You may remain seated for the invocation, O Lord King of heaven and earth, may it please thee this day to order and hallow, to rule and govern our hearts and bodies, our thoughts, words, and works according to thy commandments, through Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. In May of 1963, Gustavus Adolphus College dedicated the Nobel Hall of Science. We were honored by the presence of 26 Nobel laureates, together with the chairman and the executive director of the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm. While the program was still going on in front of the Science Hall, Dr. Glenn Seaborg, director of the Atomic Energy Commission, asked me whether plans had been made to continue and to develop the association between Gustavus and the Nobel laureates, which had now been established. The suggestion was not wholly foreign to us, but we were pleased to have it come from one of their number, from one of the Nobel laureates who were our guests, and to have it endorsed by a number of others, most notably by the chairman of the Nobel Foundation, Professor Arne Tisilius, and by other representatives who were with us. Our first step in implementing the suggestion was to establish an advisory committee of Nobel laureates. As chairman, we chose Dr. Philip Hench, who had already been an unofficial advisor in connection with the dedication plans, and who had received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1950 for his work in connection with the discovery of cortisone. Dr. Hench serves also as chairman of this first Nobel symposium, and I should like to present him at this time, Dr. Hench. Dr. Glenn Seaborg agreed to serve as a second member, and he has contributed to this symposium both in correspondence and in personal conference. For the third, we asked one of the Nobel winners in physics who had made a particularly vivid and felicitous impression on us by the warmth of his personality, the breadth of his interests, and a certain wry sense of humor. Dr. Polycarp Cush is a member of the Department of Physics at Columbia University. He received the Nobel Prize in 1955 for his precision determination of the magnetic moment of the electron. During this year, he is on leave and is associated with the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He has been most helpful in planning the program for this first Nobel symposium. He has been particularly concerned that this symposium should consider a science-based issue in the larger context of its social, moral, and religious implications. We were delighted when he agreed to serve as the moderator for the symposium. His initial assignment is to make an opening statement which will prepare our minds for this very significant venture, which we think will become an exciting adventure for us all. Dr. Cush. It is my great privilege to serve as the moderator of this symposium, Genetics and the Future of Man. It is most agreeable to be able to make these general introductory remarks in this lovely chapel. I am, as a matter of fact, the son of a Lutheran clergyman and have heard unnumbered sermons, often as many as three a Sunday, in both German and English in the rural churches of the Midwest. If one's state of grace were to be determined solely by the statistics of church going, I would be in fairly good shape. The problems about which we will think rather intensively for the two days that are coming, and which I hope will be the subject for serious reflection for a long time to come, can be resolved only partly through knowledge. I wish to be emphatic about the absolute indispensability of knowledge. Still, a well-defined set of values, or lacking this, even a groping for guiding values, is essential to the resolution of almost any problem, present or future, that relates to the condition and future of man. I believe it to be appropriate that the first session of this symposium be held in this chapel. We are almost certainly not agreed that the formal religion that this chapel represents uniquely offers a set of values that will lead to excellence of personal conduct and wisdom in public policy. But we are almost certainly agreed that this chapel is a symbol for the quest for values which I think must be a part of the life of every man who believes himself to be a member of the community of civilized men. We tend in the course, we college professors, I guess, tend in the course of normal academic procedure to be occupied with the details of learning. And I sometimes think that we have only a limited awareness of the forest, what with an intense concern with individual trees. This, I think, does not meet the real needs of undergraduates or of anyone else. They examine a single tree in the domain of physics, another one in the province of biology, perhaps a couple of trees that the philosopher tends, a tree of the artist, not a real tree, but one that captures the essence of all trees and finally several trees in the territory of, say, political science. All of this does not add up to a comprehensive view of the forest and an insight into the complex relationships between the trees that leads to an organized forest to drop the analogy. Even a carefully chosen sequence of courses does not necessarily yield an inclusive and connected body of knowledge, a comprehensive view of the world. Further, in courses, we are frequently reluctant to make the assertion that the application of human knowledge of knowledge to human affairs requires the making of value judgments about a large range of things. This symposium is an instructional device, but is an attempt to depart from the conventional procedures of undergraduate instruction. It would be foolish to suggest that the undergraduates among you, the dominant segment of the audience I think, will learn as much in this symposium about any one of the topics that the speakers will discuss as you would in a disciplined course. It would be equally foolish to suppose that in two days we can do anything other than give a very general view of the forest. This symposium should command all of the education you have had and is based on the assumption of an audience with disciplined inquisitive and serious minds. It is the hope of those within the college who organized this symposium and those from the outside who will speak that you will derive some insights about the origin and nature of the problem of genetics and the future of man. The knowledge of science and the power of a closely related technology have offered to man great opportunities for increasing the pleasure that each man may find in life, forgiving increased meaning to life. At the same time, there can be no doubt that the opportunities have carried in their wake hazards and problems. By some magic in the human spirit, man has up to this point somehow or other managed to muddle through and the human condition would be conceded by a fair fraction of humanity to be better than it was even at the time as recent as one century ago. In other words, we haven't done too badly. The opportunities are greater and the hazards more pretentious in this half of the present century than they have ever been before. This is a consequence of a very rapidly evolving body of scientific knowledge and of a highly effective technology. Very importantly, perhaps even most importantly, there is at this point in history a compelling and almost universal urge to translate the knowledge of science and the power of technology into some kind of action, whether social, political, economic or military. I am of the belief that never before has man done or tried to do as many things as quickly as he now does or tries to do. We are going to make planes frontal that travel 1500 miles an hour for no reason. Many persons believe beyond the fact that it can almost certainly be done. You could cut down my travel time from Palo Alto, California to St. Peter by 10%. I spend most of the time in airports waiting for planes. We are in the midst of a crash program to send a man to the moon for no important reason many men believe other than that it can probably be done. Clearly, the urge to do anything that is possible introduces hazards into human life. In a sense, one may applaud the urge to do everything that we think can be done. Man must rise to meet challenges, whether offered by the external world or self-imposed. Indeed, the history of civilized man would barely exist if man had not attempted to do all kinds of things that appeared to be just barely possible and perhaps man surprised himself by succeeding in his attempts. Still, the things that man may potentially do have acquired a new dimension in this century.  Clearly, man must apply restraints to himself so that the doable does not in fact become the done.  