It was in the early days of the Age of Universal Hypermedia. It was a time of conflicting values, short attention spans, and great special effects. It was the People vs. The Masters of the Universe.
"Mr. Scopes, whyn't you tell the Court how you boys work?" Broadway Tommy asked his client, and winced on seeing Judge Huffman checking out Scope's big-ticket threads.
"Well, Bit, Blit, and Scuzz run agents on Collecon to gather the text, video, and sound bites--"
"Collecon -- that's insider's talk for UKB, the Universal Knowledge Base, am I right?"
"It's the term we use. Then Steve, that's Steve Clone, our chunker, reduces the granularity -- how do I say it? He decides how small to slice the information. I put in the links."
"So they gather the materials and cut 'em up, and you tie 'em back together, huh?"
"It's more that I create the links to let the reader tie something together. The reader is the final collaborator in all of our work." Better stop there, Tommy thought. That idea of collaboration was enough concept for the jury to chew on for a while. He turned Scopes over to Jennings, hoping the kid could survive what the legendary prosecutor would throw at him.
"Mr. Scopes," Jennings began, "Why do you call yourselves Masters of the Universe?"
"That's the group's name. The idea is, we build a universe for the reader to explore."
"Indeed. Let's have no false modesty. And can that exploration lead in obscene directions?"
"I'd have to know what you mean by obscene," Scopes answered, shrugging.
"I'll make it easy, Mr. Scopes. Applying your own standards for obscenity -- you do have standards, I trust? -- could your work be explored in a way that leads to an obscene result?"
Tommy jumped up. "Objection, Your Honor. The prosecutor's tone --"
"-- is not material, Counselor. Overruled."
"But the Criminal Code --"
"In this court, Counselor, we go by the Huffman Code. Witness will answer the question."
Scopes looked blandly at Jennings. "You mean in the same way that a cut-and-paste job on one of your speeches could produce something you would find obscene, Mr. Jennings? I guess so." The kid's good, to score one off Jennings, Tommy thought.
And that was not the last point for the Home Team. Later, Jennings was questioning an art critic. "Is there anything about a picture," he asked, "that can make it obscene on the face of it?"
Tommy was on his feet before the witness could answer. "If it is the prosecutor's intention to address the question of obscenity of my clients' research materials, he's outa line. A legal ruling already exists. These materials, by virtue of being drawn exclusively from UKB, have passed government censors and are statutorily not obscene, and this testimony is bogus."
Huffman sustained the objection: Another one for us, Tommy thought. This is almost too easy.
"We're walking all over him, one of the boys said at dinner that night.
"Don't get smug," Tommy told him. "Jennings is one slick dude."
"Couldn't prove it by me."
Tommy wondered about that. Jennings did seem to be blowing it. Did he have some kinda trick up his sleeve? But there was nothing left but the summations in the morning, and Tommy was prepared. His defense didn't rest on the obscenity issue -- let Jennings stir 'em up with that -- but just on responsibility. The promise of hypermedia is Reader Control. More reader control means less artist control means less artist responsibility. How could the artist control which links the reader follows? It was a no-brainer and he was sure the jury had got it.
The Not Guilty verdict came in right after lunch.
It wasn't until he and the boys were fighting through the crowd of reporters and fans outside and he saw Jennings waiting by their limo, smiling, that Tommy knew he had been had.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" Tommy asked Jennings when they reached the car.
Jennings laughed. "I am glad that you caught on -- and that you didn't catch on sooner."
Scopes wanted to know what they were talking about.
"Jennings suckered me," Tommy answered. "He played along in order to establish a precedent."
Jennings smiled. "You did make my point nicely. If reading is an active process, then the reader may be, not an innocent victim of obscenity, but rather a collaborator or even a perpetrator."
Slipping into the limo, Scopes shouted, "What are you going to do, indict our readers?"
Jennings glared at the crowd. "Perhaps a few, but I have bigger fish in mind."
"I'm sorry," Tommy told Scopes through the window as the limo began to roll away. "You're artistic middlemen, Scopes. You read to write. As writers, you're cleared, but treating you as readers turns all my arguments inside out. He's still after you, but this time you're gonna be charged with reading an obscene work into existence."
Copyright © 1991, Dr. Dobb's Journal