Famous Scifi And Fantasy Authors In Their Workspaces

See the rest of the photos @ io9.com.

Posted in Books Tagged with: authors, corydoctorow

Trademarks: the good, the bad and the ugly

Cory Doctorow takes on trademarks in his latest Guardian column:

And that’s where it all starts to go wrong. Trademark holders inevitably consider themselves to be trademark owners. They don’t enforce their marks to protect the public, they do it to protect their profits (this is by design). Trademark starts from the assumption that the public makes an association between a product and a service on the basis of commerce: if I see Gillette on a disposable razor, that’s because Gillette is the company that thought of putting the word “Gillette” on a line of products, and its creativity and canny marketing have made the association in the public’s mind.

Read the full article @ TheGuardian.co.uk.

Posted in Politics & Law Tagged with: corydoctorow, trademark

Cory Doctorow’s statement on Fox taking down his cc-licensed novel

My Creative Commons licensed, 2013 novel Homeland, the sequel to my 2008 novel Little Brother, spent four weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and got great reviews around the country. But Fox apparently hasn’t heard of it — or doesn’t care. They’ve been sending takedown notices to Google (and possibly other sites), demanding that links to legally shared copies of the book be removed.

Read the full statement @ Craphound.com.

Posted in Politics & Law Tagged with: cc, copyright, corydoctorow, dmca

Fox Censors Cory Doctorow’s “Homeland” Novel From Google

Copyfighter, journalist, sci-fi writer and Boing-Boing editor Cory Doctorow has fallen victim to the almighty content empire of Rupert Murdoch. In an attempt to remove access to infringing copies of the TV-show Homeland, Fox has ordered Google to take down links to Doctorow’s latest novel of the same title. Adding to the controversy, Doctorow’s own publisher has also sent DMCA notices for the Creative Commons licensed book.

…

TorrentFreak confronted Cory Doctorow with these dystopian findings and the author was outraged by the gross abuse of his rights. Without hesitation he called for drastic action to be taken against the head honcho of the content empire.

“I think you can safely say I’m incandescent with rage. BRING ME THE SEVERED HEAD OF RUPERT MURDOCH!” Doctorow says.

Read the full article @ TorrentFreak.

Posted in Politics & Law Tagged with: cc, copyright, corydoctorow, dmca

And what about all the stuff librarians have to teach us about using the net?

26 rolled her eyes. “Not so little, mate. She really knows her stuff. Getting
good grades, apparently.”

“Really? I thought you said you were in trouble at school?”

She giggled. “I started checking out library books and bringing ’em down to the
MP’s surgery, and did all my studying in his waiting room. At first I just did
it to prove a point, but now the library’s only open four days a week, it
worked out to be a brilliant place to get work done. Hardly anyone ever goes
down there. His receptionist kind of adopted me and ticked him off any time he
tried to get me to leave.”

I remembered the heft of her rucksack. “You didn’t bring a load of library
books to London with you?”

She looked horrified. “Of course not. That’d be stealing. My bag’s full of
discards — it’s shocking what they’re getting rid of. No funding, you see.
Taking ’em off the shelves is cheaper than re-shelving them, so the collections
keep on shrinking. There’s always some gobshite at the council meetings saying,
‘what do we need libraries for if everyone’s got the Internet?’ I keep wanting
to shake them by the hair and shout something like, ‘Everyone except me! And
what about all the stuff librarians have to teach us about using the net?'”

—Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow

Posted in Libraries Tagged with: corydoctorow, libraries, quote

Copyright wars are damaging the health of the internet

As usual, I’ll let Cory speak for himself.

The internet is important, but the copyright wars treat it as a triviality: like cable TV 2.0; like the second coming of the telephone; like the world’s greatest pornography distribution system. Laws such as the Digital Economy Act provide for disconnecting whole families from the internet without due process because someone in the vicinity is accused of watching TV the wrong way. That would be bad enough, if the internet were merely a conduit for delivering entertainment products. But the internet is a lifeline for families, and giving some offshore entertainment companies the right to take it away because they suspect you of doing them wrong is like giving Brita the power to turn off your family’s water if they think you’ve been abusing your filter; like giving KitchenAid the power to take away your home’s mains power if they think you’ve been using your mixer in an unapproved way.

Read the full article in The Guardian.

Posted in Internet Tagged with: copyright, corydoctorow, drm

Cory Doctorow for Freedom to Read Week

Freedom to Read Week is an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

To mark this year’s Freedom to Read Week, which starts today, we asked author Cory Doctorow to contribute a guest post on libraries and technology. 

Libraries, Hackspaces and E-waste: how libraries can be the hub of a young maker revolution

Every discussion of libraries in the age of austerity always includes at least one blowhard who opines, “What do we need libraries for? We’ve got the Internet now!” 

Facepalm. 

The problem is that Mr. Blowhard has confused a library with a book depository. Now, those are useful, too, but a library isn’t just (or even necessarily) a place where you go to get books for free. Public libraries have always been places where skilled information professionals assisted the general public with the eternal quest to understand the world. Historically, librarians have sat at the coalface between the entire universe of published material and patrons, choosing books with at least a colorable claim to credibility, carefully cataloging and shelving them, and then assisting patrons in understanding how to synthesize the material contained therein.

Read the rest at Raincoast Books

Posted in Libraries Tagged with: corydoctorow

Triangulation #92: Cory Doctorow

Journalist, science fiction author and co-editor of Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow, is this week’s guest. (Published on Feb 27, 2013)

Posted in video Tagged with: authors, corydoctorow, internet, twit

Problems vs. Facts

Posted in bigthink Tagged with: corydoctorow

Are you a “gluepot ninja”?

Cory Doctorow has brought the issue of libraries and HarperCollins eBooks (#hcod) to his column in The Guardian. The whole article is well worth the read but this paragraph stood out to me:

Now, in point of fact, many ordinary trade books circulate far more than 26 times before they’re ready for the discard pile. If a group of untrained school kids working as part-time pages can keep a copy of the Toronto Star in readable shape for 30 days’ worth of several-times-per-day usage, then it’s certainly the case that the skilled gluepot ninjas working behind the counter at your local library can easily keep a book patched up and running around the course for a lot more than 26 circuits. Indeed, the HarperCollins editions of my own books are superb and robust examples of the bookbinder’s art (take note!), and judging from the comments of outraged librarians, it’s common for HarperCollins printed volumes to stay in circulation for a very long time indeed.

I’ve taken a class in basic book repair and have been known to fix a spine or two in my time. I don’t consider myself a “gluepot ninja” but I do own a couple of bone folders.

Posted in 1 Tagged with: corydoctorow, hcod