It would be a shame to lose valuable things like there I ruined it, which seem to be a perfectly fair use of copyrighted works. Copyright is already too strong.
I would have thought shooting the laser would just cause lightning to strike the laser emitter itself. But they can tweak the laser to make the air ionization start some distance from the emitter. So, they can make the lighting strike something else. There is a neat picture in the article showing lighting going along, then following the laser beam down for a bit, then leaving the laser beam and going to a tower. People first tried this in 1999.
Obama must not have heard There I Ruined It.