File this under: You have got to be kidding me...

It may not be a strategy that's tried, tested and true, but that hasn't stopped inmates across the nation from claiming copyright to their names and then demanding money from lawyers and judges who dare to utter them.



In a form of legally sanctioned harassment, inmates awaiting trial and already convicted are passing their time behind bars filing multimillion-dollar liens against figures involved in their cases for unauthorized use of their names in legal papers and transcripts.


However ludicrous, such scams can be, at best, a huge hassle for members of the legal community. Lawyers and judges have no choice but to contest them, which can be time-consuming and expensive, and often impedes the inmate's trial.


In the most recent example, a Rikers Island inmate being tried for crack-cocaine possession, interrupted his preliminary hearing a number of times to declare that his name was copyrighted and he would be demanding money from parties in the court who spoke it without his permission.