In a move expected to have far-reaching impact, Microsoft today announced that
it had successfully copyrighted the semi-colon.  Hereafter, the ";" will be
replaced by ";©".  In a prepared statement, Mr. Jose Fuentes, chief technical
lawyer for Microsoft said:

"Microsoft has today successfully copyrighted the semi-colon.  While some may
decry the removal from the public domain of a standard keyboard and ASCII
character, in fact, few in any non-technical writers use the semi-colon.  Those
who do so, use it incorrectly.  The major use of the semi-colon is confined to
the C and C++ programming languages, and frankly most people who work in those
languages are employed either directly by Microsoft or through subcontracts. 
The subcontracts will be written to mitigate the impact of the user fee, to be
established in the near future."

While he did not elaborate, sources close to Mr. Fuentes have intimated that
the user fee will be determined on a per-use basis of the semi-colon, and is
expected to be approximately 0.061 cents per use.  The same sources would not
comment on rumors that Microsoft is pursuing copyright action on the
parentheses.