By G.L. Marshall The April Fool's issue of Broznews, Richard Brosnahan, proprietor, should be copyrighted, trademarked, servicemarked and maybe even patented, but instead it shall merely be disclaimed. Parody and satire are legally protected forms of free speech as long as the parody or satire does not violate other pertinent laws, for instance, libel or slander; or, to quote from Falwell v. Flynt, cause "the intentional infliction of emotional distress." Primary credit (or blame) for the original content falls to gmarshall@xperts.com. The aforesaid Mr. Brosnahan provided the inspiration and numerous tidbits of copy. Ms. Ellen Von Reiser handled the spoof on FileMakerPro and at least one joke came from B.S. Wilson. Authorship of the PC Week story on Unix is unknown. This has been kicked around since 1991, and if I had known who should get the credit, I'd have granted it. The Elizabeth Taylor photograph (on CNN) was found in the long-lost UPI Virginia archives, and probably should be owned by Bill Gates by now except who knows how much stuff overworked UPI photographers never got to New York and the Bettman Archive. Also from the UPI archives -- David Bowie (CNN) . The picture of DeeDee Myers (CNN) is actually a picture I took 10 years ago of country-western singer Marsha Bates. I thank Ms. Bates for the resemblance and I thank Ms. Myers for being legally subject to fair comment as a public figure. At least two gags were stolen from the 1974 Esquire Dubious Distinction Awards issue, two jokes come from Jay Leno, one came from Groucho Marx and a few gags are reprinted from April Fool's issues of the Ohio University Post, 1977-1980. Since I wrote those OU gags, I'll have to sue myself. A rule from OU Post April Fool's editions was at least one story had to be true. In this case, it's the CNN item on ABC sportscaster Dick Schaap, who came up with a great line that unintentionally offended some folks, so he apologized. The same principle applies here: if we've unintentionally offended someone, we apologize. The only thing we were trying to do is be funny. Credits aside, let's get back to law. Any attempt to match a web site's look and feel inevitably involves the use of copyright and trademarked images, and I thank the lawyers for letting writers have one day a year where we don't have to worry about their pernicious and self-perpetuating forms of mischief. Broznews, a collection of links, regularly appears at www.xperts.com, the website of Xperts Inc., a private Virginia corporation. This parody site, accessible from the aforesaid Broznews collection of links, was not hosted on the Xperts server, it was not endorsed by Xperts Inc. or its officers, and in fact, the boss -- as of the time of this posting -- doesn't even know about this 24-hour special edition. It is always easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. For further precedents, see Jarndyce v. Jarndyce.