DRM Helmet 209
prostoalex writes "In his weblog on O'Reilly Network Gordon Mohr suggests the ultimate solution for the music and movie industry to plug that analog hole. The solution, of course, is a helmet with built-in Digital Rights Management system that would automatically "fog up" any time you lay your eyes on something that you haven't bought license for."
Zaphod spins in Douglas' grave (Score:4, Funny)
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
er wtf.
Better yet... (Score:1)
I'd take one for commercials. (Score:1)
You'll take one WITH commercials -- and like it. (Score:5, Insightful)
In version 2.0 it selects the advertisements based on your thought patterns. If you think about sex a lot, you see lots of ads featuring Trojan Man.
Version 3 would take a different approach. It would alter your thought patterns to fit the available commercials. You don't think about homeowner's insurance? Now you do.
I would be in favor of this system. It would be so costly to develop that the ??AA would go bankrupt before realizing that there is no technical solution for "DRM."
I use "DRM" in quotes because it is more like DRI: Digital Rights Infringement. All of this DRM crap infringes on my digital rights.
Re:You'll take one WITH commercials -- and like it (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Better yet... (Score:1)
Already done... (Score:2)
...and in use by the people working at the ??AA offices. How else could they come up with some of the whacked out ideas that they put into their press releases? Jack Valenti's speech writer has his surgically attached.
Joke though it may seem (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Joke though it may seem (Score:1)
Yeah, and there are groups of people that believe they need to drink urine [heartlandhealing.com] to stay healthy.
There are all types out there, so what's your point?
Re:Joke though it may seem (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Joke though it may seem (Score:2)
They'd never go for this (Score:2, Funny)
Their version would put your eyes out with red-hot pokers.
Re:They'd never go for this (Score:1)
It's too late (Score:1, Insightful)
Wrong Approach (Score:1, Insightful)
Girls? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Girls? (Score:1)
I guess this could work to my advantage, though. Can I get a site license?
Re:Girls? (Score:3, Funny)
amazing! (Score:1)
"See No Evil, Hear No Evil Act" (Score:2, Funny)
With valenti as the zoo keeper.
Acr. of "See No Evil, Hear No Evil Act" is no Good (Score:1)
Needs more Q's F's and X's Plus some special characters of course!!
.K
guitar (Score:1)
An even better solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:An even better solution... (Score:1)
And yet they'll still make billions of dollars a year from government subsidies.
Re:An even better solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's an excellent idea. The global populace can simply pay them a daily retainer levied as a tax. In return the "content" companies will ensure that our musical and literary heritage is well protected in a vault beneath the hills of Hollywood, far from the prying ears and eyes of those who would remember this precious intellectual property and be inspired by it to create "derivative works" without a license.
After all, the functioning work in "intellectual property" is "property". And a property holder is certain within its rights to hoard its belongings.
The fact that this scenario is so ludicrous demonstrates that even if all music and literature can be the "property" of a single corporate entity or trust which I doubt then society has every right to claim access to that "property" as a central part of its culture.
A clear case of eminent domain!
Re:An even better solution... (Score:2)
A clear case of eminent domain!
Society already has every right to claim access to Intellectual Property. Unlike other property, Intellectual property is granted by the Government "To promote the progress of Science and the useful Arts" (Article 1, section 8, clause 8 of the US Constitution).
If we think that the present Copyright law doesn't promote the useful Arts, we have every reason to change it as we see fit.
Do you think the present law promotes the useful Arts? I don't.
Au Contraire..... (Score:1)
Re:An even better solution... (Score:1)
Re:An even better solution... (Score:3, Interesting)
That reminds me of Corbis. Bill Gates and this organization are hoarding thousands of priceless historical photographs and keeping them locked up away from prying eyes. Hey, if you're lucky you can get a copy of one of the photographs they deem interesting with a nice big old CORBIS watermark all over it. The others that they don't deem interesting? Well, you wouldn't want to see those so we'll keep those in the vault. It isn't so much that someone wants to get credit and payment for their work, but this kind of thing takes it to the extreme. Most of that archive should be in a public museum not locked away where only billionaire playboys can access them. It's our heritage and our history!
