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Sean Kennedy's great sci-fi radio novella Tales From The Afternow follows your basic wanderer-traversing-the-post-apocalypse-wastelands story line. But it's not the apocalypse part of the story that makes your hair stand on end.

Before the apocalypse the major media conglomerates created a joint discount card. Use your discount card and you get 75% off retail. See a $10 movie for $2.50. Buy a $20 DVD for $5. MP3s, books, magazines, paintings, it applies to nearly all media.

Of course everyone signed up. Two years later the card becomes a legal requirement. Want to see a movie? Download music? Watch TV? Get a book from the library? You need your card, otherwise you're locked out. If you commit piracy, your license is revoked and you're cut off from all media.

In the totalitarian post-apocalypse world, the license is required for anything involving information, and any unregulated use of information is illegal. Private ownership of a microphone or a camera is illegal. Speaking English requires the license. "There used to be a time people could sing openly without being worried about licensing. There used to be a time when you'd be able to a read a book or tell a story. Of course the books are gone. And you can still lose your license by telling stories. Its dangerous business being creative."

Just sayin'.

Something like this is part of the mythos of Tales of the Afternow. In the storyline, because so much of the world is covered by draconian copyright laws and DRM, attempting to dodge the restrictions is a punishable, sometimes capital offense (as is creating unlicensed works).

Once again I am struck by the eerie ability of Tales From the Afternow to cast the shadow of its future on today's stories. Burn booths, anyone?

I realize the tail end of my last post reeked of tinfoil, so thanks for not picking it apart too hard.

You're absolutely correct in that the current silencing is that of unpopular music, but the scary thing for me is how it will affect bandwidth subsidy programs (such as Live365). When submitting our grant proposal this past year for bandwidth funds for a community station, we were summarily turned down under the pretext that our intended goal (community news, broadcasting of town and village board meetings, local interest programming, etc...) potentially excluded a large percentage of our target market (point of fact, it was even mentioned that the elderly people who can't make it town and village board meetings might not have the technical skill to access our stream).

Talk about frustration. Now my concern is that if I tie up personal funding, there's a good chance that the plug will be pulled and that Live365 (where I had ultimately settled for out station) will be forced to close their doors.

Furthermore, after reviewing some of the stipulations concerning copyright and how unsigned acts are covered (in our case, local artists providing content for exposure), we are unsure of how an independent artist is treated if they have copyrighted their work (including myself).

So... long and short of it, now a shoestring budget (out of my pocket), is further strained by retaining an attorney that can make some sense of all possible ramifications.

Ugh. Sean Kennedy must be thinking... "I told you so!"

Rachael's Mutt? http://theafternow.com/listen.php

Is it just me or does this smack of the WTO from Sean Kennedy's "Tales From The Afternow?"

http://theafternow.com/

This is exactly what happened in The Tales from the Afternow series, and it made all of their rain burn through skin & metal. It's a great cyberpunk-ish series, I recommend it. http://www.theafternow.com/listen.php (It's mentioned in Episode 3: Dropping Acid.)

Sounds suspiciously like one of the more gruesome plot devices from Tales From the Afternow (http://www.theafternow.com/)

"Unregulated information is pornography."

"The Listener's License was created by the conglomerates. They all got together If you wanted to see a movie, hey if you had your listener's License you could get in for 2dollars. (chuckle) 2 bucks. Oh you don't have a Listener's License, well you can't get in. Se they couldn't control the piracy so they stopped it at its source If ever you were found to be a pirate or if your computer was ever found to have MP3's that weren't appropriate on it you were eliminated, your listener's License was revoked and you were out of the loop. Its all private enterprise, you don't have a right to music, you never had a right to it. Its all private."

My primary point was the error in assuming that guerilla consumerism would force Microsoft into bankruptcy.

As for the DRM -- that is something else entirely. Unfortunately, most people simply do not understand why it should be a concrn. For them, I recommend putting away the video games for the evening and having a listen to Sean Kennedy. Not only is it entertaining, it's also good for you. =D

All that said, you are correct, sir. Only by consumers expressing their discontent to unfair EULA's, DRM and product crippling --erm encryption will the point ever be made. And cracking the Xbox does indeed prove both intent and capability.

