The biggest of the rental chains, Blockbuster Video, decided to respond to that consumer pressure. On Jan. 1, the chain announced a “no-late-fees” program at its 4,600 U.S. stores.

Playing for humor, their TV ads showed angry mobs converging on their stores, demanding “No more late fees!” ... only to find the clerks outside hanging banners that promised “No more late fees!”

The ads were amusing as well as informative. Once, again, capitalism had proven entrepreneurs could respond briskly to consumer pressure and a changing environment.

But not everyone was amused. Oh no.

Somewhere in a snowy Carson City night, a staff member of the Nevada state attorney general’s office with no date for Friday night remembered their motto: “When the going gets busy, the busybodies get going.”

And so on March 29, Dallas-based Blockbuster Inc. announced it had agreed to make refunds to customers -- and pay an additional $630,000 to reimburse the attorneys general of 47 states and the District of Columbia for their “investigation costs” -- to settle allegations the nation’s biggest movie rental chain deceived people with its “No Late Fees” campaign.

A few customers were reportedly angry to discover that despite the “No Late Fees” policy, if they were eight days late with a movie or a game, they owned it; their credit card accounts were automatically billed for the purchase price. If they then returned it, they were refunded the purchase price but were charged a $1.25 “restocking” fee.

Oh, the humanity!

Under the settlement, Dallas-based Blockbuster agreed to make refunds to customers who claim the campaign misled them into thinking they could keep the video or DVD forever. Signs in the stores will have -- you guessed it -- more fine print added to explain that you only get a week.

This isn’t just plain nuts. It’s deluxe, hickory-smoked nuts. The offices of the state attorneys general -- Nevada’s included -- don’t have enough on their hands trying to deal with identity thieves and a hundred other actual, serious crimes and scams? (There are a few Clark County airport land swaps we’d like them to look into, for one thing, after they get done returning their well-worn copy of “On Golden Blonde.”)

Who in their right mind would think “No late fees” means “You get to keep our property forever”?

Blockbuster spokesman Randy Hargrove says that the cost of the promised refunds is expected to be small, because fewer than 4 percent of Blockbuster customers kept the video or DVD beyond the seven-day window. (Customers who feel they were misled must fill out a form available at their Blockbuster store.)

Yes, yes, $630,000 is pocket change to an outfit that size.

But that’s not the point. The point is that our attorney general has just joined in extorting a few grand in coffee-and-donuts money from a business that did something both popular and reasonable, with no net impact but to add a few more lines to all the “fine print” that now has to appear on virtually every advertisement and sales slip in America, warning us that “Crashes, falls and explosions such as those experienced by Wile E. Coyote in this cartoon are not survivable in real life; do not try at home. Acme Rockets is not an actual NASA contractor, and even if it were its sales policies would not permit sale of explosive devices to unauthorized or endangered animal species. Coyotes do not actually have opposable thumbs. ...”

New Jersey is pursuing a separate lawsuit, which may or may not involve new trash removal contracts for Blockbuster outlets there and the burial of a few dismembered Blockbuster clerks out in the pine barrens. Only the state governments of Vermont and New Hampshire declined to participate in this particular shakedown.

Our lawmakers should find out just how many of the attorney general’s staffers participated in this ill-tempered rip-off, and reduce that office’s budget for the next biennium by the amount of those salaries -- plus the cost of a package of microwave popcorn.

For shame!