Re:An even better solution... (Score:3, Informative)
record companies are the same way:
them: your album isn't selling well enough, so you're fired, and your album is being deleted from our catalog.
you: but it's critically acclaimed, and we have a growing cult following!
them: but if we hire a group of dancing monkeys and dress them up like 30-year olds pretending to be teenagers, we'll sell millions.
you: fine, i'll take my album elsewhere.
them: no you won't. we're holding onto it in case you become popular on another label.
you: but it's my album.
them: no it's not. check your contract and then fuck off.
sometimes they even refuse to release an album but won't let the artist have the masters. buncha pricks.
Re:An even better solution... (Score:5, Informative)
That is such garbage (or a pretty good troll). Bill purchased the Bettman Archive, true. But Corbis has preserved the collection through custom storage at the Iron Mountain facility. The collection was literally disintegrating at it's former home. They've also made more than twice as many (so far) images available as were ever available previously. (And only a few hundred prints account for over 70% of the requested images. People keep asking for the same things.) They are digitizing the collection but it's a huge task. And if you don't want the watermark, buy the print! It's that simple. Access to the archive is not as open as it once was. But if it hadn't been moved to Iron Mountain, it would be lost forever. The low temperature and correct humidity of Iron Mountain will preserve the collection indefinitely so that more and more of it can be known.
Re:An even better solution... (Score:2)
Re:An even better solution... (Score:2)
Re:An even better solution... (Score:1)
Senator Hollings who tabled this proposal as a part of "stimulation of Education And Training for Special Hight Intensity Technology" (so-EAT-f-SHIT) bill argued that the new bill will provide "a shot in the arm for biotechnology, microelectronics, medical physics, broadband, webhosting, email, tcp/ip and ethernet" whose growth has been stagnating for the past two years. He further added "People think about the copyrighted movies they saw depriving the movie industry of a trillion dollar business due to repeat viewings of the movie"
Interestingly several quarters have supported the bill. In the sonicblue case, the appellants argued that a chip be the pre-requisite for buying a unit. This way people who dont watch advertisements could be "taught a lesson"
Ofcourse this technology had greatest support from a group which calls itself "World Service group for interesting offers in your mailbox". A spokesman said "Think about sending DO YOU WANT IT TO GROW BY 3 MORE INCHES!!!!! directly into a person's brain!".
In a related development Microsoft corp said that it had developed stable and secure software for such chips.
Disastrous. (Score:1)
You are wearing this helmet, in your car, driving down the street.
The car next to you is blasting the latest (and greatest ?) pop song by the RIAA cartel.
You haven't purchased this CD, so of course your helmet fogs up.
CRASH!
Looks like I won't be buying Linux off the shelf. (Score:2)
Too foggy, cannot see the light. Ahhhhhh.
point (Score:1)
Re:point (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, brainwashing and indoctrination at a young age, to protect commercial interests... hmm where have I see that before... Oh yeah... that great work, that is now in the public domain, and I will quote large sections of here.
INFANT NURSERIES. NEO-PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING ROOMS, announced the notice board.
The Director opened a door. They were in a large bare room, very bright and sunny; for the whole of the southern wall was a single window. Half a dozen nurses, trousered and jacketed in the regulation white viscose-linen uniform, their hair aseptically hidden under white caps, were engaged in setting out bowls of roses in a long row across the floor. Big bowls, packed tight with blossom. Thousands of petals, ripe-blown and silkily smooth, like the cheeks of innumerable little cherubs, but of cherubs, in that bright light, not exclusively pink and Aryan, but also luminously Chinese, also Mexican, also apoplectic with too much blowing of celestial trumpets, also pale as death, pale with the posthumous whiteness of marble.
The nurses stiffened to attention as the D.H.C. came in.
"Set out the books," he said curtly.
In silence the nurses obeyed his command. Between the rose bowls the books were duly set out a row of nursery quartos opened invitingly each at some gaily coloured image of beast or fish or bird.
"Now bring in the children."
They hurried out of the room and returned in a minute or two, each pushing a kind of tall dumb-waiter laden, on all its four wire-netted shelves, with eight-month-old babies, all exactly alike (a Bokanovsky Group, it was evident) and all (since their caste was Delta) dressed in khaki.
"Put them down on the floor."
The infants were unloaded.
"Now turn them so that they can see the flowers and books."