Well that or simply force it into failure by not buying one. However, I fear it is very much like all American voters demonstrating their unhappines with the status quo by withholding their vote in the next primary: It's a great and solid concept that will never, ever happen. And I'll end up being just as guilty as the next guy there.

Personally, I'd rather see it broken and usable than not.

The history has already been broadcast from the future at http://www.theafternow.com/index.php. It's uncanny.

All we need now is the World Licensing Association, and We'll pretty much be living in the Afternow.

(Seriously, though, Tales from the Afternow is a pretty good series. Plus, it's free [in both senses: no DRM and you don't have to pay for it] and licensed under the Creative Commons system.)

http://www.theafternow.com/listen.php

Lame /. filter won't let me post 5 minutes of text from the first episode. It's available at the bottom of the link above.

This guy freeforms this multi-season story arc'ing post-apocalyptic cyberpunk fantasy using old style radio-drama techniques. Totally absorbing.

SKC is The Fucking Man

RantRadio, has many interesting "radio" shows on their talk stream, the majority of them being intelligent. Also, most of the shows keep archives of their previous shows, so you can download them and listen to them whenever.

My favourite show is Nuts and Bolts, a show dedicated to computers and technology.

Also, there is Tales from the Afternow, a cyberpunkesque audio narrative.

Tales from the Afternow

I'm only a couple of episodes into listening to it, but that sounds an awful lot like the Listeners License in Tales From The Afternow.

"Unregulated Knowledge is pornography"

Time is copyright, so you can't own a watch unless you're in a business that pays its fee. Else that's temporal piracy.

The show was a wonderful piece of entertainment when I first listened. Then I started noticing people actually DOING THIS STUFF.
Advised listening environment is near-darkness candlelight, late in the eveing, alone, with headphones. That's good old pre-DMA headphones. This is afterall, a pirate radio broadcast, in Queens English, from sometime after now...

http://www.theafternow.com/

Have you got your Listener's License?

Listen and heed. It's coming, unless we stop it.

I think it's an omen.

Mabye, SERVER, praise be, wants all the slashdot geeks to actually get some work done. Is there a project that requires dire help recently that anyone knows about? I just started my project wool clock folding@home team but that is not nearly the scope that I'm thinking is necessary. Does SCO need to be destroyed, do we need a filesystem to compete with Microsoft? Post under this thread, what you think the MOST important thing you ccould be doing, other than reading slashdot is, specifically geeky things. on topic: mabye the X prize teams needs some last minute help?, or mabye we need to design a moon base?

By surfing Slashdot, you may be violating your listener's license agreement.

Give your ears a taste of Independant Librarian Dynamic Sean Kennedy the Sixth for a truly horrific scenario based on this kind of shinanegans. Then give him a little donation because, at the moment, his stories are still legal to freely record, broadcast, and disseminate.

By reading this article you may be violating your Listener's License.

Does anyone think this card sounds too much like the start of a something like the "Listener's License" in Tales from the Afternow?

(especially if combined with measures like those I consider here...)

1) The above-mentioned relationship between the main RIAA members, news(cnn), radio(clear channel), government(DMCA much?), and concert venues(clear channel). Now I can't trust anything I read, see or hear from the news, because It's obviously slanted if not outright bias(cnn). I Can't listen to the radio, becuase it's the same 15 songs, with 4:1 commercials in between. If the anti-terror laws hadn't killed most of the freedoms in north america, the media-machine would have, and more concert venues being owned means less and less orginal artists are even going to be able to start out...where would raves be held if it's illegal to rave anywhere but a preordained clearchannel concert venue, who don't think the revenue potential for holding a rave is worth holding one for? (ie, 12 year old raver chicks may not have enough cash, or whatever)

2) They harm artists. No one has collectively done more harm to artists than the RIAA, except mabye their umbrella group. And worse still, it's not as if they are sorry for it, or trying not to...they are pushing full forward with iconification (turn yourself into a publicly traded stock, like david bowie, or a brand name, like nsync or celine dion) , dehumanization ( i'm a goth! i'm a punk! sure you've seen them ).

3) They treat you like a consumer YOU are nothing but a source of income to them.

4) mostly due to #1, co-opting of forces of real change for profit. how many che shirts have you seen floating around? rage against the machine? how many otherwise bright young revolutionaries have taken the RIAA path to rebellion? There is a need right now for real radical change, not more sexist, racist, angsty, outdated pop metal counter-reactionary thought saying as loud as possible 'enslave us! we can't think for ourselves! we are worthless, do what you want to us and throw us away!'

