All Rights Reserved

Title: All Rights Reserved (Word$ #1)
Author: Gregory Scott Katsoulis

Initial Thoughts:

The idea of silence has always captivated me. There are days where I just want to put in earbuds and drown out the world, not interacting with anyone. Times when I just don't want to deal with people and wish that I could just not say anything. But how? In our society, you need to communicate. You can't be independent and be silent. If you stop talking, you can't function because you can't work or tell anyone what you need. I'm not talking being mute, but actual silence. Mute and deaf people are able to communicate through sign language and interpreters. They are still a functioning part of society if they choose to be. What I'm talking about is just shutting up and shutting out everyone else. We are so surrounded by people. If I suddenly stopped talking, even just for a day that I didn't go to work, my roommate would question me, as would anyone who tried talking to me in passing. They wouldn't understand. They would misinterpret. And if I truly wanted to be silent, I couldn't explain to them. People would assume something was wrong. We assume that anyone around us is willing to communicate with us. We are such social creatures. There's no reason for me to go silent, other than a feeling sometimes that I just want to get away from the world, but others wouldn't get it, couldn't understand, would assume I was playing a joke or that there was a serious problem. If I go silent, no one would allow it. I see these characters in books who do it and manage to function with the help of their friends, but they're not in jobs that require speaking. Kisa Sohma in Fruits Basket in only in elementary school. Suzuyu in The Darkest Minds is in a dystopian society and on the run. Speth in All Rights Reserved is the closest to dealing with the reality of it in that you see how much she isn't able to do because she won't communicate. She can't even ring doorbells because she won't agree to the terms of service. She can't call for help. She can't comfort her friends and family. She can't explain herself. She luckily finds the one job in which she isn't required to talk, but even then it's hard because she can't communicate with her teammates. With Kisa and Zu, you don't get their perspectives so you don't know all the struggles they deal with in being silent, but in All Rights Reserved, the entire book is from Speth's perspective so you see how hard it is for her to be silent. There are days I just want to be silent, but I know I can't. Knowing all the struggles of these characters still doesn't change how I feel sometimes. Our world is so focused on communication with phones and social media, that it is so overwhelming sometimes and I just want a break from it all, but a short-term silence just isn't feasible.

Onto the actual book, I think this was inspired. I totally understand about copyrights and trademarks and all that because you don't want someone taking credit for your ideas. That just isn't fair to you. But issues start cropping up when someone has the same idea all on their own without any influence from yours. Two people who have the same original idea, but only one can get credit. And how do you decide what specifically gets copyrighted and what is copyright infringement? Someone creates a 4 wheeled rolling chair. Someone else creates a different, 5 wheeled rolling chair. Is it a unique enough idea to call it their own or is it infringement because it's a rolling chair? One issue I always have is the Happy Birthday song. Everyone knows it (at least in America), but no one can use it on television or as part of anything in which they are getting paid because it is copyrighted so everyone has to make up their own birthday songs and it's just silly because people use the traditional birthday song all the time. I get trademarking logos and brand names because you don't want anyone stealing your idea or giving you a bad rep because a product with the same name isn't as good as yours. But where is the line? Kellog's owns Frosted Flakes, and General Mills has Lucky Charms, but now General Mills has Lucky Charms Frosted Flakes and I guess that's allowed? The Setup Wizard works I guess because one is an actual software product and the other is a blog that doesn't make any money? I don't get how it could get to the point of people copyrighting, trademarking, and restricting everyday words that have been around for centuries. How do you charge someone for the use of "the"? It was in intriguing concept and I really enjoyed the story. The ending seemed a little anticlimactic, but maybe that's just me; or maybe that's because there is another book after this, which I completely plan on reading. Let's just say, this author takes the idea of "Freedom of Speech" to a whole new level and really explores how our society can take a good concept, like copyrights, and take it way too far and contort it completely out of shape.

Rating: 4.5/5 I loved the idea and execution, that one death was a little much (HOW COULD YOU!!!), and the ending wasn't quite up to par, but those were my only complaints so it stays above 4, but under 5.