There’s a guy up in Canada who came up with a novel way of creating negotiating leverage with the oil and gas companies.  Back in the early 2000’s he was having difficult with landmen and company reps coming to his door and taking up his time.  He wanted to protect his property from pipeline development.  So he turned his property into a work of art, and got it copyrighted. Now he charges the companies $500/hr to discuss use of his property, and only talks to company presidents.  I’m not sure that would work here in the US, but I don’t know the first thing about copyright law, so maybe somebody else could weigh in and let me know if it might work.  You can read more about it here.

The takeaway from this story, I think, is that knowledge really is power.