Cory Doctorow On For the Win, Gold Farming, and DRM

adaviel passes along a New Scientist interview with Cory Doctorow, who has been touring for his new book For the Win. The SF author and technology activist talks about DRM, gold farming, and much else besides.

Comments

Re:interesting quote from the subject of the artic

[decipher_saint]

Yeah, but after the obscurity, THEN artists get interested in DRM.

Re:Gold Farming History

[DeadboltX]

I could be wrong, but I think he was referring to organized businesses hiring employees for the purpose of farming gold, and then reselling it, and that was the business model.

It seems to me that all the early gold selling (AC, EQ) was individuals selling stuff on ebay, and not some sort of organized business.

Re:interesting quote from the subject of the artic

[radtea]

Writers are not philosophers or physicists

As a physicist and philospher who is currently developing his writing career, I don't agree with this. It's true that some writers are just what you describe. They aren't artists, they aren't original thinkers. They are what used to be known as "hacks".

Writers, however, are expected to come up with their own ideas, and in the case in point, with their own words--at least some of the time. While it's true that "mediocrity borrows, genius steals", it takes more than theft to make a genius: it takes intelligent transmutation of the stolen material into an original and interesting form. Insofar as a writer does that, they are not a hack, but that is a requirement, not just "expressing old ideas in interesting ways."

And the best writers, of course, express new ideas in interesting ways. Melville wasn't just regurgitating facts about whales (although he was doing that too...)