Turned, the babies at once fell silent, then began to crawl towards those clusters of sleek colours, those shapes so gay and brilliant on the white pages. As they approached, the sun came out of a momentary eclipse behind a cloud. The roses flamed up as though with a sudden passion from within; a new and profound significance seemed to suffuse the shining pages of the books. From the ranks of the crawling babies came little squeals of excitement, gurgles and twitterings of pleasure.
The Director rubbed his hands. "Excellent!" he said. "It might almost have been done on purpose."
The swiftest crawlers were already at their goal. Small hands reached out uncertainly, touched, grasped, unpetaling the transfigured roses, crumpling the illuminated pages of the books. The Director waited until all were happily busy. Then, "Watch carefully," he said. And, lifting his hand, he gave the signal.
The Head Nurse, who was standing by a switchboard at the other end of the room, pressed down a little lever.
There was a violent explosion. Shriller and ever shriller, a siren shrieked. Alarm bells maddeningly sounded.
The children started, screamed; their faces were distorted with terror.
"And now," the Director shouted (for the noise was deafening), "now we proceed to rub in the lesson with a mild electric shock."
He waved his hand again, and the Head Nurse pressed a second lever.
The screaming of the babies suddenly changed its tone. There was something desperate, almost insane, about the sharp spasmodic yelps to which they now gave utterance. Their little bodies twitched and stiffened; their limbs moved jerkily as if to the tug of unseen wires.
"We can electrify that whole strip of floor," bawled the Director in explanation. "But that's enough," he signalled to the nurse.
The explosions ceased, the bells stopped ringing, the shriek of the siren died down from tone to tone into silence. The stiffly twitching bodies relaxed, and what had become the sob and yelp of infant maniacs broadened out once more into a normal howl of ordinary terror.
"Offer them the flowers and the books again."
The nurses obeyed; but at the approach of the roses, at the mere sight of those gaily- coloured images of pussy and cock-a-doodle-doo and baa-baa black sheep, the infants shrank away in horror, the volume of their howling suddenly increased.
"Observe," said the Director triumphantly, "observe."
http://somaweb.org/w/sub/Brave%20New%20World%20
Haha! (Score:2)
Sounds like the Catholic church would be more interested in this than the RIAA/MPAA...
(Also, let this be a lesson in the value of selective quotation, to any of you out there doing your homework right now!)
Re:Haha! (Score:2)
By the way, the book is Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. And no, they never made a movie of it.
Re:Haha! (Score:2)
Re:Haha! (Score:2)
Picture this: (Score:1)
The True Problem. (Score:1)
Self-limiting (Score:2)
Re:Self-limiting (Score:1)
Re:Self-limiting (Score:1)
"Honestly Officer, I can't see you until you take this $50 bill I'm holding out."
Re:Self-limiting (Score:2)
Available NOW at Gap.... (Score:1)
The least expensive outfit will automatically bend you over and take "royalties" out of your wallet everytime you listen to a song or watch a movie. The chainmail pants and shirt are used to punish you if you illegally download or record/burn music or movies (110 volts. BZZZT!)The most expensive outfit will just turn pink and polkadotted and make you the joke of your "peers" if you partake in any "illegal" activity.
Re:Available NOW at Gap.... (Score:1)
Remember, it's not the volts, it's the AMPS
for gods sake!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:for gods sake!!!! (Score:1)
IMPORTANT SAFETY PRECAUTION (Score:2, Funny)
This product is incompatible with car audio systems. Do NOT use while driving.
Re:IMPORTANT SAFETY PRECAUTION (Score:1)
It isn't funny OR original, as there are a number of posts EXACTLY like it.
Maybe their helmets are fogged up because it's an unauthorized copy?
Camera? (Score:2)
Re:Camera? (Score:1)
Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses (Score:2)
The company announced that they will soon enter the audio products market with a pair of Peril-Sensitive Headphones, that pass through all sounds except when the wearer is in danger of depriving Hilary Rosen of a nickel by hearing something they haven't paid for-- then they react by cancelling out all sound until the danger to her income has passed.
~Philly
fifth avenue (Score:3, Informative)
What'd this helmet do to walking down the street? Would you have to buy the rights to your walk to work so you didn't get hurt, kinda like seatbelts Buy the rights - it's for your own protection?"
