widdershins

Eastern Standard Tribe

Boing Boing contributor, EFF outreach director, and San Francisco-based science fiction writer Cory Doctorow's second novel, Eastern Standard Tribe, is out, for sale as a paper book as well as available for free download in various formats under a Creative Commons license. The book's blog also contains a massive comment thread debate about file sharing, this free download marketing strategy, and the history of intellectual property law. Early on in the debate, Cory observes that, historically, new technologies have repeatedly infringed on then-understood copyright law, and that it is our concept of copyright that has always changed to accomodate the technology and its widespread use, rather than vice versa:

First of all, to call file-sharers looters is, IMO, a non-starter. There are 70 million Americans engaged in file-sharing today, violating a copyright law that hasn't kept pace with technology (which is the norm -- people had to pirate sheet music to make piano rolls, phonographs to make radio broadcasts, braodcasts to make cable TV, and cable TV to make VHS recording -- each an activity that was eventually legalized by changing copyright instead of outlawing a popular new technology). No author is going to turn those downloaders into customers by calling them thieves. By contrast, the author who figures out how to capitalize on that activity will find himself sitting pretty: some Vaudeville artists sued Marconi for inventing the infringing radio, they ended up flipping burgers; other performers embraced radio and ended up rich and famous.

I couldn't agree more.

I greatly enjoyed Cory's first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and am looking forward to reading his new one.

Lord of the Rings

In honor of Return of the King, which opened this week, I'm recommending two fun LotR parodies: Once More, With Hobbits, a musical (lyrics only so far) to the tunes of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode Once More, With Feeling; also, the very naughty, hilarious Secret Diaries. [via MetaFilter]

And speaking of RotK, which clocks in at a zaftig 3.5 hours, it was no Matrix Revolutions-style third episode disappointment. It's great fun, and the battle of the Pelennor Fields is particularly moving. Even so, I liked the first two movies more. I suspect the eventual "extended edition" DVD with a few key scenes reinserted will play much better (especially the Saruman bits). I was, however, mildly disappointed that my favorite moment in the trilogy ("I am the Mouth of Sauron") was left out of the film version, although I suspect that was a victim of the screenplay adaptation, not the cutting room, so I am not holding my breath on its DVD restoration....

Poe

The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe are courtesy of eserver Books. Great reading material.

Literary influence

After reading Defective Yeti's comments about giving up on Moby Dick, and Ulysses too, I started to wonder about the true influence of a writer. Being highly-regarded by academics is great, but surely one wants to be read (Nietzsche[1] notwithstanding) or to have an influence of some kind. I think of Ulysses, which I loved but which most people can't stomach, on the one hand, or something very widely read and also highly regarded, like Stranger in a Strange Land. I daresay the latter is more important in the sense of human impact.

[1]: Nietzsche -- "He that writes in blood and aphorisms does not want to be read, but learnt by heart." from Thus Spake Zarathustra