Cory Doctorow, a name I recognize but do not know much about, gave a speech on copyright at the National Reading Summit, which has been transcribed here for The Varsity.
With all the current talk of eBooks, for better or worse, potentially taking over print books in terms of sales (though some reports are misleading: Amazon.com reported Christmas day “sales” of eBooks to have been more than print books for the first time ever, but as GalleyCat reports, many of these “sales” were for free books – I’ve downloaded plenty of free crap in my day. That doesn’t mean I actually read it or would have paid money for it) Doctorow’s points are powerful. Think about this:
The anti-copyright activists have no respect for our copyright and our books. They say that when you buy an ebook or an audiobook that’s delivered digitally, you are demoted from an owner to a licensor. From a reader to a mere user. These thieves deliver our digital books and our audiobooks wrapped in license agreements and technologies that might as well be designed to destroy the emotional connection that readers have with their books.
These licenses of course can run up to thousands of words. If you have an iPhone and buy an audiobook from Audible using the iTunes store with it, you agree to an estimated 26,000 words of license agreement. The Canadian Copyright Act itself only runs to 33,000 words. The premise of these licenses is forget copyright. Forget the law in the public realm that gave you the rights to your books. From now on, we write the law.
I like to own stuff. Therefore, I may have been set back another generation in terms of adopting an eBook reader.
photo credit:
I read part of this the other day. Interesting take on the whole thing. Kind of reinforces my hope that independent literature will never die.