BooksOfTheMoon

Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future

By Cory Doctorow

Rating: 4 stars

This is a collection of Doctorow’s writing on copyright, DRM and the internet. It is, like the rest of his work, available for free under a CC licence online, but I got the paper version, being the old-fashioned book-lover that I am. Doctorow acknowledges that he probably loses some sales through putting his work online for free, but his contention is that the publicity and goodwill he gains from it generate more paper sales than he loses. This has certainly worked for him, although I don’t know how viable a general model it is.

The essays that I thought worked best were the general informational ones where he wasn’t being especially polemic about DRM or his other hobby horses. These are always interesting, but they just make me angry without there seeming to be any real solution to the problems they raise.

The book was published in 2008 and although some things have changed, notably ebooks are finally starting to take off, through things like tablets and specialist devices like the Kindle, much of what he says is still relevant today. The most interesting article is probably his interview with futurist Ray Kurzweil, someone I don’t necessarily agree with, but who paints a picture of a future I want to live in.

Book details

ISBN: 9781892391810
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Year of publication: 2008

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