Slashdot Mirror

Somebody has never read any Nathaniel Hawthorne...

It is so, if you think it so...http://www.eldritchpress.org/lp/itisso.htm

Hmm... bumbling, pompous, convinced of their own greatness; sounds exactly like the classic of English humour Augustus Carp, Esq: by Himself (which is out of copyright in the US, and available for free download on Eric Eldred's site).

So how's that affecting Dover's business (Dover produces no new titles, apart from original translations of non-copyrighted work)? They're booming.

Heck, with those sort of results, Dover ought to be providing financial support for PG (or at least releasing edited/translated titles into the public domain). Though I guess I'll settle for that nice brief they filed in Eldred's behalf.

Slight disclaimer here, Dover was bought by a big printing company that's really helped them with distribution (just came back from the beach and all the little bookstores there were well-stocked with Dover thrifts), but every other publisher on the planet has seen sales fall, while Dover's sales, since the acquisition, have grown tremendously.

I've been reading the short stories of Anton Chekhov. Click the link to read Gusev, one of his best imho.

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick was fantastic. I've got my wife reading Valis.

Read Naked Lunch if you haven't already. Don't expect it to make sense; just laugh at the funny parts. There are lots of funny parts. Did I ever tell you the one about the man who taught his asshole to talk?

Love is a Dog from Hell and Hot Water Music are the best by Charles Bukowski. You can really smell the urinal.

Edgar Allan Poe is a weird read, especially his comic work. Ya just don't expect youyrself to be laughing out loud over Poe.

I'd like to recommend Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon but I just can't finish it. Every goddamn chapter has enough material in it for several novels already. Read the first third of it like I did, it's pretty good, also very funny.

Read these while listening to Capitol K, Jan Jelinek, the Handsome Family, Posthuman, and anything else that is a) astonishingly good and b) on an indie label.

A techie friend of mine is recommending a whole bunch of sci fi and fantasy authors I've never heard of, but he's a Microsoft weenie so I might have to disregard that shit and eat his skin.

G

The Project Gutenberg text of Flatland was originally issued without the essential illustrations. Now it has them in ASCII form. If you prefer an HTML edition, Eldritch Press has it at http://www.eldritchpress.org/eaa/FL.HTM.

Abbott apparently based much of his satire on the work earlier published by Charles Howard Hinton. You can also read Hinton's works online at Eldritch Press, at http://www.eldritchpress.org/chh/hinton.html.

Hinton lead a colorful life for a mathematics professor. Rudy Rucker deserves our thanks for finding and collecting Hinton's contributions. Unfortunately, there were no reports that the year 2000 brought another visitor from that dimension to our world, as Hinton predicted.

Does reading these books pique your interest about the Fourth Dimension? See Thomas F. Banchoff's excellent Scientific American Library paperback, "Beyond the Third Dimension," ISBN 0-7167-6015-0, 1990, 1996.

The Project Gutenberg text of Flatland was originally issued without the essential illustrations. Now it has them in ASCII form. If you prefer an HTML edition, Eldritch Press has it at http://www.eldritchpress.org/eaa/FL.HTM.

Abbott apparently based much of his satire on the work earlier published by Charles Howard Hinton. You can also read Hinton's works online at Eldritch Press, at http://www.eldritchpress.org/chh/hinton.html.

Hinton lead a colorful life for a mathematics professor. Rudy Rucker deserves our thanks for finding and collecting Hinton's contributions. Unfortunately, there were no reports that the year 2000 brought another visitor from that dimension to our world, as Hinton predicted.

Does reading these books pique your interest about the Fourth Dimension? See Thomas F. Banchoff's excellent Scientific American Library paperback, "Beyond the Third Dimension," ISBN 0-7167-6015-0, 1990, 1996.

According to New Scientist magazine's "Feedback" column 17 Feb 2001 (see http://www.newscientist.com/feedback/, ntl has the following cable modem "user policy" provision for "abuse of the service":

"You must not disclose your password or user ID to anyone else. Your account can only be used for a single internet session at any one time and for no more than 24 hours in any one day."

Ridicule is an appropriate antidote to bureaucratic fever.

BTW, readers in Korea who can't put up their own web sites from their apartments, please read from Eldritch Press the English translation of the classic Korean novel, annotated and illustrated, The Cloud Dream of the Nine, at http://www.eldritchpress.org/kim/cloud9.html.

Eldritch Press runs from my home via ATT Mediaone RoadRunner cable modem service in New Hampshire, USA. Thanks, ATT!

