The USA Today reported on Monday March 12, 2007, that the motion picture "300" set the all time attendance record for the month of March. The film earned $70,000,000.00 its opening weekend. This is an astounding number for a March premiere, and we should all be pleased that the motion picture industry seems to be rebounding after a few years of dropping attendance. The article is located at:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2007-03-11-box-office_N.htm.

What is most astounding in the report is the description of how the picture was made. The film was shot in a Montreal, Canada warehouse. All the scenes were Computer Generated Images, or CGI. The background of the battle on the plain of Thermopylae was computer generated. As a result, the film was made for the relatively low cost of $65,000,000.00. It recouped its cost in the first weekend. If you have seen clips of the movie, you realize how far CGI has come. This process is no longer experimental. As CGI improves, the next step will be to replace actors. I am sure that there are entertainment industry lawyers already at work defining screen image and I anticipate that those images will be copyright protected and trademarked to avoid image piracy. My guess is that we won't know how this is resolved until we are entertained with a good old fashioned lawsuit.