Information Doesn't Want to Be Free

Short book. And a little bit closer to what I want: a book arguing that intellectual property laws hinder art more than they help. The author's biography proves that he walks the walk. And while he does not call for the complete abolition of all IP laws, he does call for a sensible middle ground that prioritizes the interests of artists and the security of the people over the interests of the mega-corporations. This is a middle-ground I can get behind.

I am still looking for a book elaborating on what a society with zero IP laws might look like, and how it would be a net benefit to society. My next book on this journey will be: “Against Intellectual Monopoly” by Michele Boldrin & David Levine. Though I worry that it will be more libertarian theorizing....

This book focuses on how copyright laws as they exist today are not well equipped to function in the internet age, and that the calls for more stringent enforcement mechanis are resulting in, and will continue to result in a less secure, more surveillance-riddled internet that benefits no one except for the already rich & powerful, as well as authoritarian governments.

The current enforcement of copyright laws have resulted in intentionally insecure products that are designed to deliberately disobey their owner in order to primarily protect mega-corporations. The laws criminalize individuals from simply being able to access their own legally purchased content in the privacy of their own homes in ways that outside eyes do not appreciate. Want to rip your Blu-Rays? That's a crime. Want to jailbreak your device? Well now it's intentionally bricked.

Digital locks like DRM do not benefit the artist, only the distributor. We do not own our content if purchased with DRM. It can be locked away at any time for any reason by the corporate middleman. This has happened before. Books we buy getting deleted because of some rights issue, entire digital libraries getting destroyed because the service shuts down. And they call pirates “criminals.” Piracy is the only rational action in this insanely irrational landscape.

“We can't stop copying on the Internet, because the Internet is a copying machine. Literally. There is no way to communicate on the Internet without sending copies. You might think you're ‘loading' a web page, but what's really happening is that a copy is being placed on your computer, which then displays it in your browser.”

Stronger laws or more stringent enforcement cannot stop violations without fundamentally destroying the Internet. Though destruction of the fundamental principles of the internet are ultimately the goal of the corporate middlemen that benefit from trademark laws and the corrupt, out of touch, authoritarian members of government.

“Viacom told the court that its industry couldn't peacefully coexist with an option to keep your personal data private.” If that is the case, then I choose privacy over the existence of Viacom and the capitalist system that perpetuates them.

“Though SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, the TPP, the WCT, and their ilk differ in their specifics, they share certain broad themes that represent the legislative agenda for the entertainment lobby. And if you wanted to sum up that agenda in a single sentence, it would be this: More intermediary liability, with fewer checks and balances.”

“Adding censorship to the Internet means adding surveillance to the Internet. Creating Great Firewalls means creating secret, unaccountable lists of censored material that result in mass abuse, even in the most liberal of democracies. It doesn't matter if you're censoring for copyright infringement or for human-rights reports. The result is the same: a surveillance state.”

“If you weaken the world's computer security—the security of our planes and nuclear reactors, our artificial hearts and our thermostats, and, yes, our phones and our laptops, devices that are privy to our every secret—then no amount of gains in the War on Terror will balance out the costs we'll all pay in vulnerability to crooks, creeps, spooks, thugs, perverts, voyeurs, and anyone else who independently discovers these deliberate flaws and turns them against targets of opportunity.
So where does all this tie in with the copyfight? The laws behind digital locks make it illegal to determine what your computer is doing. They make it illegal to stop your computer from doing things you don't like. And they make it illegal to tell other people about what's going on inside your computer.
As you read this, digital locks are proliferating in new and deadly ways.”

His reasonable middle-ground is thus: Blanket licenses. “Here's how blanket licenses work: first, we collectively decide that the ‘moral right' of creators to decide who uses their work and how is less important than the ‘economic right' to get paid when their works are used Then we find entities who would like to distribute or perform copyrighted works, and negotiate a fee structure. The money goes into a ‘collective licensing society.'
Next we use some combination of statistical sampling methods (Nielsen families, network statistics, etc.) to compile usage statistics for the entity's pool of copyrighted works, and divide and remit the collective-licensing money based on the stats.”

This is how radio DJ's are able to play almost any song. It's a noble solution that would “enables the largest diversity of creators making the largest diversity of works to please the largest diversity of audiences.” Though I still think full abolition would be better.

I think this book really needs a new edition, as a lot of its references and statistics appear dated. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in knowing more about copyright in the digital age.

I like Cory as a counterweight to the overly optimistic technology writers who promise utopian futures, but fail to consider the downside of their ideas. If all you knew of his writing was this book, though, you'd think that it's all doom and gloom for the internet. However, the recent repeal of Net Neutrality may once again highlight Doctorow's prescience.

The audiobook, narrated by Wil Wheaton, is well produced, except for the off key (Amanda Palmer?) piano bumper played between every subsection of the book. It becomes grating quickly.