Your Highness' restrictions against keeping Christian slaves and circumcising them.  For one thing, you’re putting a bunch of mohels out of work.  And now my sister writes me how she asked her Egyptian slave boy to work a few extra hours and the bum told my sister to “fuck off...I’m Christian today.”

“Sorry, Esteemed Augustus, but I’m just telling you the way it is.”

continued in Part 5 of 5