For Halloween: Talking Tombstones and Free Speech issues from beyond the grave...They said What?!!

SAN MATEO, Calif. - Oct. 2, 2014 - PRLog -- JUST BEFORE HALLOWEEN IS FREE SPEECH WEEK (OCTOBER 20-26, 2014)...WANT TO THINK ABOUT SOMETHING REALLY SCARY FOR HALLOWEEN...

...Imagine if you were walking by a cemetery filled with video tombstones and some of the tombstones were saying things that were true or untrue or not so nice about you.
 And imagine if some of those talking tombstones were revealing secrets about you that you thought nobody else knew.

You thought ‘Dead men tell no tales”....well, not anymore. Once video tombstones start popping up in cemeteries on a regular basis, soon you will be able to listen to all kinds of intimate secret confessions, as told from beyond the grave, through video tombstones. And video tombstones will also create some fascinating free speech issues, because who knows what somebody might say from beyond their grave through their video tombstones, and will it be truth or lies?

...And as you get ready for Halloween this year...and as you walk past a graveyard, any graveyard...just imagine how different things might be if that cemetery were a cemetery filled with video tombstones!

To set the scene, here are the opening lines from a book called “Cemetery of Lies, by Robert Barrows, the inventor of a video tombstone called the Video Enhanced Gravemarker (U.S. Patent #7,089,495) www.barrows.com/invention.html

“Things were pretty quiet around here until they brought in those damn video tombstones...tombstones with TVs in them...Talking Tombstones. Now all you had to do was walk by a grave and press a button on a remote control and you could watch the dead come back to life again on a TV screen and listen to anything they wanted to say before they died.”

That’s just the first few lines. The rest of the book lets you in on a lot of the intimate secret confessions told from “beyond the grave” through some of the video tombstones in the Cemetery of Lies.

WITH THESE KINDS OF ISSUES IN MIND...

“Video tombstones will have a tremendous impact on many aspects of society” says Barrows. They will also create a tremendous amount of controversy and some fascinating Free Speech issues.”

HERE ARE SOME OF THE FREE SPEECH ISSUES:

imagine some of the fascinating free speech issues that will pop up when video tombstones start popping up in cemeteries on a regular basis.

*What if someone confesses to a crime or makes an incrimination?

*What if they say something slanderous?

*What if they say something hurtful and cause emotional stress?

*What if they say something anti-governmental?

*Do the dead have free speech rights, too?

*And what can you do if they say something that is true or untrue or not so nice about you?

How can you pull the plug, and whom can you sue?

Worse yet, how can you collect?

“What kinds of things would we hear from your video tombstone?” asks Barrows

Would you say sweet things to loved ones?

Would it finally be time to tell your side of the story?

Would it be time to make amends?

Or would it be time to say everything you never had the guts to say nor the opportunity to say while you were still alive?”

Imagine the controversies that will arise when video tombstones start appearing in cemeteries on a regular basis.

A)  Video tombstones will make cemeteries fascinating places to visit because who knows what you might hear from some of the video tombstones, and cemeteries will come “alive” with all kinds of stories that might be told through video tombstones.

B) And imagine the controversy over the free speech issues” says Barrows.

“Video Tombstones will create some landmark free speech issues, because how can you control what someone might say from beyond the grave?” he asks.

C)  Video Tombstones will also have some interesting implications on

some major aspects of civilization,” according to the inventor, Robert Barrows.

Here are some of the social implications:

1) Video Tombstones will change the way we look at life and death.

When you start recording your own obituary while you are still alive, it will force you to examine things about your life that you may not even have considered before.

2) Video Tombstones will change the way that history is told.

Now you will be able to go to video tombstones and get the story from the people themselves. (Of course, it will indeed be their side of the story, and depending on what they say, and how they view things, that may also create some interesting controversies.)

3) The advent of the video tombstone may also create changes in estate law so that people may have to specify that  yes, they do want a video tombstone, or no they

do not want a video tombstone. (The late Jeff Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal covered this angle of the invention in his April 7, 2005 Moving On column.)

And Barrows adds, “If the person doesn’t make a video prior to death, or if they don’t specify who may make a video and what people can say in a posthumous video,

will survivors be able to to make a video to be played in their tombstone, and will

there be limits on the content of the messages?”

4) “Video Tombstones”  will also create a whole new genre of storytelling...with all kinds of stories that may be told through video tombstones.

While Barrows was working on his patent application for the video tombstone, he also wrote a novel called “Cemetery of Lies.” Cemetery of Lies is a collection of intimate secret confessions, as told from beyond the grave, through video tombstones.

The stories are about life and love, sex and romance, good and evil, success and money, truth and lies and Heaven and Hell, with insights and advice about almost every aspect of our lives,” according to Barrows. (You can see more about “Cemetery of Lies” at www.barrows.com/novel.html.

5) In addition, the advent of the Video Tombstone will also create two new industries:

  A) Manufacturing Video tombstones, and

  B) producing content for use in video tombstones

6) “Video Tombstones will also make cemeteries fascinating places to visit,” according

to Barrows, “because who knows what kinds of juicy stories might be entombed in the

video tombstones of both celebrities and ordinary people? And who knows who was doing what with whom?” he adds. Perhaps we shall find out from their video tombstone?

7) Video tombstones will also create some major new revenue opportunities for many sectors of the funerary industry including monument builders, funeral homes, perpetual care fund providers and cemeteries.

  To find out more, contact Robert Barrows at R.M. Barrows, Inc. Advertising and Public Relations in San Mateo, California at 650-344-4405.