chimptron.com

Newspaper makers have long been the victims of casual piracy. Word pirates will purchase a single copy of a newspaper and then allow several other people to read it without paying. It’s estimated that for each paper sold, another five people read it illegally, costing the newspaper industry an annual $200 billion in the US alone.

All that could soon change, however, thanks to a new printed rights management system being trialled by newspaper companies. Originally developed by the Lithuanian military police as a means of stopping rogue scientists leaking Soviet nuclear secrets, the read-me-not system offers a sure fire way to stop illicit readership dead in its grubby little tracks.

Read-me-not uses a special chip embedded in the buyer’s skull to monitor their proximity to the newspaper. If the buyer moves further than six metres from the paper then electrical signals from the read-me-not chip cause the ink to disappear. This prevents copyright abuse by others and encourages legitimate newspaper purchase.

Should buyers have a genuine need to move away from their papers, they can re-activate the ink by calling a special helpline, answering a short questionnaire, and pleading with the highly trained customer support agents at read-me-not headquarters. Legitimate excuses for abandoning the paper include fire, childbirth and non-seated bathroom use.

The embedded chip implantation is completely voluntary, although after 2011 nobody will be able to legally purchase any form of printed material without it. The implantation process is largely painless and quite safe, having been extensively tested on homeless people and students. Implant kits are being distributed to news vendors now, and include a free mop to clean up blood spills.