Two years ago I was ranting about this--see my dialog on this subject.

And the current print edition of MIT's magazine "Technology Review" contains a letter from me restating this point--Microsoft Reader and Adobe Glassbook are all about locking up books--not serving users.

Instead of buying into this pay-per-view model where the big media giants own all the content, we should use computers and the Internet to make information and books more accessible and useful. All information need not be free--authors should experiment with selling works online too--as long as they are not locked up.

At the same time we should sue to overturn these laws that seek to privatize the public domain of books and other culture.

We should not waste time arguing over the right format--HTML is good enough now, it can be converted into XML if the content and structure is tagged properly, and even Project Gutenberg's ASCII can be coded so it doesn't lose information. The key is to eschew proprietary, binary formats, but publish freely online and link to other works to make the content come alive. Too many "eBook publishers" have no imagination and only shovel the text online, then complain that it's too hard to read and nobody buys it. So use computers wisely!

Microsoft Reader cannot lock up "eBooks" forever, though they will try to lock us up if we try to unlock them. In another /. thread, in YRO, under "Microsoft Ebooks and Copy Protection," you can see that the encryption can be circumvented. So now let's compare the locked books to the unlocked ones to see which is better, on technical grounds.

Scientific test:

1. Go to http://ebooks.barnesandnoble.com and select "American Literature" from the free books in the left panel.
2. Download one of the free eBooks, let's say "The Big Town" by Ring Lardner.
3. Note that you don't have to activate your Microsoft Reader or Microsoft Wallet if you just want one of these free books--but you do need to download Microsoft Reader, so you must use it only on a Microsoft Windows machine.
4. Now visit the Eldritch Press site and download the same book in HTML form, http://www.eldritchpress.org/rl/bigtown.html --(note that the text and illustrations were produced by "circumventing" the Microsoft encryption scheme, demonstrating that it cannot work).
5. If you like, download the TrueType fonts Berling and Berling Italic.
6. Read the two books on your favorite computer and display.
7. Observe that the open book was actually proofread and errors corrected.
8. Help me make a table that compares the two, pro and con, feature by feature.

OPEN:

1. Blind readers can "read" it with text-to-speech synthesizers or Braille printers.
2. Reader can copy it and share it with a friend.
3. Since it's on one web page, searching and copying text is easy.
4. Text can be piped into another Unix-type program for word count, glossary, index, concordance, dictionary etymology or corpus, reformat for another computer program, computer translation aids, and whatever you can think of.
5. Cascading style sheets in HTML code make it easy to create a better layout, typography, or style.
6. It's possible to link to other works on the web such as other Ring Lardner stories or sites such as Eldritch Press's Lardner site.
7. ....what else?

CLOSED:

1. Works only on Microsoft Windows.
2. Have to have a credit card for Microsoft Passport
3. Locks book against blind readers
4. Proprietary user interface goes against all World Wide Web and Microsoft standards
5. Reader reveals private demographic information to publisher
6. Used bookstores go out of business if this technology widely adopted.
7. Encryption prevents fair use of a work in the public domain--not available to be cited in a student's paper, anthologized in a teacher's course book, and so on.
8. ....what else?

9. Note that I refuse to share any circumvention methods with others. I believe the DMCA makes such sharing illegal--at least until we can get that law overturned. However, the DMCA has been interpreted by Judge Kaplan in SDNY to mean that if you can figure out a way to circumvent, then you can do so in order to make fair use of the encrypted work.

   The reason I'm giving this information now is to warn authors not to believe what their publishers are telling them: that they should not publish online unless works are locked up in a format such as Microsoft Reader. Everybody should know now that there is no valid technology to prevent digital works from being read, shared, or copied. In fact, if it were possible, our civilization, built upon the open, real book, would be in danger of collapsing.

   But you knew that already, didn't you? After all, I pointed this out two years ago, in the 1998 interview with myself, Battle of the Books. But at the time, too many gadget freaks were willing to swallow Microsoft's line that the display technology was key to getting people to read books online. Okay, now that you've done the experiment, browse through the other 12,000 free online books NOT in Microsoft Reader format: The On-Line Books Page or Internet Public Library, just for the English-language ones. After all, you own them!

