As I mentioned in my March Locus column, I'm celebrating the tenth anniversary of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by m planning a prequel. volume As part of that, planning'I going to read aloud the entire text of that first book into the podcast, making notes on the book as I go. Here's part eight.

Mastering by John Taylor Williams: wryneckstudio@gmail.com

John Taylor Williams is a audiovisual and multimedia producer based in Washington, DC and the co-host of the Living Proof Brew Cast. Hear him wax poetic over a pint or two of beer by visiting livingproofbrewcast.com. In his free time he makes "Beer Jewelry" and "Odd Musical Furniture." He often "meditates while reading cookbooks."

MP3 link

Ronald Deibert’s new book, Black Code, is a gripping and absolutely terrifying blow-by-blow account of the way that companies, governments, cops and crooks have entered into an accidental conspiracy to poison our collective digital water supply in ways small and large, treating the Internet as a way to make a quick and dirty buck or as a snoopy spy’s best friend. The book is so thoroughly disheartening for its first 14 chapters that I found myself growing impatient with it, worrying that it was a mere counsel of despair.

But the final chapter of Black Code is an incandescent call to arms demanding that states and their agents cease their depraved indifference to the unintended consequences of their online war games and join with civil society groups that work to make the networked society into a freer, better place than the world it has overwritten.

Deibert is the founder and director of The Citizen Lab, a unique institution at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. It is one part X-Files hacker clubhouse, one part computer science lab and one part international relations observatory. The Citizen Lab’s researchers have scored a string of international coups: Uncovering GhostNet, the group of Chinese hackers taking over sensitive diplomatic computers around the world and eavesdropping on the private lives of governments; cracking Koobface, a group of Russian petty crooks who extorted millions from random people on the Internet, a few hundred dollars at a time; exposing another Chinese attack directed at the Tibetan government in exile and the Dalai Lama. Each of these exploits is beautifully recounted in Black Code and used to frame a larger, vivid narrative of a network that is global, vital and terribly fragile.

Yes, fragile. The value of the Internet to us as a species is incalculable, but there are plenty of parties for whom the Internet’s value increases when it is selectively broken.

How to make cyberspace safe for human habitation

Black Code: Inside the Battle for Cyberspace

Hacking Politics is a new book recounting the history of the fight against SOPA, when geeks, hackers and activists turned Washington politics upside-down and changed how Congress thinks about the Internet. It collects essays by many people (including me): Aaron Swartz, Larry Lessig, Zoe Lofgren, Mike Masnick, Kim Dotcom, Nicole Powers, Tiffiny Cheng, Alexis Ohanian, and many others. It's a name-your-price ebook download.

Hacking Politics is a firsthand account of how a ragtag band of activists and technologists overcame a $90 million lobbying machine to defeat the most serious threat to Internet freedom in memory. The book is a revealing look at how Washington works today – and how citizens successfully fought back.

Written by the core Internet figures – video gamers, Tea Partiers, tech titans, lefty activists and ordinary Americans among them – who defeated a pair of special interest bills called SOPA (“Stop Online Piracy Act”) and PIPA (“Protect IP Act”), Hacking Politics provides the first detailed account of the glorious, grand chaos that led to the demise of that legislation and helped foster an Internet-based network of amateur activists.

Hacking Politics

As I mentioned in my March Locus column, I'm celebrating the tenth anniversary of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by m planning a prequel. volume As part of that, planning'I going to read aloud the entire text of that first book into the podcast, making notes on the book as I go. Here's part seven.

Mastering by John Taylor Williams: wryneckstudio@gmail.com

John Taylor Williams is a audiovisual and multimedia producer based in Washington, DC and the co-host of the Living Proof Brew Cast. Hear him wax poetic over a pint or two of beer by visiting livingproofbrewcast.com. In his free time he makes "Beer Jewelry" and "Odd Musical Furniture." He often "meditates while reading cookbooks."

MP3 link

More interesting is the destiny of the files describing 3D printed guns. These model-files have been temporarily removed from the internet at the behest of the US State Department, which is investigating the possibility that they violate the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Wilson says that he's on safe ground here, because the regulations do not cover material in a library, and he says the internet is like a library. As this is taking place in the US, there's also the First Amendment to be considered, which limits government regulation of speech.