I realise it's a stretch and that people walk down the street all the time, but if there's one thing we've learned about the copyright industry it's that it's real good at pulling fast ones.
Triv
Re:fifth avenue (Score:3, Informative)
Probably wouldn't help you in New York, but English copyight law says that incidental use doesn't matter. i.e. if you're interviewing someone in their office and a television's on in the background, nobody will care that you've "copied" the TV signal.
Presumably this applies to building also. I suppose it explains why everybody does their filming in Canada, and why New York is getting screwed of possible income from filming.
Re:fifth avenue (Score:2)
Wha? Most of the buildings are over a 100 years old. I know one of the Batman movies was held up a long time because one garden designer claimed copyright on his garden. And I know the Dakota won't allow filming there since Rosemary's Baby, but Vanilla Sky snuck it in by driving a car out of the back with the camera on the street. It's well over a hundred years old, when it was built it was derisively called that because it was so far from the city that it might as well have been in Dakota.
DRM helmets are outdated. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DRM helmets are outdated. (Score:2)
Re:DRM helmets are outdated. (Score:2)
Great, I write a piece of speculative fiction [wipout.net] about this, and it's already outdated and not nearly extreme enough...
Doesn't go far enough (Score:5, Funny)
At the end of the consumption period, the probes could zap the memory of the experience from your mind to prevent illegal retention of copyrighted works.
Whoops, better not give *AA any ideas.
Re:Doesn't go far enough (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Doesn't go far enough (Score:2)
Really, we need a helmet with brain probes that detect if licensed media is being consumed and debits your account on a metered basis.
That's right! I mean, what if, for example, a consumer hums a tune to himself, sub-vocally in his head? Anyone with a sufficiently good sense of pitch and rhythm could effectively enjoy a copyrighted work over and over again, for free simply by accessing the pirated copy that was created in his brain the first time he heard it! How would an external helmet detect that? How could such a system guarantee that the consumer pays for these private performances?
No, in order to protect the artists from having the fruits of their labors stolen in this way, we'll have to implant a direct neural interface into the brain of every consumer, so they can be billed whenever they think about a copyrighted work.
I provide people with FREE movies to watch. No DRM (Score:1)
Unplug the digital hole... (Score:1)
Here's a better idea... (Score:2)
Let's take it to the logical conclusion (Score:1)
Property rights, taken to their logical conclusion, make the word "freedom" utterly meaningless.
Unworkable as Designed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Unworkable as Designed (Score:2)
Seriously, what they could do is have a decryption program in the helmet, and transmit the broadcast encrypted. Anyone not wearing the helmet with the appropriate decryption licence would only see static.
Fast forward ten years, and instead of a helmet it could be implants on the optic nerve.
I'm not kidding. All indications are that they want end-to-end control of "their" content. Well, one of those ends is your brain.
why stop at prevention? (Score:5, Funny)
/.ed (Score:3, Informative)
DRM Helmets: An Idea Whose Time Has Come by Gordon Mohr Jun. 7, 2002
The CBDTPA could require billions of individual "digital media devices" -- every TV, stereo, speaker, PC, walkman, hard drive, monitor, and scanner -- to carry enforcement circuitry -- but there are only 300 million people in the country. Mathematically astute readers will note that's less than 600 million each of eyes and ears.
Further, a single economical helmet can cover four of these analog holes at once!
I humbly suggest the most cost-effective and reliable solution to the copyright industries' troubles will be DRM helmets, bolted onto each dutiful consumer at the neck. When these helmets sense watermarked audio or video within earshot/eyeshot, they check their local license manager and instantly "fog up" if payment has not been delivered.
This will especially teach people not to use unauthorized copies of music while driving.
By bolting a suitably-small DRM helmet onto people at an appropriately-early age, the citizenry's consumptive habits can be "arrested" (along with cranial volume) at a revenue-maximizing developmental stage. I'd guess this is around age 13, but I'm open to the latest research. Give and take is what policymaking is all about.
So step up to the plate, senators, lobbyists, and titans of industry. Write this into the next rev of the CBDTPA. Why try to imperfectly plug billions of analog holes, when you can just cap the problem at far fewer endpoints? The end-to-end design principle is your friend!