It is increasingly evident that a very large scale program to do what we thought we could has posed very grave problems. There has been a serious dislocation of normal ecology and the cost to our normal natural environment has been high. We thought we could put all of America on wheels and have in fact gone far in doing so. I remind you, however, that more than 40,000 deaths occur in the United States every year through automobile accidents and that the air over many American cities is vile, thanks in part to automobile exhaust. I also remind you that vast amounts of irreplaceable natural resources have gone into the enterprise of putting every American into an automobile. I personally think that a more morally adequate act would be to share resources with even remote future generations. Whatever hope of immortality I may cherish is related to my hope that the human spirit may survive for many millennia and I believe it to be improbable that the human spirit will flourish in an exhausted planet. The point is that we can do or can aspire to do tremendous things. It is not always clear at the outset what all the implications of what we do will be. Neither is it clear that we must accept every challenge that faces us or that we can create. Wisdom and judgment, whatever those words mean, must enter into any decision as to what we do and on what terms we do it. Brief, this symposium is going to be an attempt to explore what we can do, what the implications of doing it would be or are, and perhaps some discussion of one's own view of wisdom and judgment as to whether we ought to do it. Some of the greatest opportunities for man and the greatest hazards at this point in history involve the genetic processes that occur in the human species and thus have large implications for the long-range future of man. Quite incidentally, to man's newly found ability to exploit nuclear energy for military and peaceful purposes, it is now possible for the first time in human history to expose world populations without their consent to radiation capable of producing deleterious changes in hereditary material. The last sentence I give credit where credit is due was lifted almost verbatim from a report on the biological effects of radiation in whose preparation Professor Glass had a hand. On the other hand, this is the incidental effects of nuclear energy. On the other hand, the biologist has acquired such a profound and detailed knowledge of the nature and chemistry of the genetic material that the day may not be far removed, but it would be possible to exercise a high measure of control through chemical rather than eugenic procedures over the genetic characteristics of both individuals and societies. It would be foolish to hope that muddling through will chart a wise course in this difficult terrain of opportunities, problems and hazards. I hope that the direction that we as a society take will be determined by a multitude of men, clearly including competent experts on every matter in which there can possibly be experts, but also including all men of intelligence and goodwill. Almost any decision of substance must be made through the exercise of judgment about the whole range of things. Judgment itself, the necessary ingredient in making policy, personal or public, judgment itself can, however, be valiantly exercised only on a basis of knowledge. In the present symposium, the first three lectures will be largely, but not wholly, devoted to an exploration of the scientific background of our general problem. The three men who will lecture are highly qualified experts. You cannot contribute to the determination of a social course without understanding them. Listen with care and concentration. It is not possible to have been a university teacher of science for more than 30 years without having acquired a considerable experience with undergraduates who close their minds to the possibility of understanding any part of science. I won't ask you to raise your hands, but I'm sure you're abundant. Open your minds for once what these men, the qualified experts will say and some of this is some of the substance of what will determine perhaps your personal future. The future of your race may even determine whether that most marvelous thing in all creation, the human spirit will survive. The qualified experts in genetic process as men of experience and education may express opinions and judgments of their own, not verified by the cannons of scientific inquiry. The experts have the clear right to offer judgments and opinions, perhaps also the clear obligation to present an informed judgment, but keep your minds open to opinion as opposed to knowledge. Opinion is an important component of all existence, but it is not the same thing as validated knowledge. There has always been genetic change in life on earth. If there had not been change, we wouldn't be assembled here to discuss anything at all. Prior to the turn of the century, man did not, I think, do very much to his physical environment that had a real or potential major effect on the process of genetic change. I could be wrong and I will be corrected, I am sure if I am, as an expert in something other than genetics. I recognize the pleasure with which the expert corrects a non-expert. In any case, genetic change in a natural environment has occurred throughout untold millennia and Professor Reed will discuss some aspects of this normal process. A basic question to you as citizens would be whether or not you believe that the normal process is operating so well that you would be reluctant to recommend tempering with it. This is a judgment you would have to make. For instance, the definition of the word operating so well, what's the definition of the word well in that sentence? But if you really think about the question, you will recognize at once that the days of a wholly normal genetic process are over thanks to man's fiddling with his environment.  With the discovery of x-rays by Rentgen and the isolation of radium by the Curies, a factor destined to be important in human genetics was introduced. Through specific activities of man, the normal genetic process could be modified. I don't think that this was a potential or real problem at the turn of the century. First, because human exposure to intense radiation was not general and also because a problem does not exist if you don't know about it.  The problem of genetic change through man's modification of the environment is now very real. Thanks to fallout from the bomb, the peaceful uses of atomic energy, and the prevalence of television, I am on uncertain grounds when I suggest that other environmental changes affect genetic process, the contaminants of the atmosphere, for example. Professor Glass would genuinely qualify professional of these matters will be much more precise in his discussion of the effect on genetic process of environmental change. Some of my friends among biochemists and biologists have the cautious belief that it may become possible to tailor make the genetic heritage of each individual by inducing changes in the chemical structure of basic genetic material. It may not be particularly relevant if they are right or wrong. Optimistic biochemists whether they're right or wrong in this respect may not matter very much, but it does seem quite clear that the profound knowledge developed by the new school of geneticists is certain to have profound implications for society. Dr. Tatum, will I think discuss some of this new knowledge and especially the implications of this new knowledge for the future of man? So much for the qualified experts on genetics. It is an important commentary on the pace at which the world changes that we desperately need them here. In the days of the founding of this college, you wouldn't need geneticists to talk to you about the future of man. Genetic process is also affected by their prevailing sociology and culture. For example, the mother of my children was not a Darwinian random choice. Things like multiple college degrees and Phi Beta Kappa are in the background somewhere. I think that Dr. Shockley will discuss in part the interaction of the prevailing culture and genetic constitution of the population. Let me say it just without having it on the text, all these people are semi-lunatics and I'm not sure what any of them will say and I have no faith that they will in fact say what they said they would. Professor Shockley brings to the discussion of population control or eugenics, the critical faculties. Perhaps I should add that from a purposes of my own ego, the rather considerable critical faculties of the professional physicist. Society by the very existence of social classes, non-uniform economic status, varying levels of aspiration, varying beliefs about the purpose and meaning of life has perhaps inadvertently affected a modification of its genetic composition. Has the inadvertent policy been a good one? What alternatives are possible? As Shockley speaks, bear in mind that he is critical and informed but that some or perhaps much of what he will say is descriptive of his personal sense of values, of his own view of the value and nature of human life, of his own hopes for the future of man. Nothing is more destructive of rational thought about science-related problems than the common belief that everything that a scientist says is validated by the criteria of formal science. I think the choice of Shockley is a deliberate one. A cultivated man, steeped in the scientific tradition as Shockley will talk about the problem in which he is not a competent expert. This is also an important part of the social process. We are all products of our personal history and that of our society. The moral values of man are often embodied in and described by his religion. Evidently, the value of any human action that potentially affects the nature of man himself cannot be appraised without recourse to the values which have guided or purport to have guided the actions of the individual in his society. Even those men who have become detached from any formally organized religious body or who no longer give even formal allegiance to a body of religious doctrine are inextricably involved in a set of values with an origin in religion. You can't get away from it. As a matter of fact, it's one of the problems of the rebels you can't escape. Dr. Ramsey, theologian, will speak on the moral and religious implications of genetic control. The possible societies and the possible kinds of social organization that one might envisage were one able to control the genetic heritage of each individual stagger the imagination. Not all societies would be viable as societies and only very few, I think, would yield to their members' satisfying lives. It takes someone other than an amateur in these matters to consider the effect of genetic control or the potential effect of genetic control on social organizations. What is the effect on society of an extreme diversity among men or that of a rather homogeneous population? Would men willingly concur in a policy that might somehow dilute the age-old pleasure in offspring in one's own image? I am reasonably certain that I haven't really asked the right questions, but they are questions that I ask myself. As the last of the formal speakers in this symposium, Professor Davis will speak on the sociological aspects of genetic control. You should note throughout this symposium the range of knowledge and of cultivated insights that are brought to bear on the problem under discussion. If we achieve nothing else here, we hope that you will leave with the belief that to become a truly effective member of society you must be much more than a learned physicist, an imaginative biologist, a dedicated clergyman or even an inquisitive student of social behavior. Thank you.


