In case you haven’t heard, newspapers, at least in their hardcopy form, are not long for this world. Aside from the inheirant costs of physically printing and distributing a newspaper there is that little thing called the internet where a growing number of people are now finding their news.
In response to this natural technological evolution, French President Sarkozy is instituting a plan to give free newspapers to all the country’s teenagers. I think BoingBoing’s Cory Doctorow said it best:
I wonder if he’ll also give out free bridle and tackle to instill “the habit of dressage.” How about stimulating the French press by giving all the kids free, uncensored broadband?
These sorts of programs do such a wonderful job of illuminating just how far out of touch many leaders are with their younger constituents. It gives me a lot of hope to finally have a president who is, if not a native techie, is definitely a heavy user. One cannot imagine Obama coming up with something this far off-base when it comes to his technology initiatives.
Tags: Boing Boing, cory doctorow, corydoctrow, Directories, French press, Newspaper, President of France, Printing, Publishers, United States
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February 2, 2009 4:59 pm | 
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Matt Mason’s wonderful book, The Pirate’s Dilemma, is one of the reasons I started this blog. He was my first interview, too. During that interview I asked him about a free online version and he said he hoped to get something out there sooner than later.
Well, it might have turned out to be later but now you can download a copy of the book here and you pay whatever you think is fair. Why would Matt do this?
“By treating the electronic version of a book as information rather than property, and circulating it as widely as possible, many authors such as Paulo Coelho and Cory Doctorow actually end up selling more copies of the physical version. Pirate copies of The Pirate’s Dilemma are out there online anyway, and they don’t seem to have harmed sales. My guess is they are helping. To be honest, I was flattered that the book got pirated in the first place.”
Well said.
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In yet another ridiculous attempt to make us “feel safer” BoingBoing is reporting:
“European airlines are prototyping a Panopticon-in-the-sky: cameras trained on every passenger in flight, married to some kind of snake-oil “terrorism detection” software that will be able to tell if the guy in 11J is planning to rush the cockpit.”
Having just finished Cory Doctorow’s awesome book Little Brother (go buy this book NOW!) this is a timely mention of just how far, and how misguided, our war on terror has become.
Short little post over on BoingBoing where Cory Doctorow mentions that he heard a great song on a podcast, found the band’s MySpace page and “ripped” the song for his personal collection.
As one who has also acquired music in this way, I am not mentioning this to say what Cory did was wrong but instead to look at why he did it.
1) He loved the song.
2) He wanted to be able to listen to the song whenever and wherever he wanted.
3) The MySpace page for the band, The Weather Station, does not allow users to download their songs nor was their an obvious place for one to go and purchase the song.
So, once again, we see that piracy happens not out of a desire to break the law or get out of paying for something but because it is simply the easiest and most direct way to acquire something.
Would Cory have ripped the song if the band provided a simple, clear and reasonably priced way to legally download the song? Well, I don’t want to speak for him but I suspect he would have gone the legal route – especially if he knew the music was going directly to the band.
Of course, the value of Cory mentioning the band on BoingBoing is worth far more than what he might have spent buying their music.
UPDATE: Thanks to
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