...is that somebody's bound to have thought of them.

Perhaps not many of you here know me. Even fewer of you have probably read my story Ciem: The Human Centipede (which you can find in the Sims Storytelling section on this very website). But when I tell you what just happened in the UK, you'll likely share my pain and frustration.

You see, authors coming up with ideas and titles that are similar if not identical, often very much unaware of each other existing, is at least as old as Leibniz and Newton, but certainly much older than that.

It is perfectly understandable, even to those among us who have bones to pick with Disney, how insulting it must have been to be accused of ripping of Madagascar with The Wild, when all the anecdotal evidence suggests the opposite to be true.

Also, it is quite understandable how furious the rights owners of Avatar: The Last Airbender are that they had to remove the word "Avatar" from their film adaptation just to appease James Cameron, even though "Avatar" belonged to the Airbender crowd since Day One.

The fact is, popularity power alone does not make right. We all secretly know that. Yet, the lazy part of each of us relishes that because sometimes, it seems to hopeless when the party in the wrong has powerful lawyers and the party in the right does not.

Why am I waxing philosophical on this, some of you may ask? Well, remember how I brought up Ciem a few paragraphs up page? That's right. It has a subtitle: "The Human Centipede."

I have had almost absolute ownership of the term "human centipede" ever since early June of 2005, when I first began to pen the 2005 narrative continuity. I defined it as a Centhuen, a complete merger of man and centipede much like a centaur is a merger of man and horse. Centhuen Prototypes, which Candi is one of while being the protagonist of "Ciem," have centilegs and "centuition," which is like a cheap form of "spider-sense." Different Centhuen Prototypes also had different other abilities included, such as a healing factor, virginity detection, etc.

Ciem was first released to the web in 2006, but was taken down shortly after when I left Sidewalk Sims. I wished to remove characters from that site from Ciem 3, which would have required a remake. I opted instead to reboot the entire series, which I attempted twice. By late 2008, Ciem 1 was on this site for all to read, and everyone knew what a "human centipede" really was.

All that changed in late 2009 and early 2010. Over in the UK, a certain Tom Six decided to redefine the term "human centipede," much to appeal to his rather...er...coprophagous tastes. Rightfully scorned by some critics while being met with grudging praise from others, Six's The Human Centipede (First Sequence) has already won two awards, in spite being classified as a D-grade horror film. (That's right! It makes Snakes on a Plane look like The Godfather!)

On one hand, "Ciem" is in the free-for-view section of Dozerfleet Comics and is (obviously) free-for-view on this site. Unless I get the film rights sold somewhere (ideally Marvel or Dark Horse,) then I highly doubt I'll be making any money off it any time soon. On the other, Tom Six will make money off his venture; even if not a whole lot of money given that his film is even less worth-watching than Snakes on a Train.

Is it even worth it to pursue damages when the victim is as tiny as it is and the perp as insignificant to the world of cinema as he is?

What is the moral here? I'm not sure. I guess if you can get a lawyer and trademark stuff of yours in advance, do so. And have eyes everywhere. As such, if any of you want to learn more about Six's "Human Centipede" rather than mine, all you need to do is visit Wikipedia. (IMDB has an article as well.)

I would advise putting a football helmet on though. You may get a headache from all the walls you ram your forehead into. Incredibly lucky are those who've seen the Tom Six film, and didn't melt into a puddle.

Slightly less frustrating is the fact that I have worked an entire six months on a mini-series for cable called "Blood Over Water." That is, only to discover that somebody (in Britain!) has released a completely unrelated book by the exact same title - which you can now buy off Amazon!

As a final thought of depression...the artwork I made for Ferris State's "Blood Over Water," which everybody (except me) thought was so original...yeah. (My actual inspirations for it were Scarface and Man Bites Dog).

Yet, along came a film called "Blood Done Sign My Name," with suspiciously similar artwork, that I knew absolutely nothing about until just now.

This is the thread to share your horror stories. How many of you have had this same debacle to deal with?

Edit: It has been brought to my attention that the Masons have predated both me and Tom Six on the definition of a "human centipede."

http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/mason...n_centipede.htm

They copyrighted their image, and their version back in 1999, but took until 2009 to have it posted online, apparently. The headaches just continue.