Posted on 08/08/2003 8:51:32 PM PDT by swilhelm73
DETROIT – Taking a cue from the RIAA campaign against audio file-sharing, lawyers for deceased German wunderkind Johannes Gutenberg today announced a 6.5 billion-count indictment against all of humanity, charging that nearly every man, woman, and child in advanced Western society has illegally benefited in some way from the invention of the printing press over the past five hundred and fifty years without paying a dime to its benefactor. Gutenberg, who testified via séance before a federal grand jury in Detroit, claimed that the unchecked, rampant abuse of literary piracy has “significantly impacted” his quality of rapture in the after-life, and further robbed his legacy of “uncountable trillions” in worldwide currency.
“Mr. Gutenberg waited patiently for justice,” explained Gutenberg attorney Morris Hardwick, “but there was none to be had. For five and half centuries, humanity has engaged in the reprehensible practice of ‘document sharing’, and we are simply prepared to settle all outstanding accounts, thank you very much.”
The 18,000 page indictment, which was lovingly produced by the monks of St. Gertrude Abbey, Salzburg, Austria took nearly three years to print and then copy for public dissemination, and names several well-known international “pirates”, including Xerox, Simon and Schuster, Kinko’s, and Benjamin Franklin.
“There was a little known provision in German patent law,” said Hardwick, “which provided for perpetual protection of all rights under governing jurisdictions. By my perspective, that’s lost income for every page copied, every book shared, every single document printed on any device descended from said printing press as conceived and designed by my client.”
Gutenberg, who was born in 1400, made his home in Strasbourg, Germany, where he trained as a goldsmith, but experimented with techniques that led to the world-transforming ability to print from movable type.
“Without the printing press, there is no mass distribution of the Holy Bible, there is no Renaissance, no greeting card industry, no fortune cookies, no ‘I’m With Stupid’ tee-shirts,” stated Gutenberg at the hearing. “The world would have remained in utter darkness, and I am here to collect.”
Monetary damages could amount in the thousands of trillions, according to some observers, with litigation beginning as early as December.
"The after-life will not be an obstacle," assured Gutenberg. "I have all the time in the world to see this through."
“Expect a circus, beginning with jury selection,” warned criminal trial expert Jennifer DiMarco. “Finding twelve people not listed in the indictment will be nothing short of a miracle. One possible remedy, however, would be to move the trial to Appalachia. It’s an option I’m afraid they’ll have to consider.”
Meanwhile, America’s most famous printer, Benjamin Franklin, is reportedly ready to fight extradition efforts as a named defendant.
“Mr. Franklin is currently enjoying the rewards of a virtuous life on an eight-hundred acre, tropical estate in Paradise,” explained Franklin family attorney Simon Walsh. “We feel it would be a gross and unnecessary inconvenience to require his presence in Detroit, of all places, for a case which has already been decided in Eternity. Mr. Gutenberg needs to find a way to ‘move on’, in our opinion.”
In related news, Three Men and a Baby star Steve Guttenberg has learned that geneaological researchers have declared him "un-related" to Johannes Gutenberg, and will not be eligible for reparations.
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