[Intellectual Property Disclosure: The "DRM Helmet" and the "Cranial Arrest Adolescent DRM Helmet" may be covered by patents granted or applied for by Gordon Mohr. Licensing will be available on unreasonable and discriminatory terms.]
Gordon Mohr is the founder and Chief Technology Officer of Bitzi [bitzi.com], a cooperative, universal metadata catalog for all kinds of discrete files. Gordon's personal page is at http://xavvy.com [xavvy.com].
But you forgot (Score:1)
Encryption and security are nothing in comparison to time, a bunch of computers, and some code.
Isn't this what Luke wore in Episode IV? (Score:2)
Think of the Terrorist Uses! (Score:5, Funny)
new way of moderation (Score:1)
So..... (Score:1)
The watermark problem. (Score:2)
The technical barriers to this solution are of course immense. Much more computing power is needed, and much higher memory densities. Probably a massively parallel device that has one comparator per song would be the way to go.
But let's not let these details get in the way of a good idea - this could really work, and it would solve for once and for all the problem of... hm, what problem were we trying to solve again?
Like I want to see this shit? (Score:1, Troll)
I'd just take off the fuckin' helmet and go into the world humming my own music and seeing what I want to see.
This attempt to control everything didn't work for the Caesars, Vercingetorix, Bodecia, the Louis, the Plantagenets, Napoleon, Metternicks, Hitler, Stalin [name your tyrant here] and their vision was less metastacized than that of the xxAAs.
I've already unplugged and I ain't dead or anything and I ain't paying the xxAAs a fuckin' cent. And I'm neither blind or deaf.
Actually, it is a better idea. (Score:2, Insightful)
Someone controlling what you can do vs Someone controlling what others can do to you. Isnt that what we have the constitution for?
I'm all for it.
Oh, god... (Score:4, Funny)
Helmet doesn't have all features RIAA/MPAA require (Score:2, Funny)
Bluring is (Score:3, Interesting)
Point of deminishing returns (Score:1)
The Problem is... (Score:2, Interesting)
... Fog? (Score:1)
Question. (Score:1)
Pi
It's opt-in, too. (Score:2)
Technological Evolution (Score:1)
Society has constantly been going through a technological evolution. For a while, one group (in this case, corporations) has the upper hand, then for a while, the other (in this case, the consumer) gets it. It's just a question of who was the last to create the next better technology, and this is a positive cycle because in this cycle technology becomes progressively better.
I would fully support any clever encryption scheme, new format, advertising, value-added stuff, or new medium they came up with to extract their money from my pocket. It makes me angry, however, that they call in the lawyer army on the consumers rather than pay someone to come up with a new business model. It's pointless to fight such a change in consumer attitudes by forcing us to buy and pay what they think we should.
Until the MPAA and RIAA stop trying to buy our rights and start finding a new way to make money, I have stopped paying for music or movies. I'm sure that people will start calling me a thief and citing the old "what if someone stole/copied open source code?" example, but do you really think that giving these people more money by purchasing the CD that goes with your MP3 or buying your movies on DVD will make them any less greedy? They've been price gouging the consumer and the artists for decades, and don't think they'll stop now. I use open source code routinely and I'm sure to cite it and make code available properly, just like when I write a paper I cite my references properly. There is a difference between plagarism (creating something new from someone else's stuff and portraying it as your own) and violating a license (observing something you haven't paid to observe). By violating a license you haven't stolen anything or made it any less than it was before. You've chosen not to support it. By plagarizing, you have indeed stolen.
~Ben
Force us to pay and pay and pay. (Score:2)
The MPAA RIAA both would find out how much we like other activities. Saturday Barbeque, Friday Night Poker Games, Bowling, Golfing, Fishing, Partying, Blind Dates on hill tops, etc.
MicroSlaw Satire 2.0 -- extending copyright trends (Score:2)
(Before final editing prior to release under standard U.S. Government for-fee licensing under 2011 Fee Requirements Law)
My fellow Americans. There has been some recent talk of free law by the General Public Lawyers (the GPL) who we all know hold un-American views. I speak to you today from the Oval Office in the White House to assure you how much better off you are now that all law is proprietary. The value of proprietary law should be obvious. Software is essentially just a form of law governing how computers operate, and all software and media content has long been privatized to great economic success. Economic analysts have proven conclusively that if we hadn't passed laws banning all free software like GNU/Linux and OpenOffice after our economy began its current recession, which started, how many times must I remind everyone, only coincidentally with the shutdown of Napster, that we would be in far worse shape then we are today. RIAA has confidently assured me that if independent artists were allowed to release works without using their compensation system and royalty rates, music CD sales would be even lower than their recent inexplicably low levels. The MPAA has also detailed how historically the movie industry was nearly destroyed in the 1980s by the VCR until that too was banned and all so called fair use exemptions eliminated. So clearly, these successes with software, content, and hardware indicate the value of a similar approach to law.
There are many reasons for the value of proprietary law. You all know them since you have been taught them in school since kindergarten as part of your standardized education. They are reflected in our most fundamental beliefs, such as sharing denies the delight of payment and cookies can only be brought into the classroom if you bring enough to sell to everyone. But you are always free to eat them all yourself of course! [audience chuckles knowingly]. But I think it important to repeat such fundamental truths now as they form the core of all we hold dear in this great land.
First off, we all know our current set of laws requires a micropayment each time a U.S. law is discussed, referenced, or applied by any person anywhere in the world. This financial incentive has produced a large amount of new law over the last decade. This body of law is all based on a core legal code owned by that fine example of American corporate capitalism at its best, the MicroSlaw Corporation.
MicroSlaw's core code defines a legal operating standard or OS we can all rely on. While I know some GPL supporters may be painting a rosy view of free law to the general public, it is obvious that any so called free alternative to MicroSlaw's legal code fails at the start because it would require great costs for learning about new so-called free laws, plus additional costs to switch all legal forms and court procedures to the new so called free standard. So free laws are really more expensive, especially as we are talking here about free as in cost, not free as in freedom.
In any case, why would you want to pay public servants like those old time -- what were they called? -- Senators? Representatives? -- around $145K a year out of public funds just to make free laws? Laws are made far more efficiently, inexpensively and, I assure you, justly, by large corporations like MicroSlaw. Such organizations need the motivation of micropayments for application, discussion or reference of their laws to stay competitive. MicroSlaw needs to know who discusses what law and when they do so, each and every time, so they can charge fairly for their services and thus retain their financial freedom to innovate. And America is all about financial freedom, right! [Audience applause].
And why should your hard earned tax dollars go to pay public citizens to sit on juries and render raucous open justice when things could be done so much more quickly and cheaply by commercial organizations working politely behind closed doors? Why, with free law each and every one of you might have to take time out of your busy schedules to sit in a court room and decide the guilt or innocence of a peer!
And why pay a judge's salary out of taxes, such has been proposed? Judges clearly should be compensated on a royalty basis by anyone referencing decisions a judge produces. This encourages judges to swiftly produce more decisions as well as decisions that big legal corporations like MicroSlaw want to cite more often, which is good for the economy.
Top law schools would have to shut their doors if most law was not proprietary, as who would pay $100,000 up front to join a profession where initiates release their work mainly into the public domain? Obviously there would no longer be any legal innovation without private laws requiring royalties when discussed, since who would spend their time writing new laws when there is no direct financial return on their investment?
And of course, lawyers will not be paid well without earning royalties on private laws, since if they can't sell all royalty rights to their legal work directly to large corporations, how will they make a decent living? Why, even if public money is spent on developing laws, say, at universities, it is clear such laws will not be respected, further developed, or widely distributed unless somebody owns those laws too and so can make money from selling access to them. It's beyond me why people sometimes act like there could be a spirit of volunteerism in this great land of ours after all the effort we have put into stamping that out, such as by making it illegal to help someone for free. Also, since the Internet had to be shut down early in this administration to prevent children from viewing pornography without paying, distribution of new information will always be expensive.
Each lawyer out there should remember to uphold the current proprietary legal system, because you too may win the law lottery and become as rich and famous as the founder of MicroSlaw -- but only if you start with a trust fund! [Indulgent audience laughter]
I know some lawyers out there are concerned about being replaced by the lawyers most major law corporations are now importing from India and China. Let me assure you, this does not threaten your livelihood, because there is currently a lawyer shortage restricting our economic growth, and those Indian and Chinese lawyers have extensive resumes indicating years of experience developing U.S. laws. For you business people out there, it is also my understanding those imported lawyers make model workers because they can't easily change jobs. Thus I have supported removing all restrictions on bringing over such imported lawyers, in an effort to stimulate economic growth in this fair land of ours.
