Information Doesn't Want to Be Free

Magnificent treatise on Copyright, The Arts, The Internet, and everything in between. Absolutely a must-read for anyone creating any sort of art these days. Doctorow is a very knowledgeable writer (he has been a part of the Electric Frontier Foundation and Creative Commons) but he comes off as a down to earth kind of guy. He explains beautifully how the legislator cooperates with the entertainment industry and Big Tech to suffocate freedom of expression on the world wide web.

Nice primer on computers and copyright and why it's a terrible idea to let the entertainment industry spy on and incapacitate all general computing to "fight piracy". Mostly directed at interested small creatives, and the general public interest as the internet becomes the place that all personal, trivial, human connection takes place.

"The entertainment industry has a long history of characterizing its profit-maximization strategies as do-or-die existential crises. If we can't control the printing press/the record player/the radio/cable/VCRs/the Internet, they say, we will die. The reality is more like "If we can't control these things, we'll have to invent some new ways of making money, and make less from the old ways." It's happened many times before. "

When I first saw the title I thought that the book was written by someone defending the bad practices of copyright holders, that was until I noticed that it was written by Cory Doctorow. This book like other nonfiction books by Cory Doctorow is a collection of essays on topics of copyright, technology and human, or better put consumer rights. If you enjoyed his other works or would like to learn more about the mess that is the current copyright system you will enjoy this book. He explained the title in his last essay, but man if I didn't know who Cory Doctorow was there is a good chance that I would have skipped this book.

I didn't think this was worth my time. I only picked it up when I happened upon it at the library, and, knowing Cory from Boing Boing, thought I'd give it a go. But it's not very substantial, so it didn't add anything significant to what I've already read in blog posts for years.