Unabashed

I just finished reading Little Brother, and like just about everyone else who’s read it, I loved it. There’s been a lot of commentary about this book, and I agree with most of what I’ve read (especially this one), so I won’t add to it here. I’ll just say that this is a book people need to read. And it’s good. Really good.

Interestingly, I began reading the free PDF Cory posted on his website and liked it enough that by the time I was halfway through it went and bought the old hardback. Interesting the way that works, eh? Coincidentally, that’s exactly the way Doctorow legitimizes his tradition of posting free copies of his ebook, figuring that people don’t really like reading books on electronic devices, and if the reader likes the material they’ll go out and buy it (I know he thinks that way because he says so in the PDF’s introduction). Me, I didn’t buy it because I don’t like reading on an electronic device; I like reading ebooks on my Palm T|X or my Blackberry. I just bought it because it’s that good, I want my wife to read it, and I want it in my house for posterity’s sake. I want my children to read it one day. 

By the way, Little Brother is also a NY Times bestseller, so evidently giving away free copies of a book isn’t a death knell. It isn’t even a cold sore (Suck it, copyright proponents!). It would be interesting to know how many times a download led directly to a book sale.

Anyway, I look forward to more books like this from Cory. He’s already established as a great blogger and an activist for liberalizing copyright laws, and, though this isn’t his first book, it is his best, and it is the one that officially made him an author whose books I will buy from now on.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: author, authors, bestseller, copyright, Cory Doctorow, e-book, ebooks, little brother, piracy

That Cory Doctorow is one smart cookie. And I realize I’m posting this right after I just said I don’t like to repetitiously cover content that Boing Boing has already put out there, but here’s the exception: This is original content, not just a link to something discovered, and it’s on an issue that I’ve got a lot of interest in right now.

It’s funny that in the name of protecting “intellectual property,” big media companies are willing to do such violence to the idea of real property — arguing that since everything we own, from our t-shirts to our cars to our ebooks, embody someone’s copyright, patent and trademark, that we’re basically just tenant farmers, living on the land of our gracious masters who’ve seen fit to give us a lease on our homes.

As far as ownership of media is concerned, this is a pretty big deal. As Cory points out, right now if you buy a book you can turn around and give it to a friend after you’ve read it, or donate it to a library, or just outright sell the thing on Ebay or at your Spring yard sale. But with electronic content that’s all going to change, regardless of corporate policies. The publishers don’t want us to own the material–they want us to lease it. And–in a stroke of absolutely, monumentally stupid proportions–they don’t want us to be able to loan out the material we’ve “leased” or sell it ourselves. I can still sell my reader, of course, I still own that property, but the content–they want the content rights to end once I’ve read it.

I cannot stipulate enough how little sense this makes in the real world. Sure, when you’re calculating your profit margin it might look like a coup against you if you know that someone’s given away something that you own the rights to, but at the same time, looking at the bigger picture (something done all-too rarely these days), if the person the content was given to becomes a fan and purchases other works by that publisher or writer, then it’s win-win for everyone involved.

But here’s the catch: electronic content isn’t going to be something that you’ll go to a used book store to buy. And as adamant as I am that these are really stupid ideas from a consumer perspective, if I look at it from their point of view–the publisher–I realize that they are not only against the selling of unregulated content, they are likely terrified of the prospect. You won’t convince them it’s a good idea because, well, no. 1, their pricing scheme has to change, and it can’t, much. Not enough to make electronic content more attractive to a consumer, at least. Sure, their publishing expenses drop when working with e-formats, but to keep their bottom lines intact they’re still going to have to charge a premium for the work. They still have to pay the staff and the writer, and they still have to be profitable. Besides that, with an e-format, I can “loan” out a copy of my book that’s not protected and still keep a copy of it. You can’t do that with a printed book. You loan it out and it’s gone until you get it back. With e-formats, I can essentially give away a million copies if I wanted to and it wouldn’t hurt anyone but the publisher. And I’ve still got my copy. And that is where, I believe, the true terror of the ebook strikes the hearts of publishers. From their perspective, they’ve got to regulate it, or they’ll go straight out of business.

It’s unfortunate, but I can see their dilemma.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: , Cory Doctorow, e-book, ebooks

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, selected shorts now available online.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Apocalypse, Cory Doctorow, e-book, Elizabeth Bear, online, shorts, Tobias Buckell, wastelands