[Inaudible shouted question] Citizenship? Naturally we would not want to offer such imported lawyers any form of citizenship when they come over because they are not Americans -- that should be obvious enough. We're hoping they go back to where they came from after we are done with them, since there are always eager workers in another country we can later exploit at lower wages, I mean provide economic enhancement opportunities for. Besides, dammit, have you seen the color of their skin?
[Inaudible shouted question] Ageism? I remind everyone here that, obviously, as has been conclusively shown by studies MicroSlaw itself has so charitably funded, older American lawyers can not be retrained to know about new laws, so I implore all lawyers as patriots to plan to learn a new profession after age thirty-five so you do not become a burden on your beloved country.
[Inaudible shouted question] Prisons? There are only a million Americans behind bars for copyright infringement so far. No one complained about the million plus non-violent drug offenders we've had there for years. No one complained about the million plus terrorists we've got there now, thanks in no small part to a patriotic Supreme Court which after being privatized upheld that anyone who criticizes government policy in public or private is a criminal terrorist. Oops, I shouldn't have said that, as those terrorists aren't technically criminals or subject to the due process of law are they? Well it's true these days you go to prison if you complain about the drug war, or the war on terrorism, or the war on infringers of copyrights and software patents -- so don't complain! [nervous audience laughter] After all, without security, what is the good of American Freedoms? Benjamin Franklin himself said it best, those who don't have security will trade in their freedoms.
I'm proud to say that the U.S. is now the undisputed world leader in per capita imprisonment, another example of how my administration is keeping us on top. Why just the other day I had the U.N. building in New York City locked down when delegates there started talking about prisoner civil rights. Such trash talk should not be permitted on our soil. It should be obvious that anyone found smoking marijuana, copying CDs, or talking about the law without paying should face a death penalty from AIDS contracted through prison rapes -- that extra deterrent make the system function more smoothly and helps keep honest people honest. That's also why I support the initiative to triple the standard law author's royalty which criminals pay for each law they violate, because the longer we keep such criminals behind bars, especially now that bankruptcy is also a crime, the better for all of us. That's also why I support the new initiative to make all crimes related to discussing laws in private have a mandatory life sentence without parole. Mandatory lifetime imprisonment is good for the economy as it will help keep AIDS for spreading out of the prison system and will keep felons like those so called fair users from competing with honest royalty paying Americans for an inexplicably ever shrinking number of jobs.
Building more prisons... [Aside to aid who just walked up and whispered in the president's ear: What's that? She's been arrested for what again? Well get her off again, dammit. I don't care how it looks; MicroSlaw owes me big time.]
Sorry about that distraction, ladies and gentlemen. Now, as I was saying, building more prisons is good for the economy. It's good for the GNP. It's good for rural areas. Everyone who matters wins when we increase the prison population. People who share are thieves plain and simple, just like people who take a bathroom break without pausing their television feed and thus miss some commercials are thieves. Such people break the fundamental social compact between advertisers and consumers which all young children are made to sign. And let me take this opportunity to underscore my administration's strong record on being tough on crime. MicroSlaw's system for efficient production of digitized legal evidence on demand is a key part of that success. So is the recent initiative of having a camera in every living room to catch and imprison those not paying attention when advertising is on television, say by making love or even talking. Why without such initiatives, economic analysts at MicroSlaw assure me that the GNP would have decreased much more than it has already. Always remember that ditty you learned in kindergarten, Only criminals want privacy, because a need for privacy means you have something evil to hide.
[Inaudible shouted question] Monopolies? Look, nothing is wrong with being a monopoly. It's our favorite game, isn't it? Sure, we might slap somebody on the wrist now and then [winks] but everyone in America aspires to be a monopolist, so why not just have more of them? Why not let every creative lawyer be their own little monopolist permanently on some small piece of the law. It's the American way; it's the will of the people.
