Perhaps an example wherein Bob buys land and builds several houses with the hope that someone thinks they are valuable and will pay him money for their use (i.e.: nobody asked him to build them, he just used his own resources and creativity). Alice decides that she likes one of the finished houses and enters into a lease-to-own arrangement for the property just like everyone else in this new neighborhood. The lease-to-purchase term is established by the property zoning, so everyone who enters an agreement with Bob will have the same terms for use and transfer of ownership. During the lease period there are numerous use clauses which prevent Alice from using the property for a business, she cannot sublease it, she cannot attempt to sell or alter the property, and other such restrictions—all normal lease provisions set by the owner and applied to all of his properties. (In the intellectual property context, these restrictions could be: no copying, distributing, reverse engineering, etc.; you know the common ones better than I do.)

What the lessees do not know is that Bob has a cousin named Charlie on the Zoning Commission who is willing to work on his behalf. Charlie builds a network of commissioners and moves an agenda through the Commission in order to rezone the area which will extend the mandated lease portion of the agreement, and he does this again and again. Every few years a vote to rezone the area comes before the Commission and Charlie always has enough votes to get the rezoning passed, thereby extending the mandatory lease terms on Bob’s properties a little farther each time. The lessees get a say every few years and could vote to remove Charlie and his compliant friends on the Commission, but these people are lazy and would rather continue to pay more to Bob than to learn who is driving the Zoning Commission.

How about that?