Scientific test:

1. Go to http://ebooks.barnesandnoble.com and select "American Literature" from the free books in the left panel.
2. Download one of the free eBooks, let's say "The Big Town" by Ring Lardner.
3. Note that you don't have to activate your Microsoft Reader or Microsoft Wallet if you just want one of these free books--but you do need to download Microsoft Reader, so you must use it only on a Microsoft Windows machine.
4. Now visit the Eldritch Press site and download the same book in HTML form, http://www.eldritchpress.org/rl/bigtown.html --(note that the text and illustrations were produced by "circumventing" the Microsoft encryption scheme, demonstrating that it cannot work).
5. If you like, download the TrueType fonts Berling and Berling Italic.
6. Read the two books on your favorite computer and display.
7. Observe that the open book was actually proofread and errors corrected.
8. Help me make a table that compares the two, pro and con, feature by feature.

OPEN:

1. Blind readers can "read" it with text-to-speech synthesizers or Braille printers.
2. Reader can copy it and share it with a friend.
3. Since it's on one web page, searching and copying text is easy.
4. Text can be piped into another Unix-type program for word count, glossary, index, concordance, dictionary etymology or corpus, reformat for another computer program, computer translation aids, and whatever you can think of.
5. Cascading style sheets in HTML code make it easy to create a better layout, typography, or style.
6. It's possible to link to other works on the web such as other Ring Lardner stories or sites such as Eldritch Press's Lardner site.
7. ....what else?

CLOSED:

1. Works only on Microsoft Windows.
2. Have to have a credit card for Microsoft Passport
3. Locks book against blind readers
4. Proprietary user interface goes against all World Wide Web and Microsoft standards
5. Reader reveals private demographic information to publisher
6. Used bookstores go out of business if this technology widely adopted.
7. Encryption prevents fair use of a work in the public domain--not available to be cited in a student's paper, anthologized in a teacher's course book, and so on.
8. ....what else?

9. Note that I refuse to share any circumvention methods with others. I believe the DMCA makes such sharing illegal--at least until we can get that law overturned. However, the DMCA has been interpreted by Judge Kaplan in SDNY to mean that if you can figure out a way to circumvent, then you can do so in order to make fair use of the encrypted work.

   The reason I'm giving this information now is to warn authors not to believe what their publishers are telling them: that they should not publish online unless works are locked up in a format such as Microsoft Reader. Everybody should know now that there is no valid technology to prevent digital works from being read, shared, or copied. In fact, if it were possible, our civilization, built upon the open, real book, would be in danger of collapsing.

   But you knew that already, didn't you? After all, I pointed this out two years ago, in the 1998 interview with myself, Battle of the Books. But at the time, too many gadget freaks were willing to swallow Microsoft's line that the display technology was key to getting people to read books online. Okay, now that you've done the experiment, browse through the other 12,000 free online books NOT in Microsoft Reader format: The On-Line Books Page or Internet Public Library, just for the English-language ones. After all, you own them!

Scientific test:

1. Go to http://ebooks.barnesandnoble.com and select "American Literature" from the free books in the left panel.
2. Download one of the free eBooks, let's say "The Big Town" by Ring Lardner.
3. Note that you don't have to activate your Microsoft Reader or Microsoft Wallet if you just want one of these free books--but you do need to download Microsoft Reader, so you must use it only on a Microsoft Windows machine.
4. Now visit the Eldritch Press site and download the same book in HTML form, http://www.eldritchpress.org/rl/bigtown.html --(note that the text and illustrations were produced by "circumventing" the Microsoft encryption scheme, demonstrating that it cannot work).
5. If you like, download the TrueType fonts Berling and Berling Italic.
6. Read the two books on your favorite computer and display.
7. Observe that the open book was actually proofread and errors corrected.
8. Help me make a table that compares the two, pro and con, feature by feature.

OPEN:

1. Blind readers can "read" it with text-to-speech synthesizers or Braille printers.
2. Reader can copy it and share it with a friend.
3. Since it's on one web page, searching and copying text is easy.
4. Text can be piped into another Unix-type program for word count, glossary, index, concordance, dictionary etymology or corpus, reformat for another computer program, computer translation aids, and whatever you can think of.
5. Cascading style sheets in HTML code make it easy to create a better layout, typography, or style.
6. It's possible to link to other works on the web such as other Ring Lardner stories or sites such as Eldritch Press's Lardner site.
7. ....what else?

CLOSED:

1. Works only on Microsoft Windows.
2. Have to have a credit card for Microsoft Passport
3. Locks book against blind readers
4. Proprietary user interface goes against all World Wide Web and Microsoft standards
5. Reader reveals private demographic information to publisher
6. Used bookstores go out of business if this technology widely adopted.
7. Encryption prevents fair use of a work in the public domain--not available to be cited in a student's paper, anthologized in a teacher's course book, and so on.
8. ....what else?

