The Devil and WM Webster

The Devil and WM Webster

WM, publishers of the first American English Dictionary have announced a breakthrough using Trusted MegoPosh computer technology.

The new AutoRight(tm) software announced by MegoPosh CEO Bill Heaps last week has enabled WM to rapidly file for copyright and trademark protection for every individual word of American English, as well as every possible combination of 1-128 words with which sentences, clauses and phrases are constructed.

WM are rumored to be planning to extort^h^h^hract license fees on a word-by-word and sentence-by-sentence basis (compounding) retroactively on all writings published in American English (tm) since July 4, 1776.

While the OED claim prior art on every word which is not unique to American English, WM general counsel Lester Cheatem, founding partner of the presigious Boston law firm Dewey Cheatem and Howe, speaking to ConfuserWorld in an exclusive interview from the cockpit of his brand-new dual-engine Beechcraft on run-up at his his Newport, RI estate and private airfield reported,

"WM's position is this: 'All your words are belong to us.'"

A DOJ representative we contacted on the matter said, "This is a terrific day for American Prosperity(tm), and proof that our great system works. We will vigorously support WM's right to invoke both the DMCA and Patriot Act to independently subpoena and prosecute all infringers of American English (tm).

People who think they can write, say, mailing list and usenet articles without paying royalties to the rightful owners of those words are theives and criminals, and are fundamentally opposed to our Free and Democratic American Way of Life.(tm)"

Outside the razorwire fence surrounding the Les Cheatem airfield estate, police in riot gear dispersed with watercannon a ragtag collection of radicals calling themselves "The Free Speech Foundation." Some were arrested them for illegally performing a street-theatre adaptation of "The Devil and Daniel Webster," called "The Devil and WM Webster (with no reference intended to the Bush Appointed Homeland Security official William Webster)."

In the original, Webster wins back his neighbor Jazed Stone's soul by speaking from his heart of the natural freedoms of man. He wins the case, but forfeits his bid for the US Presidency.

In the FSF adaptation, Webster negotiates a much better deal for his neighbor's soul with deceitful and self-serving arguments to institute word-by-word copyright in perpetuity, and to criminalise copyright violation as an act of terrorism punishable by an unlimited term at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

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(cc) 2004 Cheryl Fillekes -- some rights reserved. Anyone may reproduce this in its entirety and unchanged, so long as this attribution is distributed with it.