36 Your arguments won't hold on to courts

Aric was too excited to stop himself and entered the cabin. His heart pounded with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. He had heard and read tales of the wonders that awaited within these virtual realms in his research for the past few days, but nothing could prepare him for the reality that was about to unfold before his eyes.

He was more excited than the time he had committed a massacre. The cabin door hissed shut behind him, enclosing him in darkness. Slowly, the darkness began to recede, replaced by a soft glow emanating from the walls.

Suddenly, the walls dissolved into a vast expanse of stars, stretching out in all directions as far as the eye could see. Nebulas shimmered in the distance, casting an ethereal glow across the cosmic landscape. Aric felt a surge of awe wash over him as he realized he was standing at the threshold of an entire universe contained within this small cabin.

"What a great way to introduce and reel people in, in the first experience," Aric thought to himself, giving the introduction a 10/10 grade.

"Welcome, Aric More, on your first time in the VR cabin of Sat VR technologies. Would you like your personal AI to connect you here?"

Suddenly, Aric heard an AI voice speaking to him as he saw the stars whizzing by at incredible speed.

"Yes, connect with the AI of my communicator," Aric gave permission.

"Thank you. Your personal AI, Apis, will now take over and help you in your journey. May your stay in the VR cabin be joyful and filled with adventures. We have hyper-realistic games, offices, playgrounds, and all sorts of recreational activities. You will get a bunch of them free if you subscribe for 500 Sora credits per month (based on time units). If you have any complaints, you can contact our help desk, and you will have someone to address your concerns and problems with the VR experience, both hardware and software. Please note that this is the basic-level cabin, and thus there is no supply of nutrition in your body, so it is advised that you take in supplements and food at the required times." The AI voice spoke for the last time in its voice.

Aric finally had an idea of why it was the basic-level VR cabin and what might be the differences in costlier cabins. It was good for Aric as he wouldn't like to be in a virtual cabin all day. He had his real world to take care of at the moment.

"Apis, are you here?" Aric asked.

"At your service always, Aric," Apis spoke up. This time Apis appeared in front of him as a half-transparent face. He knew that he could customize it, but there was no need at the moment. He had other things to do. Aric brought out the small storage drive that he had brought with him.

"Can you read the data inside the storage drive?" Aric said as he showed Apis the drive. 

"You can insert the drive in the universal port of the cabin." Apis said as a small rectangular hole appeared. The hole was on the wall of the VR cabin itself as many people tend to bring a physical drive sometimes to insert data of any kind into the cabin. 

Since the VR cabin was universal and the universe had so many species, thus there were different kinds of ports. In order to tackle that problem, the input ports were always based on nanotechnology so it could adapt to any kind of port being fed to. Aric put the drive inside the hole and it closed in on itself. A second later, all the files that he had downloaded were now in front of his eyes floating. 

There were multiple files and Aric just waved his hand to click on one of them. A music player opened and it started playing. What followed next was a loud music for a few seconds and then a lyrics came right after. 

I cannot take this anymore

Saying everything I've said before

All these words, they make no sense

I found bliss in ignorance

Less I hear, the less you say

You'll find that out anyway

Chorus : 

Just like before...

Yes, this was a Linkin Park song. One of the greatest Singles of their band and Aric had illegally downloaded the songs from the internet cafe before. Aric after doing some research had to go to know that majority of the humans actually knew English apart from speaking the universal tongue, which Aric now was actively trying to learn. 

Since the humans still knew English, he could sell them English literature, or in this case songs. 

"Apis I want to upload these songs and monetize them." 

"Aric, are you the artist who sang these songs?" Apis asked. 

"No." Aric denied as he didn't need to lie about this. 

"Then the monetization would be cut by half." Apis said. 

"What? Why?" Aric was take aback. 

"If a song doesn't have an artist, than the publication companies would consider the song as an AI made song and the one who had published the song would be termed as the chief lyricist. And he or she is entitled to 50% of the money gained by the song." Apis laid out the deal after showing him the rules that was not only for humans but also for all of the species of the universe. 

"But these songs are human voiced songs." Aric argued. 

"Your argument won't hold on to a civilizational court if you can't show up with the artist who actually sang the song. You are only eligible to 50% if you can't show up with the artist/s." Apis said. 

"Sigh. Apis is there any discrimination between human sang songs and AI based songs by the publication companies?" Aric asked. 

"The publication companies will always say that they don't discriminate. There has been a tug of war since centuries as the online companies love the AI songs since they get to pocket the 50% of the money with themselves while they would always have to pay real artists." 

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Read 7 chapters on my p@treon.com/thelightedghost