Realizing that mining companies can legitimately lay claim to any land underneath private property below a depth of six inches, van Tiesenhausen contacted a lawyer who drew up an intellectual property/copyright claim that said that if the oil company disturbed the top six inches in any way, it would be a copyright violation.
The oil corporations had been eager to get their pipeline through his land to get "their" natural gas. But no longer.
Von Tiesenausen decided to talk to them in their own language: Money. The copyright claim makes his entire property a work of art since he has covered it with visual art scupltures including "a 33-metre-long ship sculpted with willow stalks, winter ice forms, nest-like structures in trees, statuesque towers and a "lifeline" or visual autobiography composed as a white picket fence built in annual sections left to weather naturally".
The copyright also drastically increases the remuneration of around $200 for lost crops to around $600,000 for an " artistic property disturbance".
Dealing with the oil tycoons as a business man, he has also been able to cut down on their harassing phone calls and visits.
Taking a page from the books of business consultants, he demands $500 an hour from companies that want to take up his time talking to him about his land. "I demand $500 an hour. They pay. It keeps the meetings really short and they don't do it nearly as often as they used to," the artist said.
"I meet presidents of oil companies. I show them I'm a guy trying to make a go of something that's honest and valid. It's what they understand."
We here at this site cannot stress how important this idea is in all walks of life. We need to think up new ways to apply it to control the controllers!
