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LOVE & MR. CLEAN - News Flash- 5/5/2001
Announcer: In an incredible turn of events, the Department of Justice(DOJ) has just handed down federal indictments and warrants for the arrest of several prominent musicians, spanning almost every genera of music, for their alleged involvement in the infamous LOVE virus which struck millions of computers, worldwide, one year ago today. We take you now, live to a press conference with Attorney General Joel Clean in Arlington,Virginia, at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Offices.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Attorney General of the United States, Mr . Joel Clean.{applause}
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Reporter, in crowd(shouting): Mr. Clean, is it true that the virus was planned by musicians?!
Clean: Well, it does appear that way, at least in essence; apparently, they felt it was their only recourse against the free distribution of their music on the Internet.
Reporter: Mr.Clean! Can you explain their plan?
Clean: Certainly. It appears that a group of fornerly prominent musicians meet at a secret location in the Barbados, in June of 1998, to discuss the problem of securing royalties from the music being distributed over the Internet. At that time, they agreed to bankroll a scheme, whereby they would first encourage a massive downloading of various types of music and other creative content from the Internet, and then set loose a virus to trash the computers of all who had, in their minds, wrongfully accessed their work without paying. This, in turn, was calculated to send consumers running back to hard copy media which the musicians still get royalties off of, buying the music industry more time to figure out a method of collecting royalties in the e-commerce era. It was, actually, quite sophisticated considering they are, well, "musicians".{tittering} It's not like we're talking about a bunch of MicroSqueeze programmers. {laughter throughout the gallary}.
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Clean: Well, it was their own trust in youthful that nailed them on that count. See, they figured they needed someone a youthful, a nobody, to carry off the music distribution ended. Unfortunately, they recruited the then 17 year old Shawn Fanny, who claimed he was 21, to claim ownership of the Napster program, so that by the time Napster was actually up and running he would just appear to be another college nerd trying to make a little noise and make a few million, kinda like Bill Gates{more laughter}. But he was underage at the time they made their first payment to him, the payment was made in cash, AND Mr. Fanny never reported the money to the IRS. Guess it's true what they say,"What goes around, comes around!"
Reporter: Mr. Clean, have any record company executives been indicted in this matter?
Clean: No. Apparently, the musician's distrust of their record companies was so great, they didn't even tell THEM what was going on. Seems that the main person that made a lot of croaking over that detail was Mr. John Frogerty , who at the last minute said,"Screw it, I'm taking my toys home with me". The other musicians, in their typical impulsive fashion, just figured it was, as they say,"Time to go balls to the Wall"!
Reporter: Mr.Clean. Can you give us the names of any of the defendants?
Clean: Unfortunately I can't, as we are still trying to formalize all of the indictments and warrants. One of the main problems, stems from a strange, hieroglyphic-like symbol that appears next to all of the names on their secret contract. Almost like it was supposed to represent someone.........but who? OH! Would you Look At The Time! I'm sorry folks, but I have to fly to Washington for the preliminary hearing of the first batch of musicians our Federal Agents were able to pick up.
Reporter: Mr.Clean! Mr. Clean! Just one more question?
Clean: Last question!
Reporter: Is it true that Spic & Span has filed a trademark infringement suit against the DOJ for using your picture with the caption "Mr.Clean"? {roaring laughter}
Clean: NO COMMENT! This press conference is OVER!
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