Yesterday, you may recall, I discussed the RIAA sending cease-and-desist letters to the people who upload videos of themselves lipsynching to popular songs.
But that’s just the beginning: we’ve learned who they are targeting next, and in a Medialoper Multiverse Exclusive, are revealing it to you today.
- Garage Bands. Every afternoon they are going to spread their fleet of thousands of unmarked white vans out into the suburbs and exurbs. These vans are all equipped with a specially tuned listening device called the “All-Seeing Ear.” The All-Seeing Ear will scan for badly done versions of songs like “Jumping Jack Flash,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Fell in Love With A Girl.”
Then, using their Universal Garage Door Opener and one of those portable credit card readers, they charge the credit cards of the moms or dads of the hapless teens right there on the spot.
Don’t get caught playing “Smoke on the Water,” because that costs extra.
- Singing in the Shower. Of course, not even the RIAA is going to burst into your house as you’re getting ready for work. After all, if you’re late for work, you might be fired. And if you get fired, you’re less likely to pay $20 for a CD. So instead of using the unmarked white vans, they’ve attached the All-Seeing Ear to the Cell Towers in your neighborhood.
So the next time you’re in the shower singing “Maybe I’m craaaaazeeee / Maybe you’re craaaaazeee” and totally mangling that high note, the All-Seeing Ear will catch it and make an entry in their database under your addresss. Then it’s a simple matter of synching their database to a database that contains one of your credit cards, and boom! no more free shower singing. That oughta learn ya!
Sprint customers, by the way, will be caught less.
- Air Guitar. Sources tell me that the RIAA realllly hates air guitar, for some reason. But the widespread air-guitar craze peaked 20 years ago, so they really couldn’t do much about it. Until now.
We have learned that the RIAA has developed a time travel machine for the express purpose for going back in time to collect back royalties from all of those Air Guitar competitions from the 1980s. They are calling it the Way Back Royalty Machine.
It goes without saying that, once they’ve done that, it’s only a matter of time before they use the Way Back Royalty Machine for other purposes. For example, remember that one time you and your friends put together a cover band just to play a bunch of songs you liked? And you got to open for the Miss Alans at The Wild Blue? You owe. And you will pay. How about your share of the door? Perfect.
By the time you read this, it may be too late, you will have already paid, and paid, and the whole thing discouraged you so much that you gave up hope at ever making it playing music, so you decided to take that full-time job at the Dairy Queen after all. And bully for you, Kurt, because you’re now the assistant Regional Manager.
I can only hope that while using they Way Back Royalty Machine, the RIAA takes to heart the lessons imparted by the tale of their intellectual superior, Homer Simpson, when he invented the time-traveling toaster. But I doubt it.
The sad thing is that this is just a partial list, and that they will not rest until every single man, woman and child in the U.S.A. interacts with music in a properly prescribed copyright-friendly manner. You have been warned.
I know this is just a partial list, but you’ve left out the new RIAA brain-ray – they use it to track the songs you hear in your head.
This one is particularly frustrating because a week later I’m still hearing George Burns singing “Fixing A Hole”.
So you’re saying that my special “All-Seeing-Ear-Proof” shower doesn’t work? And after I spent a fortune on the specially designed tiles? You know, I called about my money-back guarantee…