So, I wanted to start by telling two stories about copyright that say a little bit about where we are and then I'll explain how we got here, where I've heard is that we are and then lastly where we're going and where I think we should go. The first story I wanted to tell was on Monday in the U.S. there were two holidays. One was Martin Luther King Day, which I'm sure you're familiar with. The other was Internet Freedom Day, which you might have missed. It was the anniversary of the SOPA protests. And in honor of this, there was a piece on Slate.com, which is a very respected Internet magazine, about sort of connecting the two about how Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech is still under copyright. It made a very compelling argument, you know, how is it that this piece of American history is sort of locked up, as it's said, that it's unavailable to people? It was a very compelling argument because emotionally you feel this is part of our cultural patrimony. It should be available to anybody. Very compelling. There's a few points it didn't make. One thing it didn't make, and I thought it was funny because it only took me two minutes to find it, is that Martin Luther King was a copyright litigant, but this is the answer to the question, what do Martin Luther King and the RIAA have in common? It's not a joke. There is actually an answer. After he gave his famous I Have a Dream speech, it was put out as a record, I think as a seven-inch single, by 20th Century Fox, which was then the recording business, the record company as pirate, if you will. They wanted to make money on it, more than make it available to the public. Martin Luther King took them to court and said, I want to make money on this. I want to use it to further my cause, to fund my organization. And he won, as I think he should have. It funded his organization and now it obviously provides for his heirs as a state. It didn't make that point. It didn't make the point that, although we think of Martin Luther King as a public person, he of course was a private person, he didn't run for office. Speeches by politicians are automatically in the public domain, as they should be. Martin Luther King was a private person. It didn't make the point that this speech was easy to hear and to see long before the internet existed. Most of you have probably heard it, you've certainly read it. I grew up hearing it and seeing it before the internet in the bad old days, as it were, when the world was shrouded in darkness, we could still hear the speech. It did make the point that it's widely available online, that you can hear it and probably show it in most cases as part of fair use in the U.S. I think you have fair dealing here or it's slightly different, but fairly similar principles apply. I do think copyright lasts too long. It should be in the public domain in that sense. But one of the things that it didn't say was when something's in the public domain, it's not only available to people in the uplifting sense, it's also available to do whatever you want with. So if you thought the Nike ad that used the Beatles song Revolution was bad, are you ready for the Nike ad? I have a dream. It's on its way when this is in the public domain, now it takes too long. This also didn't reveal that the guy who wrote this piece was a lobbyist for Google. Full-time lobbyists just sort of left that part off. He was especially upset by the fact that the speech wasn't available on YouTube, where Google could obviously sell ads against it. The last thing he didn't reveal was, as a matter of fact, if you look on the internet now and you search, one of the search results you'll come up with is Pirate Bay, where you can download the Eye of a Dream speech. The Pirate Bay is funded by ads. The ad that runs next to it, someone looked, is Asian women want to meet you. True story. And although, as you know, Dr. King was famous for promoting brotherhood and understanding among all races, colors and creeds, I don't think Asian women want to meet you is exactly what he had in mind. Or as I said on Twitter, I hate it when people quote themselves, but give me an exception. I don't think that was the kind of dream he was talking about. This is the sense that copyright gets a horrible rap. I think there are problems with it. I think it lasts too long. I think it can cover too much. But I think that the fact that some of this is so one-sided leads us to make some weird conclusions and look at things in a way that I'm not sure is useful. I'll tell you another quick story. I did a copyright panel in Berlin. And it being Berlin, there were sort of three DJs wearing really cool t-shirts. A conceptual artist and me. I know that also sounds like a joke. It's not. It really happened. The conceptual artist was this bearded Puerto Rican nationalist wearing a poncho who also did very complicated conceptual art. Like I couldn't even understand what it is that he did. And he explained it to me twice. He sort of got up and he said, you know, copyright is over when the post-copyright age. No one likes copyright anymore. It's only for big companies we need to move forward. What artists need is a way to control their work, present it the way they want, and make money from it. He was this incredibly charismatic, good-looking guy, kind of fulminating. And I, you know, next the sort of bespectacled author speaks. Well, that sounds a little like copyright. No, copyright's dead. And so point is copyright has its flaws and has its excesses. You can say it lasts too long. I do think that. People say copyright shouldn't cover academic research. I'm not sure it should. I think if the government pays for something, it should be in the public domain. But people tend to focus on the things that copyright doesn't do well, that it doesn't cover well, its excesses. It distracts a lot of attention from what it does do well. Copyright was meant to cover expressive works. I think it covers expressive works pretty well. Whatever we do in terms of changing the copyright system, it would be a shame to change the system that generally works so well because it doesn't apply that well to academic research, which I have to say is not very popular on the Pirate Bay. You don't see much academic research. You don't see many movies from the 40s. You see mostly movies and music from last year. Stuff that, you know, the most pirated movie, and I think it wasn't 2012, sorry, 2011, the most popular movie to pirate to download illegally was Fast Five. Every time I speak, no one's ever seen the movie. You saw it? Oh, shame for shame, and he admits it. It's the fifth movie in the Fast and Furious franchise. I haven't seen it either. The point is when people say, you know, the public needs access to information because enriching the public is a public good, you can make that argument for academic research. But I would argue that it may not be a public good to see Fast Five. You can more easily argue that it's a public good that no one should ever have to see Fast Five. I don't choose to argue either way.  I'm anything but. You know, I grew up listening to ACDC and reading X-Men comics. How did I end up writing books? I don't know. It's a miracle. What are the odds? But, you know, I want to stand up for creators having rights to have some kind of market for culture. And if, you know, if people want to see Fast Five, that's a good thing. People stood in line to see this movie. That's a good thing. People were hired to make the movie. That's a good thing. I don't think that movie needs to be, there's no reason why it ought to be free. So how did we get to this point? I think for the past 10 years, we sort of all been hearing a story about smart companies versus dump companies, greedy companies versus generous companies, the rights of people versus the hunger for profit of corporations. None of this is false. There's certainly some of this happening, but I would argue that it's not the whole story. So I wrote my book as a counter narrative, which is just a fancy book author's way of saying the other side of the story. I don't mean it to be the other side of the story as in, here's the story and I'm rebutting it. I want to give people a different way to look at the same issues.  Every company that deals with copyright online has made more than enough mistakes. There's more than enough blame to go around it. That's the one thing there's no shortage of.  People say the labels should have made a deal with Napster. For complicated reasons, I argue that that might have been actually impossible for legal reasons. The labels are in trouble, but few people point out, Napster went out of business and a different version of Napster have gone out of business twice since then. Anyone who thinks internet companies have all the answers need only look at Groupon. 3D versus generous. Media companies want to make money. That's why they're companies. Online companies want to make money too. When venture capitalists start calling other people greedy, I think we've really entered the silly season. It's time to step back and apply a little more logic. As far as companies versus rights, you know this rights on both sides of this. In the US, we have a purely utilitarian approach toward copyright with some exceptions. In the Commonwealth, the tradition is a more utilitarian approach. That's not the case in the whole world. And in Europe, through compromises, through the Berne Convention, as these things have gone together, there's more and more of this in different legal systems, the continental notion, the classic French notion of creator's rights. And if you look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that's in there. As a creator, you have the moral and material right to the results of your work. People talk about copyright as an ownership right. One of the things that's somewhat distressing to me is the number of far right libertarians who agree with my book. You know, it's tough to have dinner or lunch with the kind of people who identify their favorite author as Ayn Rand with no sense of shame. I think you don't have these people in Europe and you're all the better for it. To me, there's also a very strong progressive argument for copyright. As a creator, how can I benefit from my work? Random House has the rights to my book, but I sign them over. I acted with agency, and I can control to some extent how my book is presented. I'm interested in making money from my book. We'll make a modest living at best, I assure you. But that's only one of my interests. I also want to