9. Note that I refuse to share any circumvention methods with others. I believe the DMCA makes such sharing illegal--at least until we can get that law overturned. However, the DMCA has been interpreted by Judge Kaplan in SDNY to mean that if you can figure out a way to circumvent, then you can do so in order to make fair use of the encrypted work.

   The reason I'm giving this information now is to warn authors not to believe what their publishers are telling them: that they should not publish online unless works are locked up in a format such as Microsoft Reader. Everybody should know now that there is no valid technology to prevent digital works from being read, shared, or copied. In fact, if it were possible, our civilization, built upon the open, real book, would be in danger of collapsing.

   But you knew that already, didn't you? After all, I pointed this out two years ago, in the 1998 interview with myself, Battle of the Books. But at the time, too many gadget freaks were willing to swallow Microsoft's line that the display technology was key to getting people to read books online. Okay, now that you've done the experiment, browse through the other 12,000 free online books NOT in Microsoft Reader format: The On-Line Books Page or Internet Public Library, just for the English-language ones. After all, you own them!

Scientific test:

1. Go to http://ebooks.barnesandnoble.com and select "American Literature" from the free books in the left panel.
2. Download one of the free eBooks, let's say "The Big Town" by Ring Lardner.
3. Note that you don't have to activate your Microsoft Reader or Microsoft Wallet if you just want one of these free books--but you do need to download Microsoft Reader, so you must use it only on a Microsoft Windows machine.
4. Now visit the Eldritch Press site and download the same book in HTML form, http://www.eldritchpress.org/rl/bigtown.html --(note that the text and illustrations were produced by "circumventing" the Microsoft encryption scheme, demonstrating that it cannot work).
5. If you like, download the TrueType fonts Berling and Berling Italic.
6. Read the two books on your favorite computer and display.
7. Observe that the open book was actually proofread and errors corrected.
8. Help me make a table that compares the two, pro and con, feature by feature.

OPEN:

1. Blind readers can "read" it with text-to-speech synthesizers or Braille printers.
2. Reader can copy it and share it with a friend.
3. Since it's on one web page, searching and copying text is easy.
4. Text can be piped into another Unix-type program for word count, glossary, index, concordance, dictionary etymology or corpus, reformat for another computer program, computer translation aids, and whatever you can think of.
5. Cascading style sheets in HTML code make it easy to create a better layout, typography, or style.
6. It's possible to link to other works on the web such as other Ring Lardner stories or sites such as Eldritch Press's Lardner site.
7. ....what else?

CLOSED:

1. Works only on Microsoft Windows.
2. Have to have a credit card for Microsoft Passport
3. Locks book against blind readers
4. Proprietary user interface goes against all World Wide Web and Microsoft standards
5. Reader reveals private demographic information to publisher
6. Used bookstores go out of business if this technology widely adopted.
7. Encryption prevents fair use of a work in the public domain--not available to be cited in a student's paper, anthologized in a teacher's course book, and so on.
8. ....what else?

9. Note that I refuse to share any circumvention methods with others. I believe the DMCA makes such sharing illegal--at least until we can get that law overturned. However, the DMCA has been interpreted by Judge Kaplan in SDNY to mean that if you can figure out a way to circumvent, then you can do so in order to make fair use of the encrypted work.

   The reason I'm giving this information now is to warn authors not to believe what their publishers are telling them: that they should not publish online unless works are locked up in a format such as Microsoft Reader. Everybody should know now that there is no valid technology to prevent digital works from being read, shared, or copied. In fact, if it were possible, our civilization, built upon the open, real book, would be in danger of collapsing.

   But you knew that already, didn't you? After all, I pointed this out two years ago, in the 1998 interview with myself, Battle of the Books. But at the time, too many gadget freaks were willing to swallow Microsoft's line that the display technology was key to getting people to read books online. Okay, now that you've done the experiment, browse through the other 12,000 free online books NOT in Microsoft Reader format: The On-Line Books Page or Internet Public Library, just for the English-language ones. After all, you own them!

