Re:That's ridiculous! (Score 1)

Well, haven't we technically been in that state for a while? We don't necessarily copyright the story itself, but we do copyright the version. Suppose that beer outing of yours gets turned into a Hollywood screenplay; at that point, we can (and do) talk about "rights" to the story. Your friends could still talk to each other about the experience, provided they used their own version. It's not illegal for me to summarize the play for my friends later on, but I believe it would be illegal for me to perform it according to script without paying royalties to the owner. I'm not advocating this, mind you, but your example sparked a train of thought. I think what this means is that they are free and welcome to copyright their version of the story, but the summary - the facts - are still everyone's domain.