make sure it's presented in a certain way. It doesn't need to be leather bound and presented on a gold tray. But I kind of hope it doesn't run next to an ad for Russian brides. I don't think that's asking too much. I've got a good sense of humor, but I did spend a year and a half working on the damn thing. How did copyright get such a bad rap? A lot of the blame does go to media companies. Suing individuals was a terrible idea. I don't necessarily think it was unjust, legally or morally, but there are a lot of problems with it. And I think tactically, it really alienated more people than anything else. It came to be seen as, oh, it only helps the wealthy. So I talk a lot at these kinds of events, and people say, well, copyright only helps big corporations. I don't think that's true. They say big corporations don't act well. That is true, but it's true of all big corporations. And a lot of the problems with these media companies are problems with contract law. If you look at the record companies don't treat artists well, it's not an issue of copyright. Artists signed over their copyright. There's problems with those contracts. They're difficult to enforce. I'm not making excuses for the problems, and I think it's important to be critical of that. But the good thing about that is artists have a legal recourse, not easily. You know, there's a famous case that temptations sue universal records. They said they weren't paying them well, and people said, see, that's the problem with copyright. It lets universal rip off the temptations. I said, that's a problem with the contract. Copyright law is what gives the temptations the right to sue universal to get the money they ought to be due. Now, I'm not a fan of anyone suing anybody. The best lawyers don't need to sue. They sort of stare at the other side until they break down in tears. I'm slightly kidding. But the fact that you can't sue tends to provide a rationale for people acting well. Big companies rarely act generously. Universal is only going to pay the temptations what they need to. I would say the same is true of YouTube. YouTube is only going to pay the temptations what they need to. You need to have some kind of rights. The other thing that I think is interesting, the last part of the story that I think is coming up the works here is that this is new. The internet is new. This issue is much more complicated. But if you follow copyright at all, and it's become a terrible hobby for me, I'm embarrassed to say, I got much more. I swore after I wrote the book I would never talk about it again. And as my wife would be happy to tell you, it now seems like I never talk about anything else to the annoyance of everyone I know.  All of these arguments go back in different ways throughout history. Victor Hugo stood up for copyright. Mark Twain, Charles Dickens. Dickens in some way was the Metallica of his day. Before you laugh, Dickens' copyrights were protected in the U.K., in the U.S. they weren't. Newspapers used to print sections of Dickens books because they weren't under copyright. Charles Dickens went to the U.S. to lecture. One of the things he did when he lectured is he talked about how the U.S. ought to protect his rights. Newspapers lambasted him. They called him a greedy, rich author who's trying to take his work away from the public. Part of that was because they had a certain view of it. Part of that was because Dickens was providing free content for newspapers. Newspapers then, like YouTube now, it's a much better business to sell ads against content you don't have to pay for than content you do have to pay for. People had it in for Dickens. I read the first copyright case I found. I can't guarantee that it's the first, but it's the first that I found was actually in ancient Ireland. And I am a Jewish guy from New York, so forgive my terrible pronunciation. You can laugh if it makes you feel better. It's about a Vulgate translation of a Bible into Latin. St. Finian, for various reasons, came to have the only copy in Ireland. He showed it to Comkill, formerly a student. Copy the book by night without permission. Finian discovered this. He objected and demanded the duplicate. That is my property. It's a copy of my book. Now tell me if this sounds familiar. They brought their dispute to King Dermot. And Comkill said, my friend's claim seeks to apply a worn out law to a new reality. It could come straight from the Viacom YouTube case. These laws are old. They no longer apply to this new reality. Never mind that the new reality was copying a huge book with probably, I guess it would have been a quill and ink pen. Not exactly the most convenient thing in the world. King Dermot said, I don't know where you get your fancy new ideas about other people's property. To every cow it's calf. To every book it's child book. And this is in 561. The arguments are very, very similar. Someone, another thing someone told me as well, the internet makes copying very easy. Before that, it wasn't possible to copy books. I said, I seem to remember this mechanical photocopier thing that's in every single office.  You could do it. There are some laws that govern it. In the U.S., we license photocopiers the way here. Imro, if I'm getting the name right, I'm sorry if I'm not licensed as bars and pubs. You could argue about whether that's the best idea. Should it be done better? But all of these things have a precedent. What frightens me about the debate on copyright, and I think it should frighten you whether you agree with me or not, is that we have a lot of people, I think mostly on the anti-copyright side, but also on both sides, making claims that are just unbelievably sort of a historical and really audacious. And we should look at them with more skepticism and look at them with more historical background. Let me talk a bit about big media companies that get such a bad rap. I'm not defending them. I don't take any money from them. I'll talk about why I went with a big media company. Copyright is my right. I wrote the book. It's my book. I can do whatever I want with it. The next book I write, I might choose to sell it myself. If I sell it myself, I'll probably be a lot angrier about piracy because the money is coming out of my pocket instead of Bertelsmann's, and they have much bigger pockets than I do. One of the reasons I went with a big media company, not the only one is because I couldn't do anything about piracy myself. I don't really have a practical legal option. That's a shame. Bertelsmann is more power. Why did I go with Bertelsmann? I wanted to write a book. A non-fiction book takes a lot of time to research. Not all non-fiction books, I should say. For me, this took a year and a half. I hired a Swedish translator, a German translator, a French translator just for a couple days each, not extensively. I had to have an assistant. I could have done without that if my deadline wasn't so tight. I had transcription, and I went to Brussels, London, Copenhagen. This is when I was based in Berlin, New York, DC, and LA. I mostly stayed on people's couches, but it adds up. If I were rich, I wouldn't have needed a random house. I could have funded it myself. Alas, I'm not, unfortunately. So how was I to get the money to write this book? Most people go to a bank. Imagine me in a bank. You're laughing already. Wait for the joke.  I'm sorry. I don't have any collateral. No, I'm going to write a book. No, no, you can't see the book yet. It's not written. All I have is a proposal. I've never written a book before. This is the first one. Why do I think I can do it? I don't know. I don't know. Well, the book business, well, if it does well, it might make 10 times its money back. But, you know, only one out of every eight books makes money. I'm not walking out of there with a loan. Random house gave me that money. That's really important. And I think that's the soul of what media companies do. People say we don't need these media companies. Distribution is now free online. That's true, but distribution was never that complicated. Getting books into bookstores hasn't been very complicated for a long time. People assume that printing hard-backed books must be really hard because they sell for $28. 20 euros, I'm guessing. I don't know the standard. But, you know, it costs about $4. This is in the U.S. to print, bind, pack, ship, store, warehouse, and allow for returns. The rest of the book is the cost of creating it. You're not paying for bound paper. You're not paying for a blank CD. That's why the blank CD is cheap. You're not paying for a hunk of vinyl. This was always true. Records seem like, wow, it must be really hard to make a record. People walk into a record store. They say $10 for a CD is too much. I want to buy a piece of vinyl for $20. That's not entirely logical because it doesn't cost $10 more to make vinyl and to make a CD. And, you know, you can make vinyl at home as a precedent at home vinyl kit. You can buy it for $5,000. You laugh. That'll be $1,000 in five years, and it'll be $200 in 20 years. The idea of the sort of, oh, you copyright manufacturer's scarcity. You know, you do want some kind of protection because whatever you do, the value is in what's in it, not the object itself. Random House did other things for me in editor, promotion, marketing. I could have hired people to do that. I think they did a better job. But if I had money, I could have hired people to do that. What Random House did a really good job of is the aggregate risk. That's important. If I know that one out of every eight books is going to make money, I face a very difficult decision. If I have a one in eight chance of making 10 times my money, mathematically, it's a good bet. But as an independent creator, okay, I have a seven in eight chance of not eating and a one in eight chance of making a good bit of money. Well, if I was a gambling man who wanted a lot of money, I wouldn't have been a writer in the first place. But it's a very tough decision to make. You hear a lot about people who they take that chance, and their first book is very successful, and they say, who needs a big media company? More power to them. I respect their decision to do business that way. You don't read a lot about people. They self-publish a book and it goes nowhere. It's not news, but there's more of them out there. Not defending these big companies. Some of their practices are bad. They arguably have too much market power. But creators wouldn't make deals with them if creators didn't like those deals.  Why did I take a $4 royalty out of $28?  