MuckFlash

San Diego, CA -8 April 2009- Staff. Associated Press Chairman Dean Singleton, following quickly on the heels of a bold pronouncement this week that the AP would begin to aggressively detect and enforce copyright violations, announced today that the AP would partner with the RIAA to implement an innovative new technology to track down and punish copyright offenders on the Internet.

The new system, code-named ‘Montezuma,’ will use state of the art digital fingerprinting technology to locate, identify and take ownership of copyrighted news and music on the Internet. Though similar systems have tried, and failed, to stem Internet piracy of mp3 music files and plagiarized news, Montezuma has a new twist. When the system locates infringing content, not only does it notify the rightful owners with an option to disable it, but it permanently embeds a pornographic watermark into the file to dissuade pirates from spreading the information any further.

“It’s easy to distance oneself from copyright infringement online, but Montezuma’s ‘revenge’ will be something these thieves won’t soon forget,” said Singleton. “This is something that will make them think twice before illicitly consuming copyrighted material again,” he said.

Tests with users have consistently shown that they are less likely to forward, copy or otherwise endorse material that is marred with hardcore porn. For news articles, the system inserts graphic sexual images in the middle of the text which then follows a user’s cursor as he or she scrolls through the rest of the piece. Infringing music files, demonstrating the system’s advanced technology, are randomly punctuated with loud expletives and sexually suggestive terms.

Scott Baird, a self professed ‘online news junkie’ was one of the early testers of Montezuma and swears that the system is an extremely effective deterrent. “Can you imagine sending something like this to your mom?” he send incredulously, “Montezuma stopped me dead in my tracks, and the embarrassment burned for hours afterward.”