Heh :)

Any woman who thinks the way to a man's heart is through his stomach is aiming about 10 inches too high.
- Adrienne E. Gusoff

Copyrights

THE COPYRIGHT THING

The Creative Commons license at the top of this file probably tipped you off to the fact that I've got some pretty unorthodox views about copyright. Here's what I think of it, in a nutshell: a little goes a long way, and more than that is too much.

I like the fact that copyright lets me sell rights to my publishers and film studios and so on. It's nice that they can't just take my stuff without permission and get rich on it without cutting me in for a piece of the action. I'm in a pretty good position when it comes to negotiating with these companies: I've got a great agent and a decade's experience with copyright law and licensing (including a stint as a delegate at WIPO, the UN agency that makes the world's copyright treaties). What's more, there's just not that many of these negotiations -- even if I sell fifty or a hundred different editions of Little Brother (which would put it in top millionth of a percentile for fiction), that's still only a hundred negotiations, which I could just about manage.

I hate the fact that fans who want to do what readers have always done are expected to play in the same system as all these hotshot agents and lawyers. It's just stupid to say that an elementary school classroom should have to talk to a lawyer at a giant global publisher before they put on a play based on one of my books. It's ridiculous to say that people who want to "loan" their electronic copy of my book to a friend need to get a license to do so. Loaning books has been around longer than any publisher on Earth, and it's a fine thing.

I recently saw Neil Gaiman give a talk at which someone asked him how he felt about piracy of his books. He said, "Hands up in the audience if you discovered your favorite writer for free -- because someone loaned you a copy, or because someone gave it to you? Now, hands up if you found your favorite writer by walking into a store and plunking down cash." Overwhelmingly, the audience said that they'd discovered their favorite writers for free, on a loan or as a gift. When it comes to my favorite writers, there's no boundaries: I'll buy every book they publish, just to own it (sometimes I buy two or three, to give away to friends who must read those books). I pay to see them live. I buy t-shirts with their book-covers on them. I'm a customer for life.

Neil went on to say that he was part of the tribe of readers, the tiny minority of people in the world who read for pleasure, buying books because they love them. One thing he knows about everyone who downloads his books on the Internet without permission is that they're readers, they're people who love books.

People who study the habits of music-buyers have discovered something curious: the biggest pirates are also the biggest spenders. If you pirate music all night long, chances are you're one of the few people left who also goes to the record store (remember those?) during the day. You probably go to concerts on the weekend, and you probably check music out of the library too. If you're a member of the red-hot music-fan tribe, you do lots of everything that has to do with music, from singing in the shower to paying for black-market vinyl bootlegs of rare Eastern European covers of your favorite death-metal band.

Same with books. I've worked in new bookstores, used bookstores and libraries. I've hung out in pirate ebook ("bookwarez") places online. I'm a stone used bookstore junkie, and I go to book fairs for fun. And you know what? It's the same people at all those places: book fans who do lots of everything that has to do with books. I buy weird, fugly pirate editions of my favorite books in China because they're weird and fugly and look great next to the eight or nine other editions that I paid full-freight for of the same books. I check books out of the library, google them when I need a quote, carry dozens around on my phone and hundreds on my laptop, and have (at this writing) more than 10,000 of them in storage lockers in London, Los Angeles and Toronto.

If I could loan out my physical books without giving up possession of them, I would. The fact that I can do so with digital files is not a bug, it's a feature, and a damned fine one. It's embarrassing to see all these writers and musicians and artists bemoaning the fact that art just got this wicked new feature: the ability to be shared without losing access to it in the first place. It's like watching restaurant owners crying down their shirts about the new free lunch machine that's feeding the world's starving people because it'll force them to reconsider their business-models. Yes, that's gonna be tricky, but let's not lose sight of the main attraction: free lunches!

Universal access to human knowledge is in our grasp, for the first time in the history of the world. This is not a bad thing.

In case that's not enough for you, here's my pitch on why giving away ebooks makes sense at this time and place:

Giving away ebooks gives me artistic, moral and commercial satisfaction. The commercial question is the one that comes up most often: how can you give away free ebooks and still make money?

For me -- for pretty much every writer -- the big problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity (thanks to Tim O'Reilly for this great aphorism). Of all the people who failed to buy this book today, the majority did so because they never heard of it, not because someone gave them a free copy. Mega-hit best-sellers in science fiction sell half a million copies -- in a world where 175,000 attend the San Diego Comic Con alone, you've got to figure that most of the people who "like science fiction" (and related geeky stuff like comics, games, Linux, and so on) just don't really buy books. I'm more interested in getting more of that wider audience into the tent than making sure that everyone who's in the tent bought a ticket to be there.