Some of you may vote for that. That's fine, but you're the other alternative. And people say, you know, why do authors get paid so little? It's because of this risk. Ironically, what's the other business that works like this? Venture capital. If you look at venture capital, venture capitalists are in the business of going to 25-year-olds with big dreams and giving them terrible deals with a bank always wins. Why? Because it's a very risky business. If it weren't a risky business, people would offer better deals. I'm not saying that's great, but it's interesting that the same people who really condemn the media companies offer deals that are broadly similar in how they work. So let's talk now about how copyright should work. I think about copyright infringement. I think of three categories. One is creative infringement. The other is consumptive infringement. The third is commercial infringement. I made up these names. They're based on other people's work. I tried to make them sound more accessible, I guess. Creative infringement, I'll give you an example. I was at one of these events and someone said, isn't it terrible that you can't remix anything? NWA once got sued for sampling three seconds of a Funkadelic song. And I stood up and I said, yeah, I think that's terrible. I think it's illogical. There's no harm done sampling three seconds. The law might see it another way. I think that's silly. I think the copyright system ought to see it as being harmless. And then I said, but remember, who was the producer that did that sample? Dr. Dre. Who was the second musician to sue Napster after Metallica? Dr. Dre. Now the idea of suggesting we should reform our copyright system based on Dr. Dre may seem a bit audacious, but I think what he says is common sense. A three-second sample doesn't hurt the other person. Using my music to profit a large corporation without compensating me, that is a wrong. That's creative infringement. To understand the rest, the difference between consumptive infringement and commercial infringement, let me use an example. If I told you that when I was 16, I used to sneak into the movie theater to see a movie, would you think less of me, anyone? It seems like something that 16-year-olds do and eventually grow out of. It doesn't seem like a big deal. Hardly anyone would say there shouldn't be any punishment for it, but a slap in the wrist, a call to someone's parents, a warning not to come back to the theater would probably suffice. Morally, that makes sense. Now, let's take another example. Let's say when I was 16, I had a job at a movie theater. It was my job to let people in the front door for $8. Instead, I let people in the back door for $6. Kept all the money for myself and pursued this as an ongoing for-profit business without paying taxes on it for years. That's the difference between consumptive infringement and commercial infringement. Right away, I think you would think ill of me if I did that. I hope. By the way, I didn't do either. I was more because I was gutless than because I was moral. I was a wimpy kid. But this is common sense. There's broad agreement on it. We could talk now. All we have to do is turn that into law, but you know what feels right and what doesn't feel right. People downloading something that they don't have access to is wrong. Right now, the only way we have to address that is this horrible sort of reverse lottery where you have a one in a million chance of getting hit with a fine for $50,000. I think that's bad for two reasons. One, it's an unfair fine. Two, I don't think it's very effective either. I would rather see a one in 10 chance of a $30 fine, like a traffic ticket. This is very difficult to do, but I think it's important to just start off with principles. It's probably not impossible. Where we ought to be focusing our efforts, though, is on commercial infringement. People who build the business out of exploiting the work of others. To continue the sort of parallel, what we're faced with now is a very aggressive lobbying campaign organized by sort of scoff law movie theater employees who are agitating for a law that makes locking backdoors illegal. You look at what Kim.com is doing with mega upload, you could talk about there's jurisdictional problems with that case. I have to admit I don't understand them.  I agree. It's very hard to argue that what he's doing is right. You know, does the law do different laws and different jurisdictions possibly protect him? The courts have to decide. Is what he's doing right? It's very difficult to make that case. He's running a business based on using the creative works of others without compensating them. So I think when you talk about copyright law, and then I'll take some questions, I think there's three things you have to keep in mind. Length, breadth, and depth. This is a bit gimmicky, but it's a, I found it's a good way to sort of simplify what seems like a complicated issue. What is a complicated issue? Length is how long copyright lasts. I think the last way too long. You know, the idea that my book is under copyright for 70 years after I'm dead seems absurd. You know, if anyone can, I mean the way things are going sometimes if anyone can read 70 years after I'm dead I'll be quite excited. But that's probably a bit pessimistic. You know, I don't want that long. Personally, I think 50 years ought to do it. I also think we need simpler terms. Right now, you know, I was joking that my next book I'm going to write with my daughter, she's two. So she'll have, you know, assuming we both live the same amount of time, another 40 years of copyright. I don't think anything prevents me from doing it. But it's very complicated because you have to know who's alive where they are. It's much better, it makes much more sense at a time when this is complicated to take protection from creation. 50 years from creation, you could argue for 40 or 60, but the idea that you need more than 100 years of copyright is absurd. I think the idea that you don't need copyright is equally absurd. I think we should sort of dismiss both those extremes so we can make some progress. Now let's talk about breadth. How much should be covered? We all agree that this, I hope we all agree that this book should be covered. How about a French translation of this book? I would argue that that should be covered. I want that for two reasons. One, I want the money. There's not a lot of money in foreign translations. But I also want to make sure that it's translated correctly. Someone said, you know, have you thought about translating your book into check? Someone asked me online. I said, well, I haven't looked. I don't think there's any market for that. And someone said, I don't have the right to do that on Creative Commons. And I said, I would not want to work with a translator. I haven't met with no one to vouch for them. Now, I sort of do that indirectly, but I would argue that I don't. You know, Random House bought World Rights to my book. So they control this, but they control it with my blessing. They found a Spanish publisher. They had worked with that Spanish publisher before. They have some faith in them, and they have an incentive not to screw it up because they want to work with Random House again. Same with the Korean publisher. There's some faith that that's going to go reasonably well. God knows I'll never check, especially in Korea, and I could probably get through the first page in Spanish. But the idea of working with someone I don't know, it's not only a money issue. It's I want to make sure my work is presented faithfully. It shouldn't be that way. It shouldn't be so why you can do anything. But the same token, if you want to quote one sentence, two sentences, two paragraphs, two pages of my book in the course of reviewing it, I think copyright law ought to allow that. If you want to use the plot of my book, that's fine. I always tell people if they want to make a movie in my book, I want to get paid. If they want to make a movie of my book with zombies in it, I don't expect to be paid. No one has taken me up on either of these offers and I don't think anyone will, but hope springs eternal. So we need to reform a little in those areas. The thing I think is the most important though is depth. This is a limited right. Copy rights are right, but other people have rights to the way we worked at ours. We have limited rights and compromises. I want real protection. I don't want, right now I have 100 years of hypothetical protection. I have copyright. Big deal. It's available for free online. Hypothetically, I have 100 years. In actuality, the day the book came out, it was available illegally on a site in Brazil. Not being downloaded to Brazil where it might have been hard to get. So even though I don't approve of that, I can understand it. It was just being offered by someone who was running a for-profit business. This wasn't user-uploaded content. This was they were profiting on my book a day after. While I don't need more than 100 years of theoretical protection, I certainly want at least a couple years of actual protection. And I think that I'll just say in closing, you know, we're always told we can't have this. You know, we say you have to choose between copyright and privacy. You have to choose between copyright and the internet. Brights holders are going to break the internet. This is all these horrible compromises we're told we have to make to preserve copyright. I don't buy that. I'll be blunt. You know, Google said that copyright protection will break the internet. They also said privacy law will break the internet. They seem to think anything that's bad for Google will break the internet. I don't know what breaking the internet means. It's not a China plate that's going to roll off the table. You know, I also don't want the internet to stay the same as it was in 1996. The internet should develop. The laws that government should develop. And we should be able to make these compromises. I mean, you could accuse me of wanting to have it all. But I do think we need to balance these rights against each other. And I do think there are ways to do that. It's not easy. But I think the first step is having a slightly more nuanced debate rather than sort of, you know, you're stealing. You're trying to keep dictionaries out of the hands of children, which is sort of what we have now. And I hope my book is a modest step. I'm sure it's only a modest step. But that's sort of what I'd like to see going forward. And now I'll take some questions and dodge her old cell phones.


