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James Boyle's New Book Under CC License
An anonymous reader writes "James Boyle has released his new book, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (Yale University Press) under a Creative Commons License. It can be downloaded free or read online. There are chapters on Thomas Jefferson's views of IP, musical borrowing and the birth of soul, free software, and synthetic biology. Lessig is impressed. Doctorow says he is a law prof who writes like a comedian (is this a good thing?), and credits Boyle's first book for getting him involved in online rights."
Doctorow says he is a law prof who writes like a comedian(Is that a good thing?)
No, it's a meaningless thing given that Doctorow has little to no education, and is an author who has never been of sufficient caliber to get the attention of a publisher (and no, I do not count a company that publishes Halo fanfiction "books" to be a publisher.)
He's also a hypocritical little shit; we never did see him press charges against the SFWA for filing illegal DMCA notices, now did we? Funny how he didn't get all up in their grill, but he's happy to incite riots among his BoingBoing readers when it doesn't involve him?
It's absolutely fascinating that both he and his wife have managed to attain positions in academia despite having no fucking education. Seriously- she's a WoW player/Quake gamer, and USC calls her a "fellow"? What the FUCK? What drugs did she put in their water?
Please help metamoderate.
once it is on the internet it is difficult to have artistic control, however the producer has the rights to be credited for its creation. The one that is not responsible for the creation of the product that is put up on the internet is the thief if it is put up there without the creator's permission.
Taking an idea from someone else and giving it away is thievery, but once an idea has been sold it is no longer under the control if its author.
All of academia and our modern society is based on both the right of ideas to be free and for idea creators to sell their ideas.
So: no matter how the idea is distributed we should all have the right, and certainly do have the responsibility, to pay the originator of the idea for his material.
Distribution rights are unconstitutional immoral and antithetical to a free and prosperous society. Intellectual property rights are, on the other hand, the exact opposite.
Doctorow says he is a law prof who writes like a comedian (is this a good thing?)
Yes. Comedians are more thoughtful than is often apparent. They are logical and intelligent and perceptive. You can't be dumb and (deliberately) funny. It actually takes intelligence and a great deal of work to be as (deliberately) funny as Dan Quayle for example. Comedians often derive their humour from pointing out the incongruities that most other people overlook. If all of us could be comedians then the world would be a far more intelligent (and funnier) place to live.
I'm not one to shun a history lesson, but I think the important thing here is that acknowledgment that the work of brilliant people should be free to all.
Keep charging for Hollywood crap, I don't care. But if you're truly bright, you'll want the world to know what you think.
It would also behoove Hollywood et al. to adopt this model, as it substantially augments the agent's influence in the given domain, but hey, they'll learn that the hard way, I guess.
I don't have the book on hand, but Bill Bryson put it well towards the start of "A Short History of Nearly Everything" where he blames the dry and boring nature of science textbooks and the authors need to put questions at the end of every chapter for squashing his interest in science. He then goes on to praise scientific authors who can make their work informative and entertaining.
I agree wholeheartedly. Make an otherwise dry subject funny and interesting and it becomes more memorable and therefore easier to learn.
To demonstrate my point, I have deliberately made this post dry and dull. You will notice that within a week you will have forgotten it entirely.
I don't therefore I'm not.
Resnick, Halliday and Walker (Fundamentals of Physics) did a great job with this. I loved how each chapter would start with a story and a question formed from that. For example, Electromagnetics, I think, started with telling how Jimi Hendrix fiddled with his guitar pickups to change the kind of sound he got.
Pretty much one of the best Physics textbooks I had when in high school.
Richard Feynman's Lectures on Physics are good in that regard, too. For example, he starts his lecture on planetary motion by describing the medieval myth that planets were pushed around by invisible angels. He finishes by pointing out that because we don't really understand what gravity is, all we've really done is turn the invisible angel through 90 degrees and say how hard it pushes.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?