Ebooks and such
I just finished reading Cory Doctorow’s teardown of a recent Gizmodo feature post about the current issues with ebooks. I was mildly annoyed by the feature when I first read it, but Cory really threw the book at them, which in retrospect they wholly deserved. More importantly, though, his post remind of two excellent speeches he’s given in the past year which I had never given their due: “Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books” and his Microsoft Research DRM talk.
Both these speeches articulate beautifully a side of the copyright argument that needs a wider audience. As a working author who is successful because he made his work freely available online, Cory has an essential perspective on how to balance copyright law today. Most people are simply happy to accept the “intellectual property is the exact same thing as physical property” argument and leave it at that, no matter how incongrous that is with other things they probably value, like schools and libraries, or with the history of the world.
evan :: Jul.29.2004 :: NetBits :: No Comments »