Ebooks are verbs, not nouns. You copy them, it's in their nature. And many of those copies have a destination, a person they're intended for, a hand-wrought transfer from one person to another, embodying a personal recommendation between two people who trust each other enough to share bits. That's the kind of thing that authors (should) dream of, the proverbial sealing of the deal. By making my books available for free pass-along, I make it easy for people who love them to help other people love them.

What's more, I don't see ebooks as substitute for paper books for most people. It's not that the screens aren't good enough, either: if you're anything like me, you already spend every hour you can get in front of the screen, reading text. But the more computer-literate you are, the less likely you are to be reading long-form works on those screens -- that's because computer-literate people do more things with their computers. We run IM and email and we use the browser in a million diverse ways. We have games running in the background, and endless opportunities to tinker with our music libraries. The more you do with your computer, the more likely it is that you'll be interrupted after five to seven minutes to do something else. That makes the computer extremely poorly suited to reading long-form works off of, unless you have the iron self-discipline of a monk.

The good news (for writers) is that this means that ebooks on computers are more likely to be an enticement to buy the printed book (which is, after all, cheap, easily had, and easy to use) than a substitute for it. You can probably read just enough of the book off the screen to realize you want to be reading it on paper.

So ebooks sell print books. Every writer I've heard of who's tried giving away ebooks to promote paper books has come back to do it again. That's the commercial case for doing free ebooks.

Now, onto the artistic case. It's the twenty-first century. Copying stuff is never, ever going to get any harder than it is today (or if it does, it'll be because civilization has collapsed, at which point we'll have other problems). Hard drives aren't going to get bulkier, more expensive, or less capacious. Networks won't get slower or harder to access. If you're not making art with the intention of having it copied, you're not really making art for the twenty-first century. There's something charming about making work you don't want to be copied, in the same way that it's nice to go to a Pioneer Village and see the olde-timey blacksmith shoeing a horse at his traditional forge. But it's hardly, you know, contemporary. I'm a science fiction writer. It's my job to write about the future (on a good day) or at least the present. Art that's not supposed to be copied is from the past.

Finally, let's look at the moral case. Copying stuff is natural. It's how we learn (copying our parents and the people around us). My first story, written when I was six, was an excited re-telling of Star Wars, which I'd just seen in the theater. Now that the Internet -- the world's most efficient copying machine -- is pretty much everywhere, our copying instinct is just going to play out more and more. There's no way I can stop my readers, and if I tried, I'd be a hypocrite: when I was 17, I was making mix-tapes, photocopying stories, and generally copying in every way I could imagine. If the Internet had been around then, I'd have been using it to copy as much as I possibly could.

There's no way to stop it, and the people who try end up doing more harm than piracy ever did. The record industry's ridiculous holy war against file-sharers (more than 20,000 music fans sued and counting!) exemplifies the absurdity of trying to get the food-coloring out of the swimming pool. If the choice is between allowing copying or being a frothing bully lashing out at anything he can reach, I choose the former.

-- Cory Doctorow, Little Brother

Doesn't seem likely, but i wish the same

I'm glad I didn't have to fight in any war. I'm glad I didn't have to pick up a gun. I'm glad I didn't get killed or kill somebody. I hope my kids enjoy the same lack of manhood.
- Tom Hanks

Quiet Words

"Do not assume that she who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled
among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. Her life
may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond
yours. Were it otherwise, she would never have been able to find these
words." --Rainer Maria Rilke

Doubt

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
- Sir Francis Bacon

Mandatory education

Re:Hello... Evolution? (Score:5, Insightful)
by QuoteMstr (55051) on Saturday September 06, @02:29PM (#24902483)

I'm sorry, but no. A civilization cannot stand while allowing absolute liberty. We accept certain restrictions so that we may continue to have a society. Murder is illegal. Rape is illegal. You can't shout "fire" in a crowded room. These things are restrictions on freedom, and for everyone's good.

Another restriction on freedom that's absolutely essential for a free society is mandatory education. Without education, the population does not develop critical thinking skills and falls prey to the first charismatic demagogue that comes along.

Allowing parents to send their children to schools that refuse to teach the facts is equivalent to allowing them to not educate their children at all. Both are unconscionable for a variety of reasons. Not only should school attendance be required, but private schools should be audited to ensure that their curriculum at least resembles reality. The more people are deluded by things like creationism and homeopathy, the weaker our democracy becomes.


-The author makes a good point, but I'd like to take it a bit further. I feel that it would have to not be a government agency doing the auditing. For me, that just brings up images of the government turning schools into indoctrination centers (arguably they already are, but even more so if big government gets their hands on them). Why not have a panel of the nation's scientists to go over the curriculum?