Look, these questions are getting annoying. The next person who asks a question will have their universal digital passport suspended immediately via video face recognition! [Hush from crowd.] Or at least, someone who looks like you will! [General relieved laughter.]
Here is the bottom line. If all law was not proprietary, lawmaking corporations like MicroSlaw wouldn't be able to make as much money as they do the way they are currently doing it. So the economy would further collapse, plunging the U.S. into an even worse recession than the one we are in now, which, as experts have shown, is the legacy of all the illegal software and media copying in the late 1990s. Look, we've already cut all nonessential government programs like Head Start, monitoring water quality, researching alternate energy, and improving public health. Free law would mean a further reduction of tax revenues and we would have to make tough choices about reducing spending on essential things like developing better weapons of mass destruction, imprisoning marijuana users, propping up oppressive regimes, and promoting unfunded mandates like higher school testing standards. I assure you, these priorities will never change as long as I am president, and I will always make sure we have money for such essential government functions, whatever that takes. So I urge you to never support the creation of free law, which might undermine such basic government operations ensuring your security, and further, to turn in anyone found advocating such.
By the way, I am proud to announce government homeland security troops are successfully retaking Vermont even as we speak. Troops will soon be enforcing federal school standards there with all necessary force. Their number one priority will be improving the curriculum to help kids understand why sharing is morally wrong. Too bad we had to nuke Burlington before they would see the light, har, har, [weak audience laughter] but you can see how messed up their education system must have been to force us to have to do that. Why, kids were even found there not wearing their Digital Rights Management helmets (invented by Gordon Mohr) which automatically "fog up" any time you lay your eyes on something that you haven't bought a license for viewing. Such flagrant disrespect for rights holders should not be encouraged in our youth, no matter how well meaning people are who complain about the uncomfortableness of such helmets. We must all willing accept a little discomfort to keep our democracy functioning and innovating; as Ralph Nader said, there can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship licensing fees. It has been said that States are the lab rats of democracy, and have no fear, any State that threatens the American way of life in a similar fashion will be dealt with in a similar way to a lab rat. I give you my word as an American and as your president sworn to uphold your freedom to live the American lifestyle we have all grown accustomed to recently, and MicroSlaw's freedom to define what that lifestyle is to their own profit.
So, in conclusion, a body of legal knowledge free for all to review and discuss would be the death of the American dream. Remember, people who discuss law in private without paying royalties are pirates, not friends. Thus I encourage you all to report to MicroSlaw or your nearest homeland security office anyone talking about laws or sharing legal knowledge in other than an approved fashion and for a fee. Always remember that nursery school rhyme, there is money for you in turning in your friends too.
God Bless! This is a great country! [Wild audience applause.]
Addendum -- March 4, 2132 -- Freeweb article 2239091390298329372384 Archivists have just now recovered the above historic document from an antique hard disk platter (only 10 TB capacity!) recently discovered in the undersea exploration of a coastal city that before global warming had been called Washingtoon, D.C.. It is hard for a modern sentient to imagine what life must have been like in those dark times of the early 21st Century before the transition from a scarcity worldview to a universal material abundance worldview. It is unclear if that document was an actual presidential speech or was intended as satire, since most digital records from that time were lost, and the Burlington crater has historically been attributed to a Cold Fusion experiment gone wrong. In any case, this document gives an idea of what humans of that age had to endure until liberty prevailed.
Copyright 2002 Paul D. Fernhout
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
Slashdotted helmet (Score:2)
I mean really. This actually reminds me of Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 [barnesandnoble.com]. That's the book, not the movie, folks (the movie only covered half the book, perhapse for the best). Anyway, the Psyclo altered their entire social culture through invasive brain surgery, not helmets. Overall, the effect would be the same likely
What was that scifi short story? (Score:1)
where the USA passes an equality law - all people are equal, leveled down to the average :-) so strong people get weights wired to their limbs, people with good eyesight get wonky glasses and smart people get buzzers in their ears to stop them from thinking clearly...
Re:What was that scifi short story? (Score:1)
Re:What was that scifi short story? (Score:1)
Re:Plugging the analog hole (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Add in Happy Helmet capability too... (Score:2)
You're an idiot. (Score:2)
HELLO!! Is anyone HOME in that EMPTY CAVERN you call a SKULL?
- A.P.