5) the RIAA is trying to destroy the free distrobution of information(p2p), and all unregulated thought(piracy), the internet as a whole(as it infringes their divine right of profit). Metallica, under the guise of the RIAA broke one of the applications on my computer, and there has been plans underway to completely destroy anyone's computer who shares files, and there have been laws in the states at least created to put loopholes in existing crime laws for them to do this with.

6) exploitation of women. sex sells, and the RIAA knows this.

7) they sue moderately poor people for millions of dollars, which would effectively kill said people.

8) High CD prices. when i make only 2$ an hour i can't afford a 40$ cd, ok? And honestly, even if they lower the prices, i've lived too much of my life

9) Regulation on content. the RIAA regulates things against moderately insane christian standards of violence, sexuality, religion, poletics, etc.

A) They try to put YOU to mental sleep. thinking? why think? why try to think? No one ever accomplished anything by thinking! communism is evil! don't help out your fellow man! just shut up, shop, and watch television, and work your crummy 2$/hour job, and be happy about it. because hey, you have plenty to be happy about, considerring you can only afford mabye two cds a year if you don't eat for a week..and hell mabye one of those two discs might have something you like on it.

B) Their attempts to plug the analog hole, and regulate media this may be the most frightening aspect of the riaa, and the one we should all be boycotting them for. They see a future where all media is regulated, all music is paid for per-listening, and the only people who can create and listen to culturally significant artifacts are those liscenced to do so. When listener's liscences start to pop up, and start to be mandatory as a means of getting a job(people allready filter what movies they are going to see or video games they are going to watch based on arbitrary ratings given to said gam

It is a science fiction (cyperpunkish?) radio play set in a rather bleak future. It covers issues about copyright, corporations etc, and is likely to be a lot more interesting and thought provoking than some show about an unlikey feel-good-shiny-robots-and-flying-cars future.

--
Simon

Also check out Tales From the Afternow which is a story with a similar theme.

Corporations take over the government, start the listener license, etc.

it wasn't me who wrote that(i wish i were that talented!). Rather, it was written by one Sean Kennedy (the fuckin man). I hope he publishes it one day, and when he does i will be one of the first to purchase it.
but you raise an important point, nonetheless. your absolutely right, it is their right as an isp to censor or not allow me to do certian things. However, it is also my right as their customer to tell them to shove it, because i beleive that all information should be free.

is going to push DRM to the point of more or less absolute control. this guy is part of the resistance against that.

the point with this layer of applications is to get people in the world used to DRM. "hey, drm isn't so bad, itunes,windows and musicmatch use it,it protects us from viruses, how can that be bad?"

then they come up with hardware locked drm. then the drm-happy laws start to be created and enforced in an increasing cycle of state-sponsorred terror, fear, and state-level-self-destruction.

if you don't see where they[the *aa] are going with this, you should look harder. the next step may be creating a method of music distrobution that makes most media censorship look like child-play. the listeners-liscences are only the beginning, after all.

at THIS point, the process looks not to be totally lost. after all, if this system can be broken, others can. we have not lost all hope yet.

For a discussion of that and other topics in a brilliant radio play format check out the Sean Kennedy Chronicles.

Sean Kennedy's Tales From the Afternow might not be so far 'after now'. Check it out.

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I recently produced a radio drama exclusively for the Internet for downloading and also airing on my station RantRadio. There were 9 x 1 hour episodes coming from the creative mind of Sean Kennedy.

Called 'Tales from the Afternow', it's pretty damn creative and if you take into account that NONE of it is pre-written and all spoken on the fly your mind will be blown away. With background sound effects etc.. etc.. it's a good listen.

ALL HAIL SEAN K and CIMMERIAN, for they shall lead us to the promise land. TFtAN is a great show and unfortunately SeanKTFM had to stop making them for a while b/c like most of us he's too broke to put in the time and effort required to make them as kick ass as they are. Maybe a few good slashdot posts linking them will inspire.

-=sNake

There is a online radio show, called "Tales from the Afternow" which is being told by a Librarian from the future, where everything is copyrighted by mega corps, and he (the librarian) is a criminal for sharing info freely.
www.theafternow.com

Give a listen, all the episodes are free and in MP3 format.