Now that I think about it, we sort of have a system like that in place, No Child Left Behind. And all it manages to do is bring down the smarter kids in the class. It should be called No Child Gets Ahead. It would be a great thing if they could bring the less intelligent kids in a class up to the level of the smarter ones, but a lot of what goes into that is genetic. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying to give up on them or anything like that, but you shouldn't hold back the smarter kids by teaching dumber material. I think i read something on slashdot months ago talking about how all the program was doing was hurting the smarter kids instead of helping the dumber ones (not P.C. but I don't care).

Limerick

Re:California Strikes Again (Score:5, Funny)
by Actually, I do RTFA (1058596) on Wednesday September 03, @03:56PM (#24864171)

2) How awesome would it be if all laws were required to be in the form of a limerick?

It could be cool:

The act of ending a life
When aggrevated by previous strife
Or in the course of a crime
Shall result in a time
Spent as a large convict's wife.

http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=952529&cid=24864171

Cell Phone

I don't own a cell phone or a pager. I just hang around everyone I know, all the time. If someone wants to get a hold of me, they just say 'Mitch,' and I say 'what?' and turn my head slightly.
- Mitch Hedberg

W

For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it.
--George W. Bush

Philadelphia, PA
05/14/2001

Mank Ind

Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.
- Samuel Johnson

Originality

Laurence J. Peter - Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.

A rose by any other name...

In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.
- Hubert H. Humphrey

I'm Conflict Free?

I'm just seeing a drama storm coming and trying my best to get out of its way or buckle down for a rough ride.

Commitophobe

Heh:

http://xkcd.com/310/

Introspection

[emo]

It would appear that there is a vast disparity between the way I see myself, and the way everyone else sees me. My internal self and social self have developed a bit of a schism. I've never been really able to see how others see me, and I doubt it's just a me thing, but I've been far too long without people to act as a social mirror. I realize I'm a quiet person, but it seems like I'm too easily forgettable to most people. I realize I'm being emo, or whatever, and I really hate when I get like this, but it's apparently who I am. I'm tired of keeping everything inside, so I'm getting this out there on the interwebs, where I doubt anyone will read (makes sense, huh?). I tell myself I should accept the life I have, but I hate it. I know I shouldn't care too much what people think, but I do right now. I also really hate when people go on complaining like this as though they have it so horribly bad. I realize I have a great life. I have a lot of friends who care about me, I'm not destitute, life really is good. This must sound bipolar, but I'm a gemini, welcome to my hell. I feel so alone and I'm tired of it. It's quite likely that it's just me not recognizing what and who I have. I know they're there, but they feel so distant to me. I doubt it's them being distant. I'm sure it's really just me being aloof, but I'm trying really hard.


[/emo whinings]

New Atomic Particle

Courtesy Slashdot.org : http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/28/1253247&from=rss

Re:names (Score:5, Funny)
by sm62704 (957197) on Monday April 28, @11:06AM (#23224540) Homepage Journal


Research has led to the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction normally taking less than a second, to take from four days to four years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2-6 years. It does not decay, but undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes, not to mention multiple oxymorons.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. That hypothetical quantity might normally be called 'critical mass' but, in this unique case it is known as 'critical mess'.

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium (Am), another just-discovered element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

Of Science and Poetry

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by
everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the
exact opposite . -- Paul Dirac

'It's been a long time...'

Here I am after another several month hiatus. Work is going well, I enjoy it here at Express Photo. I got hired in August, after stumbling upon it after trying to apply at Planet Exchange. It's far more personal than Wolf. The owners have their own studio and do wedding photography. They are really awesome people, I'm really glad to be working for them. I got so burned out working for a corporation.

I've been trying to get in touch with Baldwin, but I've had no success. This past year has been a tough one for me, but that's not too much of an excuse I suppose. I've not been taking as many pictures as I'd like to, and I hope to remedy that soon. I really need to force myself to get out on the weekends, instead of just sitting around. I've gotta try and tone back up a bit, maybe go out biking or something.

It's been a year and a day now. I really want to let go, but that's hard to do without something else to hold on to. I'm trying really hard to be social and make contact with friends I've lost touch with. Dust off a few of those old bridges. It's tough to do, though.

I really hate when people ignore me. I do my best not to ignore anybody (though I didn't do that great of a job this past year), because it's quite rude and demeaning. It more or less says to the other person that they aren't worth the time. I don't think I actively ignored anyone last year, it was really more just me being reclusive and a hermit. Maybe I'm expecting too much. Maybe it's a lot for me to ask of them, though I don't really think so. I mean they were the ones to suggest meeting up for tea and then all of a sudden I stopped hearing from them. But this has happened on several occasions, and I'm not sure why. Oh well, such is life I suppose

What I need is to get back in to dance, or just find some social scene to get involved with.