| blob | 7355d94b42a2f009578446c74dc0ab6b2ef05666 |
2 <html><head>
13 <!--
19 -->
20 </style>
22 <p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><font size="5"><font face="Monaco">Printcrime</font></font></i></p>
24 </p>
27 Cory Doctorow’s 2007 short story collection “Overclocked: Stories
28 of the Future Present,” published by Thunder’s Mouth, a division
29 of Avalon Books. It is licensed under a Creative Commons
30 Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license, about which you’ll
31 find more at the end of this file.</p>
33 other stories in the volume are available at:</p>
36 at finer bookstores everywhere, including Amazon:</p>
37 <p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560259817/downandoutint-20</p>
39 Guthrie:</p>
41 Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period
42 of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission,
43 will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern.
44 Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it,
45 that’s all we wanted to do.”</p>
47 dedicated to Pat York, who made my stories better.</p>
50 Printcrime:</i></p>
52 a discussion I had with a friend who’d been to hear a spokesman for
53 the British recording industry talk about the future of “intellectual
54 property.” The record exec opined the recording industry’s great
55 and hysterical spasm would form the template for a never-ending
56 series of spasms as 3D printers, fabricators and rapid prototypers
57 laid waste to every industry that relied on trademarks or patents.</p>
59 as kinky as this was, it did show a fair amount of foresight, coming
60 as it did from the notoriously technosqueamish record industry.
61 </p>
63 </p>
65 true that control over the production of trademarked and patented
66 objects will diminish over the coming years of object-on-demand
68 is a stupendously weird idea.</p>
70 railroad were looming on the horizon, and the most visionary thing
71 the futurists of the day can think of to say about it is that these
72 iron horses will have a disastrous effect on the hardworking
73 manufacturers of oat-bags for horses. It’s true, as far as it goes,
74 but it’s so tunnel-visioned as to be practically blind.</p>
76 asked me if I’d write a short-short story for their back-page, I
77 told them I’d do it, then went home, sat down on the bed and banged
78 this one out. They bought it the next morning, and we were in
79 business.
80 </p>
86 father’s printer when I was eight. I remember the hot,
87 cling-film-in-a-microwave smell of it, and Da’s look of ferocious
88 concentration as he filled it with fresh goop, and the warm,
89 fresh-baked feel of the objects that came out of it.</p>
91 through the door with truncheons swinging, one of them reciting the
92 terms of the warrant through a bullhorn. One of Da’s customers had
93 shopped him. The ipolice paid in high-grade
94 pharmaceuticals—performance enhancers, memory supplements,
95 metabolic boosters. The kind of thing that cost a fortune over the
96 counter; the kind of thing you could print at home, if you didn’t
97 mind the risk of having your kitchen filled with a sudden crush of
98 big, beefy bodies, hard truncheons whistling through the air,
99 smashing anyone and anything that got in the way.</p>
101 grandma’s trunk, the one she’d brought from the old country. They
102 smashed our little refrigerator and the purifier unit over the
103 window. My tweetybird escaped death by hiding in a corner of his cage
104 as a big, booted foot crushed most of it into a sad tangle of
105 printer-wire.</p>
107 him. When he was done, he looked like he’d been brawling with an
108 entire rugby side. They brought him out the door and let the newsies
109 get a good look at him as they tossed him in the car, while a
110 spokesman told the world that my Da’s organized-crime bootlegging
111 operation had been responsible for at least twenty million in
112 contraband, and that my Da, the desperate villain, had resisted
113 arrest.</p>
115 phone, in the remains of the sitting room, watching it on the screen
117 flat and our terrible, manky estate and mistake it for the home of an
118 organized crime kingpin. They took the printer away, of course, and
119 displayed it like a trophy for the newsies. Its little shrine in the
120 kitchenette seemed horribly empty. When I roused myself and picked up
121 the flat and rescued my peeping poor tweetybird, I put a blender
122 there. It was made out of printed parts, so it would only last a
123 month before I’d need to print new bearings and other moving parts.
124 Back then, I could take apart and reassemble anything that could be
125 printed.</p>
127 eighteen, they were ready to let Da out of prison. I’d visited him
128 three times—on my tenth birthday, on his fiftieth, and when Ma
129 died. It had been two years since I’d last seen him and he was in
130 bad shape. A prison fight had left him with a limp, and he looked
131 over his shoulder so often it was like he had a tic. I was
132 embarrassed when the minicab dropped us off in front of the estate,
133 and tried to keep my distance from this ruined, limping skeleton as
134 we went inside and up the stairs.</p>
136 as he sat me down. “You’re a smart girl, I know that. Trig. You
137 wouldn’t know where your old Da could get a printer and some goop?”</p>
139 into fists so tight my fingernails cut into my palms. I closed my
140 eyes. “You’ve been in prison for ten years, Da. Ten. Years.
141 You’re going to risk another ten years to print out more blenders
142 and pharma, more laptops and designer hats?”</p>
144 not stupid, Lanie. I’ve learned my lesson. There’s no hat or
145 laptop that’s worth going to jail for. I’m not going to print
146 none of that rubbish, never again.” He had a cup of tea, and he
147 drank it now like it was whisky, a sip and then a long, satisfied
148 exhalation. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair.</p>
150 let me whisper in your ear. Let me tell you the thing that I decided
151 while I spent ten years in lockup. Come here and listen to your
152 stupid Da.”</p>
154 about ticking him off. He was off his rocker, that much was clear.
155 God knew what he went through in prison. “What, Da?” I said,
156 leaning in close.</p>
158 to print more printers. Lots more printers. One for everyone. That’s
159 worth going to jail for. That’s worth anything.”</p>
162 License Deed</i></p>
167 copy, distribute, display, and perform the work</p>
169 make derivative works</p>
171 conditions:</p>
173 must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or
174 licensor.</p>
176 You may not use this work for commercial purposes.</p>
178 you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the
179 resulting work only under a license identical to this one.</p>
181 </p>
183 distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this
184 work.</p>
186 conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright
187 holder.</p>
189 use and other rights are in no way affected by the above.</p>
191 human-readable summary of the Legal Code (the full license):</p>
192 <p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/legalcode</p>
195 metadata (humans, ignore this):</i></p>
217 rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF>--></p>
218 </body></html>