Here's where things get scary for me. Defense Distributed is headed for some important, possibly precedent-setting legal battles with the US government, and I'm worried that the fact that we're talking about guns here will cloud judges' minds. Bad cases made bad law, and it's hard to think of a more emotionally overheated subject area. So while I'd love to see a court evaluate whether the internet should be treated as a library in law, I'm worried that when it comes to guns, the judge may find himself framing the question in terms of whether a gun foundry should be treated as a library.

3D printed guns are going to create big legal precedents

Here's the video of "It's not a fax machine connect to a waffle iron," the talk I gave at the Re:publica conference in Berlin this week: "Lawmakers treat the Internet like it's Telephone 2.0, the Second Coming of Video on Demand, or the World's Number One Porn Distribution Service, but it's really the nervous system of the 21st Century. Unless we stop the trend toward depraved indifference in Internet law, making – and freedom – will die."

re:publica 2013 - Cory Doctorow: It's not a fax machine connect to a waffle iron

I am very honored to have been included on the ballot; my novel Pirate Cinema made the Best Young Adult novel list, which is a particularly strong category this year:

* The Drowned Cities, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown; Atom)

* Pirate Cinema, Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen)

* Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)

* Dodger, Terry Pratchett (Harper; Doubleday UK)

* The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, Catherynne M. Valente (Feiwel and Friends; Much-in-Little ’13)

See the full ballot after the jump.

2013 Locus Awards Finalists

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

* The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

* Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)

* Caliban’s War, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

* 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

* Redshirts, John Scalzi (Tor; Gollancz)

FANTASY NOVEL

* The Killing Moon, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

* The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)

* Glamour in Glass, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)

* Hide Me Among the Graves, Tim Powers (Morrow; Corvus)

* The Apocalypse Codex, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)

YOUNG ADULT BOOK

* The Drowned Cities, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown; Atom)

* Pirate Cinema, Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen)

* Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)

* Dodger, Terry Pratchett (Harper; Doubleday UK)

* The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, Catherynne M. Valente (Feiwel and Friends; Much-in-Little ’13)

FIRST NOVEL

* Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed (DAW; Gollancz ’13)

* vN, Madeline Ashby (Angry Robot US; Angry Robot UK)

* Seraphina, Rachel Hartman (Random House; Doubleday UK)

* The Games, Ted Kosmatka (Del Rey; Titan)

* Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson (Grove; Corvus)

NOVELLA

* “In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns”, Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s 1/12)

* On a Red Station, Drifting, Aliette de Bodard (Immersion)

* After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)

* “The Stars Do Not Lie”, Jay Lake (Asimov’s 10-11/12)

* The Boolean Gate, Walter Jon Williams (Subterranean)

NOVELETTE

* “Faster Gun”, Elizabeth Bear (Tor.com 8/12)

* “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi”, Pat Cadigan (Edge of Infinity)

* “Close Encounters”, Andy Duncan (The Pottawatomie Giant & Other Stories)

* “Fake Plastic Trees”, Caitlín R. Kiernan (After)

* “The Lady Astronaut of Mars”, Mary Robinette Kowal (Rip-Off!)

SHORT STORY

* “The Deeps of the Sky”, Elizabeth Bear (Edge of Infinity)

* “Immersion”, Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld 6/12)

* “Mantis Wives”, Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld 8/12)

* “Elementals”, Ursula K. Le Guin (Tin House Fall ’12)

* “Mono No Aware”, Ken Liu (The Future Is Japanese)

ANTHOLOGY

* After, Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, eds. (Hyperion)

* The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-ninth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin’s Griffin; Robinson as The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 25)

* The Future Is Japanese, Nick Mamatas & Masumi Washington, eds. (Haikasoru)

* Edge of Infinity, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Solaris US; Solaris UK)

* The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Six, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Night Shade)

COLLECTION

* The Best of Kage Baker, Kage Baker (Subterranean)

* Shoggoths in Bloom, Elizabeth Bear (Prime)

* At the Mouth of the River of Bees, Kij Johnson (Small Beer)

* The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories Volume One: Where on Earth and Volume Two: Outer Space, Inner Lands, Ursula K. Le Guin (Small Beer)

* The Dragon Griaule, Lucius Shepard (Subterranean)

