Yesterday I sent a screenplay out for copyright purposes.  You see, I've written a screenplay -- something I intend to produce with friends this summer -- something fun, and inexpensive to produce, so we can simply make it among friends without having to get a major film studio deal or that sort of thing.  It's just a comedy piece I wrote which I will actually produce with my friends called "One Perfect World," and I'm sure to write much more about it as time goes on, and really, that's not the point of this entry.  I simply wish to set the stage, as it were.  So yesterday I set a copy of this particular screenplay out for copyright purposes.

Usually it takes several months to get a reply from the copyright folks.  I know this from experience, having taken the time and trouble to copyright a few things in my life.  So I knew this going in, and  I also knew that I'd need to enlist the services of an agency in Washington D.C. to help expedite matters, because I can't wait several months for my certificate this time.  In order to get full agreement from the Screen Actors Guild for this project, which I will do regardless of the fact that it's an ultra-low-budget production, I need to have a completed certificate from the bureau of copyrights in my hand.  Thus, a service, to expedite matters, to walk the application through the processes, was needed.

So yesterday I found myself standing in line at my local Federal Express office, which is just a couple of blocks down the street from my apartment, as luck would have it.  And I was counting my blessings, standing there in line, thinking how luck I was -- lucky that FedEx was so close by my place, lucky that I'd found an agency in D.C. to help me, lucky that it would only cost me $90 to expedite the process, lucky that I had my American Express card to pay for the FedEx bill.  It occurred to me while standing there, the FedEx customer representative scanning bar codes and entering data, that soon my small package with my script, which I had just printed, would soon enjoin the database of other packages in the FedEx system, paid for by a transaction with another database, that being American Express.  And the entire thing would ultimately translate into yet another transaction, at the service agency in D.C., who would then ensure that the final database, that of the copyright office in Washington, would reflect my application.

All those databases, coming together at the point of transaction -- what a lucky man I was, to be living in such a convenient age.   And then it hit me.  Why couldn't I do all that from home?  I mean, the screenplay itself was data on my PC until it was printed.  Why not simply send the data electronically?  Shouldn't all those databases be malleable via the web?  There I was, just a few steps from my front door, waiting at the FedEx office -- one of the most convenient transactions I could imagine.  And yet, it was riddled with inefficiencies.  We have so many improvements to make, so much more in the way of savings and optimizations.  We've only begun to improve things.  Yesterday, I figured that out.

--

Sunday I leave for Mumbai and the Asian portion of the Sun Technology Days tour.  It should be a good trip.  I'll write about it when I return.