Years ago, I ran across a parody of Stephen Covey’s book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The Parody title was Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates – and I learned on schlockmercenary that it has been expanded, and republished under the new name of Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries. Apparently the author encountered a copyright infringement problem:
Behind the Scenes
The book was originally called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates, but in January 2011, Howard Tayler received a cease and desist letter from Franklin Covey, stating that Franklin Covey has a trademark on the phrase “7 Habits”. Tayler then edited all dialog in the strip that mentioned the book’s title or its rules, in what he called the Great Retcon of 2011.
The first maxim is “1. Pillage, then burn.” That makes sense for both pirates and mercenaries. The 11th maxim is “11. Everything is air-droppable at least once.” I think that one came out of the old horse traveling days – I was young when I first heard it stated – “You can shoot from the back of any horse – ONCE.” The old-timer who explained that to me probably first heard that maxim in the 19th century.
Maxim 41 sounds like something I heard from IT when the computer wasn’t functioning: “Do you have a backup? means I can’t fix this.”
Finally, Maxim 70: “Failure is not an option – it is mandatory. The option is whether or not to let failure be the last thing you do.”
Trego's Mountain Ear 