Hey friends tonight. I'm hanging out at Epcot. It is almost the end of 2019 only two more days to go But this will be my last vlog for 2019 I have to work on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day So I won't be able to come out to the parks But I decided I wanted to come here to Epcot And I wanted to do something that has to do with my New Year's resolution, which is be happier So one thing I never really do is buy myself clothing as you can tell I wear the same shirts over and over again And almost all the vlogs, but one really caught my eye and that is the Epcot spirit jersey Let's go do this and Honestly for it being December 29th. It seems so empty in this park Which is actually a godsend and I love that Epcot is still in the festival of holidays I can hear the Christmas music playing and it seems so nice that I love the holidays I love the holidays in Disney. It's actually the first time I've seen the Starbucks temporary location here in Epcot And that's really good and also the restrooms. They just added right over here These restrooms were needed so bad because the old restrooms that were in the front of World Showcase They literally always had a line the men's room had one stall and one urinal and it was almost impossible I don't know what the ladies room was like, but they needed them. Thank you Sources tell me that the Epcot spirit jersey is either at the Epcot experience or pin traders behind Spaceship Earth So I'm gonna hit up the Epcot experience first because sometimes that closes early So if they close early that means I only got one location and that doesn't look very good for me There it is the Epcot experience. It looks like it's not open, but I do see people walking around in there Thumbs crossed here people thumbs crossed. I love it when I make up my own sayings. That don't make any sense.  I don't think I've ever been Excited for a single piece of clothing than this right here. How much does it cost? 69.99 Oh Totally worth it. I said I'm gonna buy things and make myself happy and that's what I'm doing and I'll take it. I'll buy it at a high price Well, I bought it. I Bought it came to $60 with my annual past discount and I think I'm gonna put it on like right now I think I'm gonna go to the restroom and I'm gonna put it on and enjoy even though. It's a little hot That's why I always shied away from spirit jerseys, but I really really wanted one in this is the perfect one I like the way it fits. Oh boy. Well, I got a model it off here Now that I have successfully been able to get my Epcot spirit jerseys There's something else that's new at Epcot that I want to experience and that's the Neil Patrick Harris Margarita here in the Mexico Pavilion at the tequila cave I've read about it and I've been excited to try it only because it's a margarita made by Neil Patrick Harris Oh boy, I wasn't anticipating a line out the door well I might as well hop in line and wait I'm here for that margarita So very cool fact but actually Neil Patrick Harris came here just a couple days ago and actually made this himself and The drink that I'm drinking today that he made is called black magic and I talked to a couple of the cast members And they even told me that the drink and the mixture that I'm gonna get today is the one that he actually made So it's like Neil Patrick Harris is making me a drink. How awesome is that? And there it is right in the menu. I'm still waiting to actually be able to order it, but look at that Created by Neil Patrick Harris himself $21 that is a steep margarita and it's frozen And there it is the black magic made by Neil Patrick Harris It has mescal blackberry puree Casas liquor lime and mint served frozen Very very pretty. I'm excited to try it First sip.  It's got a little kick to it. Wow Yeah, wow I think I'm gonna push this mint down in there. Where'd it go? Mix it around give it a little bit more minty flavor Mm-hmm One thing I did learn about tequila and especially mescal is that it has a very smoky flavor to it So this is actually a very smoky margarita. You'll get a little smoky aftertaste So now I got my black magic and my Epcot spirit jersey I think I'm gonna just walk around World Showcase and just explore it and enjoy And since I'm heading in the direction towards Norway I'm gonna go in the gods of the Vikings exhibit I haven't been in here for a while and it's something I really like. I also like sneaking through this side a little bit It's a little narrow passageway, but look at this. You can actually walk right through here. This is one of the Most secluded spots in Epcot. You can come hang out here and just watch people from right here. Look at this There's like nobody here. Well because nobody can fit in here really. What's a good people watching spot? Also, it's a very good place to get out of the heat. Today. It's not really hot Oh, but during the summertime you creep in here. You get some good AC Look at that man. He'll tell you That Thor definitely looks a lot different than the Thor we're used to see and on the big screen Get a little mean you're mean you're I can't say it right And there is Odin himself Odin's son. Well, that kind of looks like Odin from the big screen Thor I don't know but that one. Oh, yeah For it only being two days away in New Year's Eve happening This is so quiet here at Epcot. Usually it is jam-packed over in this section, but not tonight Don't believe me. Look at the lines for the festival the holiday boots. There is nobody in line I've never been able to walk up to a booth without having to wait You can see here. They're actually starting to set up for New Year's Eve They usually have a very big dance party happening over here near Italy and it's very very Boppin like it is a boppin time over here at darn New Year's Eve One thing I realized about world showcase in the festival the holidays is I have not eaten any of the food and actually the only time I'd be in any of the food was during the media event So I decided to come over to the American holiday table and try the slow roasted turkey and Look at that. I got mine without cranberry sauce, but wow that looks delicious. What about you guys? Do you like cranberry sauce? I'm not a fan Usually during the festivals the food offerings aren't that big, but I feel like that is pretty big You get all of that green beans stuffing gravy turkey and cranberry sauce unless you don't like the cranberry sauce It's only six bucks. That's not bad green beans I Didn't even notice they had mashed potatoes underneath the turkey in between the stuffing Wow Look at those potatoes just hiding under there. No idea I am just stuffing my face with turkey and the candlelight processional choir is just walking behind me Good job Good job guys. Good job. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. I Know it's a little bit late and the festival of the holidays is ending soon But that turkey was probably one of the best festival foods I've ever had Wow, why did I wait so long? Epcot forever starts in about 13 minutes So I think I'm gonna go get some dessert since I had a good turkey dinner and watch the fireworks But I don't know where I'm gonna get dessert from I Have an idea. Hopefully they're still open though I'm thinking something bakery ish from the bakery in France bakery ish. I like that They always have very delicious treats back here. So let's see what they got going on in these cases up here Wow, so many things to choose from The cream brulee looks pretty good, but I think I want the Napoleon right over here. I'll have to wait my time though Yes, that's the thing right there. That's what I want the Napoleon Even though the eclairs look pretty good for the macaroons or these biscuit chocolate But we're going with the Napoleon And here is my Napoleon And I actually decided to sit right here and eat it because I'm next to the Napoleon picture, huh? No, no, no wait, that's not gonna work. What did I do? I ruined it.  Oh, we got 20 seconds Feel very good. I think that's gonna do it for me tonight. I am done with Epcot I'm going back out to the car and I'm done with 2019. This is the last vlog Like I said, I have to work New Year's Eve and New Year's Day But I do want to say thank you to you guys because even though 2019 was such a horrible year for me. It really was I can't even begin to tell you how bad 2019 was for me You guys and this channel was the best thing that came out of it, honestly I don't think I would have made it through 2019 if it wasn't for this channel and all the comments and everything Seriously, I love every single one of you. I love every single comment except for the bad comments I don't like those ones, but thank you. Thank you so much and 2020 it's just a couple days away. So love the life you live. We'll see you next time


athletic dads, absent dads, two dads, accepting dads, I've always known, God dads, sugar dads, distant dads, your dad


