In a move shocking to all,

Duke University, of Durham, North Carolina, purchased the entirety of the public domain late last evening for a fee of 2.2 trillion dollars. Sources familiar with the negotiation report that Duke's reclamation of the public domain is unprecedented. As a result of the purchase, Duke University is the sole rights-holder to a huge collection of materials, including the Bible, the works of Shakespeare and Dante, and Francis Scott Key's The Star Spangled Banner.

Dr. Eko J. Asti, Director of the newly-established Duke Center for the Control of the Public Domain (DUCFCPD), says "the only way to preserve access to materials in the public domain is to control their rights. The DUCFCPD looks forward to the challenges presented governing such an incredible body of work."

ibiblio, a champion of the public domain for 12 years, will undergo major changes as a result of the purchase. Over the next few weeks, we'll begin relocating our staff and hardware to the Duke campus. We're also excited about the introduction of ibiblio Premium Services, and the ibiblio GoldPlus Access Pass. These subscription services will allow you access to the content you love, without annoying pop-under ads. To help our users, we've dedicated April's homepage to explaining the changes you'll see as a result of Duke's acquisition of the public domain.

Paul Jones, Director of ibiblio, commented on the many changes that will occur as a result of the Duke purchase. "As a graduate of NCSU and having worked at UNC for 25 years, I saw that it was clearly a time for a change. Duke was the obvious place to go; they are different; they have money there." Though distraught, Jones was optimistic: "While the concept of the public domain was nice, and even a little romantic, it was evident these works weren't generating proper revenue streams. With Duke's guidance, we'll soon be riding the public domain all the way to an ibiblio IPO." Jones further stated that "I think working on the Duke campus will be nice, but I don't plan on shaking J.J. Reddick's hand any time soon."

Professor Lawrence Lessig, a tireless advocate of the public domain and founder of the Creative Commons, announced early this morning that "from this moment on, the Creative Commons will be known as the Creative Copyright Foundation." The Creative Copyright Foundation, Lessig stated, "exists to ensure that rights holders are benefited in a most creative fashion. Let's say that you create a play about a fictional automobile race through the desert, and this play becomes successful and profit-making. Wouldn't you rather be compensated in a creative way, such as a all-expenses paid automobile ride through the desert? This is the expressed goal of the Creative Copyright Foundation." Lessig went on to provide a number of other "creative" examples, each one increasingly more odd than the last.

Scott Joplin is reported to have rolled over in his grave at the news of the Duke acquisition. Speaking through an intermediary, Joplin remarked "I haven't been this excited since the 70's, and I really mean that. The 70's were a great time to be dead Scott Joplin, but this is at least ten times better. I've been doing some preliminary calculations on just how much my catalog is worth, and I put it easily in the hundreds of millions. This is pretty darn jazzy!" Joplin reportedly paused, and with a knowing sigh, announced that he'd be dedicating the entirety of his newfound wealth to a music scholarship fund. The world was instantly a better place.

Unsure as how to respond to the news of Duke's purchase, SCO, Disney and Microsoft merged this morning. Apparently the process was so spur-of-the-moment, the best name they could come up with is SCODisneyMicrosoft. According to one insider: "No one even objected when SCO got first bill on the name. I mean, can you believe that? The lawyers were all walking around completely tongue-tied, its been a mess. Apparently some build engineers at Microsoft are now running Disneyland, and the one guy who does QA at SCO is now a mid-level HR exec at Microsoft. It's totally crazy." The Justice Department, when reached regarding the merger, had no comment.

WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, expressed its "Concern" with the Duke acquisition. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a senior official questioned "They can't do that, can they? Who did they pay the money to? Then again, they are pretty smart over at Duke, so maybe they can do that. Frankly, I'm not sure. Nope, I'm definitely not sure." Officials throughout the organization seemed to share that sentiment, but promised to look into it next year.

Smelter, a marginally good indie rock band from Kansas City, Kansas, was "quite excited" to find out that their work had been purchased by Duke University for the sum of 1.3 Million dollars. Lead singer Lev Jacoby, who has been playing in Smelter for the past year, encouraged the band to record their original material copyright-free. "I thought we would do something different," Jacoby said, "so we agreed to explicitly put the songs into the public domain. You know, just in case Sigur Ros or Will Oldham wanted to use 'em. I'm bummed that we can't play 'Ramblin' Dude' or 'Song About the Cat' anymore, but the money makes that loss a little easier to deal with."