Root Kit

Well, he did it. It cost him a week's worth of money from his mowing gig, lots of
courage, and then ten minutes of sheer terror at the corner store -- but he finally did
it.

Eric dashed into his bedroom, completely forgetting his plans to look casual. Once
inside, he slid the chair under the doorknob, made sure the door was secure, then
leaned back and panted heavily. It did not seem like his arrival had attracted any
unwanted attention. Good.

Eric removed the magazine from underneath his jacket and peered at it hungrily. He
was sixteen, horny, but more importantly, he was now proud owner of the latest
issue of Babespread Digital.

Holding his breath, almost reverently, he examined the brown plastic cover of the
magazine. It was plain and unassuming, but for a sixteen-year-old, it was shrink-
wrapped heaven. Tingling with anticipation, he carefully tore along the short edge of
the envelope and slid out the magazine. The cover alone made him feel light-
headed.

Eric flipped a few pages randomly, then stopped at a picture of an attractive Asian
girl in a very revealing outfit. He shivered when he realized just what she was doing
with her hand.

He double-checked the door to make sure that it was secure, then reached his bed
in two hungry leaps. He carefully placed the magazine by the pillow, then dropped
his shorts.

The page went blank.

"What the hell?"

Suddenly, to his horror, he heard a polite cough coming from somewhere behind
him.

"Ah-hem."

Eric jerked his head in panic, and saw a small, serious-looking elderly man standing
on his bedsheets. He was dressed in a three-piece suit and held a thin leather
briefcase.

"What the hell! Who the fuck are you?" Eric yelled, quickly pulling up his shorts.

"Hello there," said the small elderly man, who seemed completely unperturbed by
the situation. He walked carefully across the folds of the untidy bed and settled
down on the side of Eric's table, opening his briefcase.

"I am here to represent the Pornographic Industry Media Protection Agency of

America, hereon referred to as "PIMPAA", in the case of intellectual property
infringement that occurred at this location..." he glanced up at the clock on the wall,
"at two fifty-five in the afternoon." He jotted down a few notes on his legal pad.
"How do you plead?"

There was a long loaded pause, and then Eric repeated:

"Who in the fuck's fuck are you?"

The elderly man sighed and put down his legal pad.

"Look, take it easy, son." He pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket, and
proceeded to clean his glasses in a grandfatherly manner. "I'm not really here -- I'm
just an AI agent. I'm all in your head."

"In... In my wha?"

The small man pointed at the carefully torn magazine cover still laying in the dust by
the door.

"If you read the small print, you will find that by opening the package you have
agreed to installing a digital rights management agent. That is to say," he stuck a
thumb into his chest, "me." He put his glasses back on and stuffed the handkerchief
into the inner pocket of his vest. "My task is to make sure that our consumers, that
means -- you," he pointed his finger at Eric, "only use our products as permitted by
the license."

He paused, and then added:

"Would you like me to read you the license?"

Eric stared.

"How... Wait, what?"

"I'll take it as a yes, even though I'll note that by removing the magazine cover you
have indicated that you have read and agreed to all terms of the license."

He shuffled the paperwork and cleared his throat.

"This end-user license agreement, hereon referred to as EULA, is a legal agreement

between you, either an individual or a single entity, and the Pornographic Industry
Media Protection Agency of America, hereon referred to as PIMPAA, for the use of..."

"No, wait, wait!"

"Yes?" the elderly man raised his eyes from the paperwork.

"How... How long is it?"

"Sixty three pages, with several addenda."

"Fuck it."

"As you wish." He folded the papers and put them away.

There was a pause.

"I can summarize," offered the elderly man. "In layman's terms, you're free to look
at the images, but you cannot use the property of PIMPAA for unlicensed
gratification."

"Huh?"

The small man seemed annoyed.

"Look, it's simple. You can look but you can't touch." The old man glanced at Eric
over his glasses. "And by that I mean yourself."

It took a few moments before Eric quite understood.

"Wait, you're telling me... I bought this for nothing?" he waived at the magazine.

The old man looked shocked.

"Oh, no, by no means. You are quite free to use our product as permitted by the
license, which specifically grants you a non-transferable right to access the media
using visual or other means. However, should you wish to use it for something...
more, you will be required to obtain a gratification license, which, of course, is
available for purchase through the usual channels."

The small elderly man glanced at the magazine, still open on the pillow.

"Miss Chang, for example, is currently on special for only $9.95 per each use."

"Ten bucks!"

"Taxes not included."

"That's insane! Wait, per each use?"

"Look, young man, the artists deserve to be paid. Miss Chang, for example, has
three children, two of them in college."
"What do I care? Wait... what? But she's, like, nineteen!"