MAGAZINE

* Asimov’s

* F&SF

* Tor.com

* Clarkesworld

* Subterranean

PUBLISHER

* Tor

* Subterranean Press

* Orbit

* Baen

* Angry Robot

EDITOR

* John Joseph Adams

* Ellen Datlow

* Gardner Dozois

* Jonathan Strahan

* Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

ARTIST

* Donato Giancola

* Stephan Martiniere

* John Picacio

* Shaun Tan

* Michael Whelan

NON-FICTION

* An Exile on Planet Earth, Brian Aldiss (Bodleian Library)

* Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010, Damien Broderick & Paul Di Filippo, eds. (NonStop)

* Distrust That Particular Flavor, William Gibson (Putnam)

* The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, Edward James & Farah Mendlesohn, eds. (Cambridge University Press)

* Some Remarks, Neal Stephenson (Morrow)

ART BOOK

* Spectrum 19: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner, eds. (Underwood)

* Trolls, Brian Froud & Wendy Froud (Abrams)

* Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration, Scott Tracy Griffin (Titan)

* J.R.R. Tolkien: The Art of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull, eds. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

* Steampunk: An Illustrated History, Brian J. Robb (Aurum)

As I mentioned in my March Locus column, I'm celebrating the tenth anniversary of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by m planning a prequel. volume As part of that, planning'I going to read aloud the entire text of that first book into the podcast, making notes on the book as I go. Here's part six.

Mastering by John Taylor Williams: wryneckstudio@gmail.com

John Taylor Williams is a audiovisual and multimedia producer based in Washington, DC and the co-host of the Living Proof Brew Cast. Hear him wax poetic over a pint or two of beer by visiting livingproofbrewcast.com. In his free time he makes "Beer Jewelry" and "Odd Musical Furniture." He often "meditates while reading cookbooks."

MP3 link

Right now, this stuff all lives in separate word-processing files and spreadsheets in different departments’ hands, which results in all sorts of bizarre occurrences that I see firsthand.

There’s the trilogy whose first volume I blurbed, and whose first two volumes I glowingly reviewed – and I sold a ton of each. The publisher didn’t send me book three for review, even though it had a quote of mine on the front cover, the back cover, and the jacket-flap. They didn’t even tell me it was out – by the time I saw it in a store, it had been out for a month, and my review showed up weeks after the book’s publicity push was over.

I know how that happened: the cover quotes came from editorial and were sent to marketing, which had them in a word-processing document. When PR brainstormed people to send review copies to, they forgot to include me, so it fell through the cracks.

There’s the graphic novel series, now in up to something like 17 volumes. I’ve given every book a positive review, and all the new volumes have quotes from me on the cover. I never get review copies of this one – I don’t even get a notice from the PR department when a new volume is out. But the same PR department has sent me something like nine volumes of another series, none of which I’ve ever reviewed. If I don’t review book one, that means I either didn’t like it, or didn’t even bother with it because it looked so unpromising. Having skipped book one, you can be certain I won’t review book two. This same publisher sends me mountains of single-issue comics, even though I’ve never reviewed one of those.

Improving Book Publicity in the 21st Century

As I mentioned in my March Locus column, I'm celebrating the tenth anniversary of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by planning a prequel volume. As part of that planning, I'm going to read aloud the entire text of that first book into the podcast, making notes on the book as I go. Here's part five.

Mastering by John Taylor Williams: wryneckstudio@gmail.com

John Taylor Williams is a audiovisual and multimedia producer based in Washington, DC and the co-host of the Living Proof Brew Cast. Hear him wax poetic over a pint or two of beer by visiting livingproofbrewcast.com. In his free time he makes "Beer Jewelry" and "Odd Musical Furniture." He often "meditates while reading cookbooks."

MP3 link

Trademark lawyers have convinced their clients that they must pay to send a threatening notice to everyone who uses a trademark without permission, even where there is no chance of confusion. They send letters by the lorryload to journalists, website operators, signmakers, schools, dictionary publishers – anyone who might use their marks in a way that weakens the association in the public mind. But weakening an association is not illegal, despite the expansion of doctrines such as "dilution" and "naked licensing."

When called out on policing our language, trademark holders and their lawyers usually shrug their shoulders and say, "Nothing to do with us.

The law requires us to threaten you, or we lose our association, and thus our mark." This is a very perverse way of understanding trademark.

The law is there to protect the public interest, and the public interest isn't undermined by the strength or weakness of an association with a specific word or mark with a specific company. The public interest extends to preventing fraud, and trademark uses the motivation of protecting profits to incentivise firms to uphold the public interest.

Trademarks: the good, the bad and the ugly