But Sheldon's, and particularly Tinklenberg's, experiences seem to prove that people like Hole lead singer Courtney Love are right -- those who create products, content or art ultimately need more protection from corporate hangers-on than from consumers.

After all, consider some of the excuses flowing from those who have made money from the question "What would Jesus do?" From the manufacturing end through wholesale all the way down to retail -- most of these self-avowed evangelical Christians (Russ Horton, the owner of Lesco, is not an evangelical Christian) see few problems with their expropriation of the W.W.J.D. movement.

"I never actually met [Tinklenberg]. I don't know anything about it," says Horton. Lesco sells about 1 million bracelets per year.

"My idea had nothing to do with the bracelets. My idea had to do with liking the phrase. I only became aware of [Tinklenberg] months later," says Jeannette Taylor, a Christian marketing consultant who in 1997 brought together Lesco, Christian music label ForeFront Records and Zondervan Publishing and formed a joint marketing agreement for a CD, book and several other items, which are available on its Web site.

"It's up to the manufacturer to pay. It's not our responsibility," says Michael Hupp, senior buyer for Family Christian Stores, a chain of 360 Christian retailers that sold 75 different items with the W.W.J.D. moniker in 1997.

"I think Jesus would be extremely pleased that these products are having such an impact on the world. That's the message that Charles Sheldon was trying to give," says Jeff Lambert, a spokesman for Zondervan Publishing, which filed a trademark application for W.W.J.D. just one week after Tinklenberg filed hers.

None of these folks would say how much revenue was being generated by its W.W.J.D product lines. But the Christian retailing industry earns about $4 billion each year, according to the Christian Booksellers Association, so it's reasonable to assume that millions of dollars are at stake.

And while there are those, like Yaconelli, who think that some portion of those millions should have been shared with Tinklenberg and Sheldon, Sheldon takes a lighter view, laughing as he points out the absurd humor of it all.

"It's ironic to see that either they aren't asking the question 'What would Jesus do?'" says Sheldon, "or they've asked the question and decided that Jesus wouldn't pay and so they don't need to either."

As for Tinklenberg, she eschews even a mild level of criticism. "I don't begrudge people making some money," she says. Indeed, when she filed for a trademark of W.W.J.D. in 1998, compensation was the last thing she had on her mind. Sure, she wouldn't have minded the cash, which she says she would have used to create a nonprofit foundation for youth ministry. But of greater import was the purity of the idea. She wanted to protect the letters from absurd profiteering, from being plastered on every imaginable item -- such as a "Christian" version of the Polo horse. She didn't want cash, just control.

"What was disconcerting was that it took on a life of its own," says Tinklenberg. "Once I saw that someone put them on a necklace that cost $400 -- $400! -- I knew it had gotten out of hand."

The straw that broke her back, however, was a W.W.J.D. board game; a perfect example, she says, of why she wanted the trademark, and why creators, not corporations, should have more power over how their inspirations are marketed. "It has 400 situations in which you ask, 'What would Jesus do,'" she says, explaining the game. "When you get W, W, J and D, you win."

The problem lies in the answers -- and the issue of control: "What I wonder is who's making the decision on what's right or wrong?" says Tinklenberg. "W.W.J.D. isn't about pat answers, it's about struggling with faith, trying to figure it out. The meaning is in the struggle."

If W.W.J.D. isn't about pat answers, then neither is the question of copyright, even if some of the larger corporations involved in protecting intellectual property would like us to think so. But given the turmoil that is engulfing the distribution and production of all kinds of intellectual property today, if the meaning really is in the struggle, then perhaps we are all due some level of clarity soon.

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