I'm not usually a science fiction fan, although I absolutely loved Douglas Adams" A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, so when I heard Rod Reid being interviewed on NPR about his new book Year Zero (#213), I knew I had to read it.
Imagine that there is intelligent life on trillions of other planets out there, and just like us, they're constantly searching for life on other planets. One day they pick up a broadcast out of New York City, and for the first time they hear music from planet Earth. It's so glorious to them that the initial listeners' brains hemorrhage from sheer ecstasy. Soon they're copying all of Earth's songs to every planet in the Refined League, and every inhabitant of those planets and blissing out on their own personal playlists. Until they accidentally discover a small fly in the ointment: American music copyright laws. Every being on every planet now owes every human on Earth (except the North Koreans) $150,000 per song they have downloaded. Payment of those copyright violations will bankrupt the entire rest of the Universe, and then some. Unless Nick Carter, a low level associate attorney at Carter, Geller & Marks, the premier law firm dealing with music copyright issues, can find a way to head off the coming cataclysm with help from Carly and Frampton, the aliens who first bring the problem to Nick's attention.
As absurd, preposterous and wildly entertaining as this story is, the scary part of this tale is that everything in Year Zero about U.S. copyright law as it pertains to music is accurate.* If I were an alien, I'd be tempted to take out our puny planet if it wouldn't also mean the end of sublime music! I couldn't help but think as I was reading this, that it would make a terrific movie. Hands down, I'd cast Sigourney Weaver as Judy Sherman, Nick Carter's scary, scary boss...
*The footnotes are especially hilarious.
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