This is the Big Picture, an official television report of the United States Army, produced for the armed forces and the American people. Now, to show you part of the Big Picture, here is Master Sergeant Stuart Quinn. Today, when science is presenting the American Fighting Man with an increasingly broad array of new and mighty weapons, we sometimes are inclined to forget the contributions to victory, made by the basic tools of defense in the past. The subject of today's Big Picture is rarely thought of as a weapon, but in a very real sense it is. In many roads to glory, we will see just how large a role the Army truck has played in preserving the freedom of the United States in the 20th century. The United States Department of Defense today handles the greatest volume of freight and passenger traffic of any organization in the world. The Army, under the new single manager concept, has the responsibility for all the military traffic management on land in the country. Moving millions of passengers and millions of tons of cargo every year is the job of the Army Transportation Corps. Its personnel and equipment today perform unparalleled peacetime services and are ready to undertake the added supply burden in the event of war. By its very nature, the atomic and missile army of today calls for great mobility and dispersion. Rapid delivery of men and supplies to the combat zone is essential. The Army Transportation Corps is gearing itself today to the fullest support of these highly mobile, widely dispersed combat forces. Under the sweeping reorganization of our airborne divisions, with its five battle groups, is the first divisional-sized unit to be developed that is entirely air transportable with current equipment. With fighting men hitting the battlefield with unmatched speed, our supply forces work with equal swiftness, giving infantry and armor the weapons and machines where and when they are needed. Since World War II, airborne troops have been a hard hitting, high priority part of the Army's defense forces. Through new techniques, greater experience and the will to improve, the Transportation Corps and the Quartermaster Corps have made the parachuting of bigger and heavier equipment possible. Today, multi-ton trucks are dropped to earth to strengthen the fighting power of the all-important foot soldier. Other vehicles too large to move except by ship a few years ago can be flown to any part of the world today. This means better supply and greater mobility to the infantrymen gives him more fighting punch. Airborne vehicles, large and small, parachuted or delivered by cargo planes, help give our modern Army its new look. This is a dynamic fighting force which bears but little resemblance to the Army's America fielded in the past to preserve our freedom. In the days of World War I, the truck is a relatively new machine, its potentialities little explored. The foot soldier is just that and the workhorse of the Army is the horse or mule. As a nation, America was taking its first steps in the automotive age. By war's end, greater mechanization has been achieved. The truck's role in battle is growing. Then all too soon, blitzkrieg. September 1, 1939, the face of war has changed as the Nazi forces slashed into Poland. Nazi shock troops riding in tanks and trucks raced through and around the stunned Polish Army. This is but a dress rehearsal for conquest to come. Tanks and trucks, as shock world perceives, are the backbone of the fast-striking mechanized Wehrmacht. Realization of the meaning of blitzkrieg is felt when the Netherlands and Belgium are invaded. Never have fighting men moved so fast to take objective after objective. Never have armies moved so fast to swallow whole countries. In the wake of the planes, the Panzer Division strike out, driving between the converging armies of the Allies. All the deep dug, heavily armed defenses of the French are bypassed by the swift moving columns. The rolling army is the winning army. The fall of France causes Americans to look to their own defenses. We are short on weapons, long on manpower and know-how. Their mocked success with military trucks and vehicles has been noted by American leaders. Once we have toughened ourselves for battle, we too shall be a mechanized fighting machine. In 1942, we and the British have the power to strike back. Great sands swept North Africa. Here our forces will score their first victories over the Vaunted Wehrmacht. The station corps will play a decisive role. So the sole means of supply and they perform heroically. One motorized unit consisting of 166 vehicles goes through 32 days of continuous combat with only 12 minor mechanical failures. With trucks bringing up the fighting hardware, the Allies are able to face the Wehrmacht on equal terms for the first time. With guns and ammunition in plentiful supply, American and British forces give the Nazis a taste of their own medicine. Meets defeat, no longer master of mechanized warfare. Half a world away in Southeast Asia, one of the greatest sagas in the history of military supply is being written. With the fall of Burma to the Japanese army, we have been cut off from our allies in China except by air over the Himalayas. Across the rice fields and the towering mountains beyond, a road would have to be built. At the little village of Lido in northeast India where the rail line ends, army engineers set to work to create a supply highway between inland China and the port of India. Thousands upon thousands of native laborers are recruited to help with the job. For centuries, nothing better than aux trails had been carved through this rugged and hostile countryside. But bulldozers of the clearing and grubbing gang set about carving a trail through the jungle. Trees are felled, lumber hewed, and bridges built across streams never span before. The advanced parties battle their way relentlessly eastward, blazing the trail. This will be a road designed for trucks. Despite jungle and swamps, poisonous insects and snakes, over trails and mountains, despite the flooding rains of the summertime monsoon, the road is pushed forward. Following the cats and cans and sheep's foot tampers, graders shape the road and bank. Thanks to a monumental combination of brains and courage, devotion, and sweat, the road is built and the first convoy sets out from Lido for the Chinese border nearly 500 miles away. The truck convoy rolls over a road which at best is a truck driver's nightmare. The highway itself dips and climbs, twists, and turns back on itself in a series of dizzying turns. The trucks and drivers are exposed to enemy fire often before China comes into view. But they get through now and thousands of times again in the months ahead. It is possible that only American engineering genius could have built this road. It is certain that only American trucks and drivers could have utilized it. The multi-drive vehicles developed by American peacetime industry easily adapt themselves to meet the almost impossible demands of the Lido road. They turn a jungle and mountain highway into a life-saving line of supply at this critical juncture in history. But the transportation corps' biggest test is yet to come. On the 6th of June, D-Day, more than 250,000 Allied soldiers charge ashore in Normandy. If this fingerhold on the coast is to be held expanded, the troops will need thousands of additional combat items, millions of tons of supply. They will need them first on the beach head, then a mile inland, then hundreds of miles inland. To direct and handle the flood of supplies are the quartermaster and transportation corps. The loaded trucks surge ashore. By radio, the vital supplied trucks and tanks are directed. For every five men put ashore, one invasion vehicle is lent. The massive supply problems mount ammunition for the rifles and tank guns, food for the men, gasoline for the lumbering vehicle. A gap from the beaches to the front lines must be breached. A job only trucks can do here. The ships and landing craft have done their part well. After the initial landing, the world waits anxiously for the answer to the basic questions. Can the Allies break from their tiny perimeter? Can the supplies be moved fast enough in sufficient quantities to expand the bridgehead? The responsibility rests with the transportation corps. Highs continue their swift advance. Truck convoys continue with their mammoth supply operation, driving day and night to set a logistical record on paralleled in history. Rain and mud combine to slow the pace to create added problems, but never for long. With the Allied breakthrough, it is no longer a question of reaching the front lines a short distance from the beach. The front lines are far inland and moving fast. The caravans of the Green Diamond, XYZ, White Ball and others now make supply history. Among the most memorable is the remarkable Red Ball Express. It is organized to supply General Patton's armored columns 400 miles away with urgently needed supplies. Experience drivers are ready to drive day and night. The trucks will travel a one-way speedway. Only vehicles displaying the Red Ball may pass. Thousands of American lives depend on the success of their supply mission. During the crucial stages of the operation, more than 400 trucks an hour rumble along this route. 