Scientific test:

1. Go to http://ebooks.barnesandnoble.com and select "American Literature" from the free books in the left panel.
2. Download one of the free eBooks, let's say "The Big Town" by Ring Lardner.
3. Note that you don't have to activate your Microsoft Reader or Microsoft Wallet if you just want one of these free books--but you do need to download Microsoft Reader, so you must use it only on a Microsoft Windows machine.
4. Now visit the Eldritch Press site and download the same book in HTML form, http://www.eldritchpress.org/rl/bigtown.html --(note that the text and illustrations were produced by "circumventing" the Microsoft encryption scheme, demonstrating that it cannot work).
5. If you like, download the TrueType fonts Berling and Berling Italic.
6. Read the two books on your favorite computer and display.
7. Observe that the open book was actually proofread and errors corrected.
8. Help me make a table that compares the two, pro and con, feature by feature.

OPEN:

1. Blind readers can "read" it with text-to-speech synthesizers or Braille printers.
2. Reader can copy it and share it with a friend.
3. Since it's on one web page, searching and copying text is easy.
4. Text can be piped into another Unix-type program for word count, glossary, index, concordance, dictionary etymology or corpus, reformat for another computer program, computer translation aids, and whatever you can think of.
5. Cascading style sheets in HTML code make it easy to create a better layout, typography, or style.
6. It's possible to link to other works on the web such as other Ring Lardner stories or sites such as Eldritch Press's Lardner site.
7. ....what else?

CLOSED:

1. Works only on Microsoft Windows.
2. Have to have a credit card for Microsoft Passport
3. Locks book against blind readers
4. Proprietary user interface goes against all World Wide Web and Microsoft standards
5. Reader reveals private demographic information to publisher
6. Used bookstores go out of business if this technology widely adopted.
7. Encryption prevents fair use of a work in the public domain--not available to be cited in a student's paper, anthologized in a teacher's course book, and so on.
8. ....what else?

9. Note that I refuse to share any circumvention methods with others. I believe the DMCA makes such sharing illegal--at least until we can get that law overturned. However, the DMCA has been interpreted by Judge Kaplan in SDNY to mean that if you can figure out a way to circumvent, then you can do so in order to make fair use of the encrypted work.

   The reason I'm giving this information now is to warn authors not to believe what their publishers are telling them: that they should not publish online unless works are locked up in a format such as Microsoft Reader. Everybody should know now that there is no valid technology to prevent digital works from being read, shared, or copied. In fact, if it were possible, our civilization, built upon the open, real book, would be in danger of collapsing.

   But you knew that already, didn't you? After all, I pointed this out two years ago, in the 1998 interview with myself, Battle of the Books. But at the time, too many gadget freaks were willing to swallow Microsoft's line that the display technology was key to getting people to read books online. Okay, now that you've done the experiment, browse through the other 12,000 free online books NOT in Microsoft Reader format: The On-Line Books Page or Internet Public Library, just for the English-language ones. After all, you own them!

Eldritch Press is one of those sites that voluntarily scans books and publishes them free online. If the LOC won't, we will.

Indeed, the LOC American Memory Project has a fine collection of baseball cards. They were donated by Carl Sandburg, the Chicago poet. (See some in the online edition of Ring Lardner's baseball stories.) But LOC can't put all of Sandburg's POEMS online, because the LOC allowed Congress to lock up their copyrights for another 20 years. So Eldritch Press is suing to overturn the copyright term extension. See http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/eldredvreno/ and help out!

This Librarian is the official Congress chose to decide what fair use educators could make of digital products when we embark on online distance education. One can only hope that he reads our online comments and decides this issue fairly.

LOC is also digitizing books in the Making of America Project. My only objection to that is that the books are presented in poor page images, not in digitized text. Thus they cannot be read by a blind reader, nor can computers search for words. Yet the LOC is going to spend more money to record voice digitally for the blind in a separate project.

Today, the LOC every day is presented with much more new digital products such as TV programs than it collects printed books. As far as I know, the LOC has no means of archiving them (much less the entire Internet) and no plans to do so. Consequently, and because the LOC is compliant with Congress, the tool of big business and established publishers, these 'pay-per-view' products will likely evaporate from our culture.

The Librarian is right to say the LOC has a role in providing content over the Internet to schools. If not the LOC, then who? Take one example: students in the U.S. commonly are required to read 'The Scarlet Letter.' What would students find on the Internet if it were not for the Bartleby Project, Eldritch Press, or Project Gutenberg? They would find links to a site put up by a Disney branch that created a film version starring Demi Moore, that included enough nudity that few high school students could see it. But after the film became a commercial failure, the site disappeared from Internet memory. Even if it were still on the web, the film version is far from the book--the plot was completely changed to pander to today's politically correct viewers.

