[humorix] Microsoft Demands "Screen Shot Royalties" From TV Station

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

Microsoft Demands "Screen Shot Royalties" From TV Stations
by Ann Oneemuss, Humorix Unpaid Intern Reporter
November 13, 2002

REDMOND, WA -- In a study commissioned by the prestigious
Microsoft Department For Finding Ways To Separate More
People From Their Money, researchers discovered that an
average of 87% of TV news programs feature an interview
with a person sitting in front of a Windows computer
showing the desktop or the flying Windows screensaver.  

As a result of these findings, Microsoft has retroactively
changed the End User License Agreement for Windows to
require TV stations to fork over $0.01 per second per
viewer each time a Windows computer is shown in a
broadcast.

"You see it all the time," one Microserf explained.  "TV
reporters love to interview somebody in the presence of a
computer -- it makes them and the interviewee appear
smarter.  Some clueless idiot suddenly looks like an expert
when they're being interviewed with the  Flying Windows
screensaver running in the background.  We want to
capitalize on this phenomenon."

In a press release, Microsoft argued that all of the
standard Windows screensavers represent "dozens of
man-hours of programming effort" and an "extremely valuable
form of intellectual property" that must be protected. The
Windows desktop -- another background fixture of TV
broadcasts -- is "universally recognized as the most
ingenious human-computer interface ever devised".  TV
producers should not be allowed to take advantage of this
"pinnacle of technological achievement" without first
compensating Microsoft.

The Microsoft legal team has already been deployed against
one TV station which inadvertantly showed a computer in the
studio's background displaying the Blue Screen of Death. 
"The 'Illegal Exception Error Screen' is one of the most
widely recognized symbols in the history of mankind and yet
is also the butt of countless jokes propogated by
low-budget online humor sites," stammered one lawyer. 
"When a TV station broadcasts such a screen, it compromises
the Windows brand and harms Microsoft's reputation.  We
simply can't allow that.  Either TV stations will need to
upgrade their on-screen computers to Windows XP, which
doesn't crash [as much -Ed.], or they will be forced to set
aside 5% of their airtime for Microsoft commercials as
compensation."

TV stations aren't the only businesses that might find
themselves paying "screen shot royalties".  College
professors and businessmen that give PowerPoint
presentations to large audiences might also be forced to
pay.  Explained one company lawyer-vulture, "Just as the
MPAA disallows public exhibitions of videos, we might
prohibit the public display of Windows or other Microsoft
products without additional licensing fees."

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