[humorix] Book Publishers Unveil Anti-Copying Devices

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

Book Publishers Unveil Anti-Copying Devices

NEW YORK -- Publishers from all across the country met this
week at the first annual Book Publishers Assocation of
America (BPAA) meeting.  Many of the booths on the showroom
floor were devoted to the single most important issue
facing the publishing industry: fighting copyright
violations.  From "End Reader License Agreements" to
age-decaying ink, the anti-copying market has exploded into
a multi-million dollar enterprise.

"How can authors and publishers hope to make ends meet when
the country is rapidly filling with evil libraries that
distribute our products for free to the general public?"
asked the chairman of the BPAA during his keynote address. 
"That blasted Andrew Carnegie is spending all kinds of his
own ill-gotten money to open libraries in cities
nationwide.  He calls it charity.  I call it
anti-competitive business practices hoping to bankrupt the
entire publishing industry.  We must fight these
anti-profit, pro-copying librarians and put an end to this
scourge!"

Everybody in attendance had their own plans for eliminating
unauthorized copying.  One publisher has already started to
print "End Reader License Agreements" on the cover of all
his books.  "By opening this book you agree to the
following terms..." the license starts.  It continues, "You
may not share, sell, rent, or loan this book to any other
person. You may not read this book aloud, quote passages,
or make copies of any length without the express written
permission of the publisher.  You may not write or
distribute negative reviews of this book under any
circumstances..."

Not everybody agreed with this legalistic method.  "Laws
were meant to be broken. But anti-copying devices are much
more difficult to circumvent.  Take my patented MacroInk
technology, for instance. My books are printed with a
special ink that completely fades when exposed to light for
more than 30 minutes.  This gives a single reader plenty of
time to read each page, but when the second freeloading
reader comes along, all the pages are blank and
unreadable.   With this invention, I'm going to cut off the
air supply of every stealing... er, I mean 'lending'
library in the world."

Another publisher unveiled his "CactusWordShield(R)"
device, a combination lock that prevents the book from
being opened without registration. "It's quite simply,
really," the inventor explained.  "When a user purchases a
CactusWordShield book, they can open it freely exactly five
times.  Beyond that, the lock will engage and the user must
obtain the combination by registering their book through
the mail. Then they can open the book 50 times before the
combination changes and the book must be re-registered. 
This mechanism allows us to track usage of the book and
dispatch our team of lawyers if we suspect that more than
one person is illegally reading it."

At one Birds-of-a-Feather meeting, a group of publishers
discussed the possibility of "greasing the wheels of
government" to get Congress to enact stricter copyright
laws.  "We need a bill that requires all newly published
books to include some form of anti-copying technology,"
said one executive.  Another commented, "First and foremost
we need to eliminate the Library of Congress.  Why should
Congressmen have free access to our work?  We need to make
them pay like everybody else!"

In his closing speech, the BPAA's chairman seemed to sum up
the feelings of most of the publishers in attendance.
"Won't somebody please think of the children of authors?"
he bellowed before a crowd of nearly 10,000. "If everybody
and their brother can obtain quality books for free from
libraries, then authors and their families will starve.  If
everybody and their brother can loan their books to friends
without purchasing additional reading licenses, then
publishers will no longer be able to buy gold-plated
toilets. We can't let that kind of dystopic future
materialize.  We must smite our enemies now while we still
can!"

[Editor's Note: The preceding article may or may not have
appeared in the February 4, 1895 issue of the New York
Democrat-Republican newspaper.]
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