"Some of our models may be slightly retouched, please read the fine print." The old
man shuffled the papers in his lap and changed the subject. "Let's get back to our
case. You have two options -- one is to purchase the gratification license and pay a
small infringement penalty. This will let you be... er... merrily on your way. Another
option, of course, is not to pay and thus lose all access to PIMPAA-licensed media."

Eric felt dizzy.

"Ten bucks?"

"Plus fifty dollars infringement penalty."

"That is more than I paid for the magazine!"

The old man shrugged and said nothing. Eric glanced at his decimated coin jar and
wished it fuller.

"Look, uh... I don't have sixty bucks right now."

The old man shrugged again and put the papers away in his briefcase.

"I'm afraid, we will have to go with option number two, then. Until the infringement
penalty is fully paid, your access to all PIMPAA-owned media will remain restricted."

The old man got up and straightened his suit.

"Do give us a call if you reconsider."

"Yeah, whatever, just go away."

The small elderly man vanished. Eric looked hopefully at the magazine and even
turned a few pages. They were now all blank, including the cover, where only the
title words remained. Eric sighed and tossed it under the bed.

The flesh was still willing.

He got up and pulled out the world atlas from the top shelf of his bookcase. Inside
it, between Honduras and Honolulu, was and old issue of Hustler he had found a few
years back, while helping his uncle with a garage sale. These days, he was only
slightly distracted by the crazy hairstyles.

Eric opened the magazine on the bookmarked page, and was horrified to see that it,
too, had gone blank.

"What the hell?"

He quickly flipped the magazine and saw that, just like Babespread Digital, it had all
gone blank.

"What the hell! You fucking bastards!"

The small man reappeared just where he had been a minute ago.

"You called?"

"What is the meaning of this?" Eric showed him the blank issue of Hustler.

The elderly man glanced at the magazine and then looked back at Eric.

"Yes, it's like I said. Until the infringement penalty is paid, all access to PIMPAA-
licensed media will remain restricted."

"But this magazine is ancient!"

"That doesn't change anything, it's still PIMPAA property."

"No, I mean, it's not even digital -- it's ink, look!"

The elderly man smiled.

"Oh, the pictures are there, you're just not allowed to see them. The restriction
works on a more basic level."

There was a pause while Eric digested the news.

"Wait, you mean to say -- it's in my head? You fucking messed with my head?!"

"Like I said at the very beginning of our conversation, by opening the magazine
cover you have agreed to the installation of a digital rights management agent."

There was a loaded pause. The elderly man continued:

"It works by blocking access to restricted media on the most basic level. It's really
the only effective solution -- all earlier attempts to enforce digital rights have failed."

"I don't care, uninstall it!"

The elderly man shook his head.

"I'm sorry, that cannot be done."

"Turn it off!"
"Impossible."

Eric staggered.

"You mean to say, I'm stuck forever with this?"

The small elderly man was unwaivering.

"It's really quite unobtrusive as long as you don't infringe."

Eric felt dizzy and sat down in a chair. There was no way he could afford to be
sixteen at ten dollars a pop. He tried to think of his old favorites from the Hustler
only to see them all turn up blank. The old man shook his head:

"Any PIMPAA-licensed media you may have in your memory is also going to be
restricted until the infringement penalty is paid. It is really in your interest to do so.
In time, you will find that with proper budgeting the fees are quite sensible."

Eric groaned and put his face in his hands.

"Fuck off," he said grimly.

A few moments passed in utter silence. Suddenly, Eric had a glimmer of hope. There
was this one time last year, during summer camp. He and the guys had sneaked up
behind a bathroom window to peek at the girl counselors while they were taking a
shower. Sure, there was barely any light, but he saw all he needed, and most
importantly, the memory of this event stood up vividly in his mind.

"Go away," he said to the old man, sitting up.

"Suit yourself," shrugged the old man. "Though I will note that none of these girls
are remotely comparable to the selection of models offered by PIMPAA."

"I said, fuck off!"

The small man vanished again. Eric crashed on his bed and tried to concentrate on
the memory. After a few minutes, he felt comfortable enough to reach for the button
on his shorts.

"Sorry, me again." The elderly man was back sitting on Eric's desk, now flicking
through a thick stack of papers. "I've been reviewing your file and it came to my
attention that you may wish to purchase indemnity for our 'one flick and you're
done' patent..."

Eric sighed and sat up. The mood was gone.

July, 2007
Montreal, Quebec
Copyright © 2007 by Mr. Icon, http://mricon.com/
This work has a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike 2.5 license