7,000 tons of ammunition and hardware are delivered to the front in a single day. The Red Ball Express rolls on around the clock on under withering enemy fire. The night after night, despite the enemy, press rolls on until its mission is successfully completed. While the Allies advance in Europe, more American soldiers fight another kind of war on the scattered islands of the Pacific. Here, if possible, the supply problem is even greater, for the battlefields are even farther from the production centers and most of the islands offer no network of roads. Island after island falls to our army. Once again, bring up the vital supplies. Tow the artillery from position to position to drive the enemy deeper and deeper into his jungle layer. On most of the islands, roads or no roads, trucks provide the sole means of supply and transportation. Make it possible to hit the enemy fast before he can recover from the initial shock of invasion. Important vehicles in the Pacific is the common place dump truck. As well as being pressed into service as a troop carrier, they combine with other construction equipment to repair airfields and to build new bases from which American planes can strike at the Japanese homeland. To make homes for the increasing number of new bombers arriving from the United States, on island after island, building airfield after airfield, the construction men of the CBs and the Army Corps of Engineers work unflaggingly, sending more and more planes along. Planes carrying greater payloads than ever before until victory is complete. Men of the United States Army find themselves serving once more in Asia, fighting another even more implacable foe. Highway system as such is non-existent. Except for a few main roads, the country through which our supplies must be carried is linked by primitive cart trails. In conjunction with the Transportation Corps' military railway service, the truck drivers are called upon to carry a large share of the supply load. Said an American soldier writing in Pacific Stars and Stripes in 1952, the story of the truckers of the Army Transportation Corps is the portrayal of men, wheels and guts, braving the most perilous roads in the world to expeditiously deliver the vital supplies and men of war to the forward most outposts of the Eighth Army in Korea. Failure site of a standard six by six heading north with no regard for the unseen guerrilla dangers or incoming enemy artillery exemplifies the courage of the men behind the wheel of these world famous vehicles, the trucks of the Army Transportation Corps. But these trucks bring more than package death to the stubborn enemy. To the civilian population of the Republic of South Korea, they bring the stuff of life itself. The bags of rice which mean the difference between survival and death for helpless and homeless, the aged, the women and the children. The road to glory is a two-way street leading to victory in battle and to charity among the stricken. Wherever the emergency at home or abroad, the trucks of the Army do human service. Called repeatedly in time of national disaster, the trucks and drivers are quick to respond. They are constantly ready to perform relief tasks that only they are suited for. To fight the floodwaters, they bring the equipment for sandbags and the men to build the dykes. A flexible, highly mobile emergency task force, the fleets of the Army trucks not only supply men and material for preventive work at the scene, but also help the stricken population directly. Watergoing vehicles developed to Army specifications to meet Army requirements cruise the flooded streets, searching out those trapped in their inundated homes. Such scenes of rescue have been witnessed scores of times throughout the country in recent years, and the men of our Army take great pride in their mercy work. To help the shattered community get back on its feet again, the Army trucks bring in emergency rations to feed the tired and hungry, provide the materials for emergency shelters for the homeless. To the Aberdeen proving ground in Maryland are sent continually the new trucks developed for the Transportation Corps by Army Ordnance. No new truck model is accepted as standard equipment until it is undergone extensive testing. When a new vehicle arrives at Aberdeen, it is carefully examined by experienced engineering personnel to make sure that it conforms in every detail to the military characteristics and specifications drawn up earlier by the Army trucking experience. The new model is now ready for long exhaustive tests under the most rugged conditions a truck is liable to meet in the field. The vehicles designed by Ordnance are rugged and durable. They are built not only to stand abuse and to keep on working, but to reduce maintenance problems. If the axles and frames stand up under the twistings given by this uneven rolling roadbed, chances are the truck will hold up on any road it may have to travel. New trucks tested here are designed with maximum safety and maximum performance constantly in mind. All are pre-tested before battle to prevent American lives from being lost as a result of faulty ordinance. Equally important, these new models are designed to be adaptable. They are expected to perform without mechanical failure under a wide variety of conditions. These trucks are built with a minimum of gadgets, thereby cutting the possibility of breakdowns and eliminating many extra maintenance problems. And as far as possible, they have interchangeable parts, which also speed maintenance and cut the problems of supply parts. Small or large, transportation vehicles are designed to help win battles by making each piece as light as possible, as fast and as maneuverable as possible, both on the way to action and while under fire. Whether for transporting men in supplies or for use in testing other army weapons, the trucks are conceived and built as members of a family of vehicles. Each is designed for either a specific task or for performing several tasks well, thereby giving an overlapping line of vehicles for every type of work on every type of terrain. The Transportation Corps is interested in developing new and better amphibious vehicles as well as roadbound trucks. These vehicles, half boat and half truck, are designed to carry troops and cargo from ship to shore and then to move men in supplies to locations inland from the beachhead. Always the accent is on greater and greater versatility and mobility. On the drafting boards today is a revolutionary new vehicle for the men of our army. Under study is a special logistical carrier utilizing nuclear power. This concept of nuclear powered cargo trains for overland operations would be ideal for operations in remote areas like the Arctic. The carrier will probably be on the order of a freight train with huge rubber-tired wheels for travel over rough terrain. A nuclear-powered electrical generator would be carried in the rearmost element of the train. Each wheel would have an electric motor built in so power could be applied to the different sections of the train. The driver and other operating personnel would be stationed in the foremost element of the train. One factor dictating the train concept is to separate the operating crew and nuclear reactor by as much distance as possible, thereby reducing the amount of radiological shielding equipment necessary. From atomic energy powered transport vehicles to lighter weight airborne trucks and combat carriers, the Army Transportation Corps today moves relentlessly forward. Better methods of supply and support for our dynamic army are the planners and tacticians of the Army Transportation Corps. They are keeping well abreast of the tide of modern army developments. The roads to glory followed by the Army Transportation Corps have been many in every part of the world, in every kind of countryside and in the face of bitter enemy attack. Today, if need be, the Corps is ready to set out on still other roads to win as in the past the same glorious successes to roll once again in the defense of our American heritage. Few people would argue that the Army truck is as powerful as an atom bomb or as swift as a guided missile. But today, as in the past, the truck remains the workhorse of the Army. It is a lifesaver in time of civil disaster and is always ready to move our fighting men and to supply them with the tools for attack or with the weapons of defense at home and abroad. Now, this is Sergeant Stuart Queen, your host for the Big Picture. The Big Picture is an official television report for the armed forces and the American people produced by the Army Pictorial Center, presented by the United States Army in cooperation with this station.