Tectonic shift think tank/Negative vision
Wikitoria always dreamed of going to the new Central Collective University in Auckland, but her family could never afford it. Just maintaining a computer terminal with a Microsoft Internet connection took most of the family's money, so it had to be her education. But getting access to reliable books cost even more -- money they couldn't afford, without a new DRM-sensitive monitor.
She'd heard from a friend about a free site, where she could study without buying extra DRM credits... but that couldn't be legal, could it? DRM-free books had been banned 4 years earlier at the height of the Youtube Crisis, around the time the old sites like "Google" and "Yahoo" got merged into the licensed global software monopoly.
She gets an account on Wikiversity (even though she has an account on Wikipedia -- but they still don't have OpenID!) and has a great experience because of the presence of real professors, and intrested individuals to help out, mentor and tutor her. DRM-free material is prevalant and her self-paced learning is going well. She receives her first credential by a acknowledged third-party credentialisation service.
A serious legal attack takes place against wikipedia which results in the Wiki community itself splintering and the legal implications are such that the site is actually shut down. Copies of Wikipedia and other DRM-free content communities emerge, but they are highly dispersed, have little community around them. The history and user logs of Wikipedia are impounded by the International Court, and Wiktoria finds herself amongst her collegues facing civil and criminal charges. The result of mass prosecutions for copy(wrong) infringments is that an open network no longer exists because noone can afford the liability and people are limited to highly controlled networks.
Her relationship with a governmental lawyer (who is also secretly a significant Wikipedian and MediaWiki hacker who's indentity is highly disguised) is her only link to the world outside of government censorship.... Together they try to piece back the fractured Wikipedia community, through print-newsletters and secret liaisons. War-chalking glyphs are scattered about her community, in an effort to distribute news of the underground network. Who these people are, and where their allegiances lay, are taken on faith and with caution.
Nicky, the lawyer boyfriend, while on an evening war-chalking run meets Condoleeza -- an attractive amateur photographer (Flickr still remains sans all CC licensing). A clandestine relationship grows between them and Nicky ultimately leaves Wikitoria for Condoleeza. Condoleeza though is stool pidgeon for the government and turns in Wikitoria to the authorities for not paying her compulsory licensing fees, and in order to ensure her relationship with Nicky.
Wikitoria is blacklisted and deported to the USA where she if forced to work as a patent auditor for the government. Several years into her sentence she comes across a patent for water distribution baring similarity to "the pipe". Her rejection of this patent is not taken well by the pharmaceutical company responsible for its submission. Patent auditors have short life-spans, and are seemingly prone to freak accidents. Viktoria drowns in her basement room, as a broken "pipe" traps her beneath the door.