The LOC can play a great role in achieving the grand goal of a global public library that is free to all over the web and that contains the important parts of our culture. But it can't do that unless our national laws permit it, and it can't even begin to do so when media giant corporations assert control over every aspect of our digital culture. So let's change the world ourselves! Fight the copyright term extension, the DMCA, and other such repression! Scan books yourself and help them survive.

One final point: for some reason I couldn't add this comment to /. with Netscape on Linux as long as the ibook.com ad was at the top of the page (so I'm using w3m). I'm sure there is no connection, right!

Eldritch Press is one of those sites that voluntarily scans books and publishes them free online. If the LOC won't, we will.

Indeed, the LOC American Memory Project has a fine collection of baseball cards. They were donated by Carl Sandburg, the Chicago poet. (See some in the online edition of Ring Lardner's baseball stories.) But LOC can't put all of Sandburg's POEMS online, because the LOC allowed Congress to lock up their copyrights for another 20 years. So Eldritch Press is suing to overturn the copyright term extension. See http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/eldredvreno/ and help out!

This Librarian is the official Congress chose to decide what fair use educators could make of digital products when we embark on online distance education. One can only hope that he reads our online comments and decides this issue fairly.

LOC is also digitizing books in the Making of America Project. My only objection to that is that the books are presented in poor page images, not in digitized text. Thus they cannot be read by a blind reader, nor can computers search for words. Yet the LOC is going to spend more money to record voice digitally for the blind in a separate project.

Today, the LOC every day is presented with much more new digital products such as TV programs than it collects printed books. As far as I know, the LOC has no means of archiving them (much less the entire Internet) and no plans to do so. Consequently, and because the LOC is compliant with Congress, the tool of big business and established publishers, these 'pay-per-view' products will likely evaporate from our culture.

The Librarian is right to say the LOC has a role in providing content over the Internet to schools. If not the LOC, then who? Take one example: students in the U.S. commonly are required to read 'The Scarlet Letter.' What would students find on the Internet if it were not for the Bartleby Project, Eldritch Press, or Project Gutenberg? They would find links to a site put up by a Disney branch that created a film version starring Demi Moore, that included enough nudity that few high school students could see it. But after the film became a commercial failure, the site disappeared from Internet memory. Even if it were still on the web, the film version is far from the book--the plot was completely changed to pander to today's politically correct viewers.

The LOC can play a great role in achieving the grand goal of a global public library that is free to all over the web and that contains the important parts of our culture. But it can't do that unless our national laws permit it, and it can't even begin to do so when media giant corporations assert control over every aspect of our digital culture. So let's change the world ourselves! Fight the copyright term extension, the DMCA, and other such repression! Scan books yourself and help them survive.

One final point: for some reason I couldn't add this comment to /. with Netscape on Linux as long as the ibook.com ad was at the top of the page (so I'm using w3m). I'm sure there is no connection, right!

Copyright law in the U.S. does need an overhaul, but we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Much of what RMS argues could be achieved by returning law to what prevailed before 1976, thus revoking DMCA, NET, and the popular concept of "property rights" to creative expressions.

These eBook gadgets (what I called "antibooks" at http://www.eldritchpress.org/battle.html) are indeed bad for everybody, because they deny fair use, the right of first sale, lending by libraries, resale by bookstores, reading by blind readers, and they invade our privacy.

But they should not be confused with the 11,000 FREE electronic books now available on the Internet, that are not so locked up. And many unencrypted books are being sold on the Internet now, although not by the media giants.

Copyright does not imply locking up books, and selling books on the Internet does not imply encrypting them and denying readers' rights. Copyright should imply open publication with fair use by the reader, for a limited time, then it enters the public domain.

Now, what should we do? First, we can join a battle in the courts to change copyright law: see http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/eldredvreno. Second, we can boycott these encrypted "antibooks," just as we did DIVX.

But, most importantly, we need to assemble a POLITICAL coalition of citizens around the "intellectual property" issues of digital media (music, books, video, etc.) including the human genome (now just a database), and issues of globalization and domination of our popular culture by rent-seeking media giants based in the rich countries. We may need to change campaign contribution laws first, as one example.

However, we cannot rely on strictly technological responses any longer, and we cannot rely on a free market to solve problems either--the market has been captured by media monopolists with government backing, and copyright infringement has been criminalized. The public has been taught to call us "pirates" for not being compliant consumers. We need an education campaign comparable to that of Hollywood's. Only if the universities (not the "run-as-a-business" type) and the great institutions of our society charged with preserving science and the humanitites join in this education campaign can freedom truly prevail.