Sane people everywhere stunned.

In an effort to better combat rampant book piracy, the publishers of America revealed a new copy protection scheme today. Dubbed RiteRead, it coats the page of every book (the technology is expected to more than triple the price of a paperback) and turns opaque when struck with a bright light. This is expected to prevent the use of photocopiers and scanners to duplicate and/or digitally reproduce books. The new technology also makes it impossible to read the book in ANY bright light, such as sunlight. The publishers do not think this is a problem, and expect that people will warm to the new prices once they learn they are protecting the valuable copyrights of authors. They cite similar tactics used by the RIAA, which should restore CD sales any day now.

The publishing houses have also licensed the CD copy protection used by the RIAA for their books on CD. This prevents them from working in most car players or computers. “No one listens to books on CD in the car anyway, so we don’t think the market will be affected much by this decision either. In fact, we expect that once audio books cease to be traded online, sales will skyrocket,” was the statement given by the vice president of a publisher that wishes to remain anonymous.

Books on tape have been completely discontinued because of the same concerns over piracy. You must now prove you are blind, and pay $300 or more a book, to receive one to own. Libraries will continue to stock the books, “Provided they use some sort of anti-theft tag.”

Finally, they resent accusations that this violates fair use law. “Congress and Clinton clearly got rid of that in 1998 .”