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    Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age
    Unavailable
    Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age
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    Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age
    Ebook226 pages3 hours

    Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age

    By Cory Doctorow, Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Filled with wisdom and thought experiments and things that will mess with your mind.” Neil Gaiman, author of The Graveyard Book and American Gods

    In sharply argued, fast-moving chapters, Cory Doctorow’s Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free takes on the state of copyright and creative success in the digital age. Can small artists still thrive in the Internet era? Can giant record labels avoid alienating their audiences? This is a book about the pitfalls and the opportunities that creative industries (and individuals) are confronting today about how the old models have failed or found new footing, and about what might soon replace them. An essential read for anyone with a stake in the future of the arts, Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free offers a vivid guide to the ways creativity and the Internet interact today, and to what might be coming next. This book is DRM-free.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMcSweeney's
    Release dateNov 1, 2014
    ISBN9781940450780
    Unavailable
    Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age
    Author

    Cory Doctorow

    Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation, a Big Tech disassembly manual; Red Team Blues, a science fiction crime thriller; Chokepoint Capitalism, non-fiction about monopoly and creative labour markets; the Little Brother series for young adults; In Real Life, a graphic novel; and the picture book Poesy the Monster Slayer. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

    Read more from Cory Doctorow

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    Reviews for Information Doesn't Want to Be Free

    4/5

    92 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Every once in a while you come across something that causes you to think again about something you use every day. In this short book, Cory Doctorow takes on "Digital Rights Management" and how the attempt to lock creative work up to "protect it" from being copied is actually counter intuitive to the artist and the art produced itself. He makes a clear case for DRM-free material to become the norm due to the digital locks being for the benefit of corporations at their base and not for the artists themselves. This incorporates his "Doctorow's Law" which is something to the effect that if someone puts a lock on your work and won't give you the key to that lock, then it is likely not for your benefit. As an example, authors are not allowed to sell DRM-free versions of their work through Amazon. He further points out that most people do in fact want to support artists they like for the work that they produce and are more that willing to pay for that art. Of course some of his arguments can seem a bit Utopian but it is nonetheless useful to consider alternatives to the locked, for-profit model of digital music and books in today's world. Doctorow helps you to dream of and work towards a possible alternative future of free, respected and appreciated digital content, without corporate control.
    • 5/5
      An excellent summary of the issues facing consumers, artists, and publishers in the Internet age. Filled with lots of great ideas, easy-to-understand explanations, and examples of crazy things that have already happened.

      It's an easy read and very, very worthwhile.
    • 3/5
      He does a great job explaining problems with the current model, but gives only broad strokes of a possible alternative. I'd have liked to see more discussion of proposals for alternatives.
    • 4/5
      Really interesting to read how artists and publishers see the issue of copyright and sales and what their hopes are, written by someone with a good grasp of technology.
    • 4/5
      I've read enough of Cory Doctorow's writing on Boing Boing that very little of this book was new to me, but it is a comprehensive look at how copyright law totally doesn't work on the internet, and how the companies that insist on copyright law are killing the internet and ultimately themselves.
    • 4/5
      Information doesn't WANT anything. Creators want to create. Business people want to make money. Investors want high profits.... People can want things. Information can't, but the question of who controls information is really what this book is about. Doctorow's main point is that our current copyright system wrests control away from creators of books and music and gives it to businesses that see them as marketable assets rather than as works of art. This, he says, is not only unfair to the artists but it also stifles creativity. It unnecessarily limits the number of artistic works being created and the audiences that might appreciate them. The copyright system, ideas of fair use, licensing, and information sharing need to be reexamined. In our age of computer technology, the attempt to retain tight control of intellectual property is counter productive...and ultimately futile.

      His argument brought to mind the recent copyright infringement lawsuit that CBS and Paramount brought against Axanar, the latest of a long string of fan-produced Star Trek films. Although the first Trek fan films were amateurish, they've been getting better as technology improves. But they don’t make a profit. They aren’t intended to. Actually, the creators spend their own money, along with that of contributors, to make them, and they are free to watch on YouTube and other places. Profit is not the goal. Fans produce them as an expression of admiration for Star Trek. You would think the corporate owners of the franchise would welcome fan films because they extend the brand and expand the audience for the franchise. The corporations that 'own' Star Trek apparently don't agree. What I suspect they're worried about is that Axanar, a fan film with a budget of only a million dollars, might be better than their next Trek film, Star Trek Beyond, which has a budget of $150 million. I can't really know what their motivations are, of course, but they're trying to kill an artistic labor of love that, since it's not trying to make money, doesn't seem to me to be infringing on the corporation's 'property'.

      I can't say I disagree with Doctorow's insights. He makes several good points, but the book tends to ramble. Better organization would have made his argument clearer. Fortunately, they were summarized for him in the excellent forwards written by Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer.