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Download For Free

Official Downloads:

* HTML file

* PDF file

* ePub file

(see below for Kindle and iBooks-compatible versions)

* ODT file

* TXT file

* All official files (ZIP)

Above, you'll find links to downloadable editions of the text of Pirate Cinema. These downloads are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs license, which lets you share it, provided that you do so on a noncommercial basis. If you'd like to make a remix, please get in touch with us.

Cory's previous books have been released under a slightly different Creative Commons license, one that allowed for derivative works (that is, new creative works based on this one). Keen observers will have already noticed that this book is licensed "NoDerivs" -- that is, you can't make remixes without permission

A word of explanation for this shift is in order. When I first started publishing under Creative Commons licenses, I had to carefully explain this to my editor and publisher at Tor Books. They were incredibly forward-looking and gave me permission to release the first-ever novel licensed under CC -- my debut novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. This ground-breaking step was only possible because I was able to have intense, personal discussions with my publisher.

My foreign rights agents are the inestimable Danny and Heather Baror, and collectively they have sold my books into literally dozens of countries and languages, helping to bring my work to places I couldn't have dreamed of reaching on my own. They subcontract for my agent Russell Galen, another inestimable personage without whom I would not have attained anything like the dizzy heights that I enjoy today. They attend large book fairs in cities like Frankfurt and Bologna in order to sell the foreign rights to my books, often negotiating with one of a few English-speakers at a foreign press, who then goes back and justifies her or his decisions to the rest of the company.

The point is that this is nothing like my initial Creative Commons discussion with Tor. That was me sitting down and making the case to editors I've known for years (my editor at Tor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, has known me since I was 17). My foreign rights are sold by a subcontractor of my representative to a representative of a press I've often never heard of, who then has to explain my publishing philosophy to people I've never met, using a language I don't speak.

This is hard.

Danny and Heather have asked -- not demanded, asked! -- that I consider publishing books under a NoDerivs license, so that I can consult with them before I authorize translations of my books. They want to be able to talk to potential foreign publishers about how this stuff works, to give me time to talk with them, to ease them into the idea, and to have the kind of extended conversation that helped me lead Tor into their decision all those years ago.

And I agreed. Free/open culture is something publishers need to be led to, not forced into. It's a long conversation that often runs contrary to their intuition and received wisdom. But no one gets into publishing to get rich. Working in the publishing industry is virtually a vow of poverty. The only reason to get into publishing is because you flat-out love books and want to make them happen. People work in publishing for the same reason writers write: they can't help themselves.

So I want to be able to have this conversation, personally, unhurriedly, one-to-one. I want to keep all the people involved in my books -- agents, subagents, foreign editors and their bosses -- in the loop on these discussions. I will always passionately advocate for CC licensing in all of my work. I promise you that if you write to me with a request for a noncommercial derivative use, that I will do everything in my power to see that it is authorized.

And in the meantime, I draw your attention to article 2 of all Creative Commons licenses:

Nothing in this License is intended to reduce, limit, or restrict any uses free from copyright or rights arising from limitations or exceptions that are provided for in connection with the copyright protection under copyright law or other applicable laws.

Strip away the legalese and what that says is, "Copyright gives you, the public, rights. Fair use is real. Fair dealing is real. De minimum exemptions to copyright are real. You have the right to make all sorts of uses of all copyrighted works, without permission, without Creative Commons licenses.

Rights are like muscles. When you don't exercise them, they get flabby. Stop asking for stuff you can take without permission. Please!

It's kind of a tradition around here for readers to convert ebooks to their favorite formats and send them to me here, and it's one that we love! Permission is hereby granted to convert the files below to other formats. If you've converted these files to another format, send them to me and I'll host them, but before you do, make sure you read the following:

  • Only one conversion per format, first come, first serve. That means that if someone's already converted the file to a Femellhebber 3000 document, that's the one you're going to find here. I just don't know enough about esoteric readers to adjudicate disputes about what the ideal format is for your favorite device.
  • Make sure include a link to the reader as well. When you send me an ebook file, make sure that you include a link to the website for the reader technology as well so that I can include it below.
  • No cover art. The text of this book is freely copyable, the cover, not so much. The rights to it are controlled by my publisher, so don't include it with your file.
  • No DRM. The Creative Commons license prohibits sharing the file with "DRM" (sometimes called "copy-protection") on it, and that's fine by me. Don't send me the book with DRM on it. If you're converting to a format that has a DRM option, make sure it's switched off.

    Fan conversions:

    * MOBI file

    For Kindle and others (Thanks, J.C. Lundberg!)

    * PRC file

    For Kindle and others (Thanks, Zoltán Dragon!)

    * EPUB file

    For iBooks, Sony E-Reader, Nook etc (Use this EPUB if there are problems with iOS) (Thanks, Samuel Abram!)

    25 Responses to “Download For Free”

    1. Will says:
      October 9, 2012 at 8:45 pm

      Thanks yet again, Cory! Can't wait to read this.

      FYI, the zip file link is broken – it has a trailing slash at the end.

      Reply
    2. Andreas says:
      October 9, 2012 at 10:02 pm

      Thanks a lot, Cory!
      Will start reading it right away!

      Reply
    3. Erin says:
      October 9, 2012 at 11:15 pm

      Thanks and looking forward to seeing you speak in Vancouver!

      The ePub file will not open in iBooks for some reason. iBooks thinks it is incorrectly formatted or not the right format.

      Reply
    4. Vishva in Fukushima says:
      October 10, 2012 at 3:42 am

      Great stuff!

      EPub file link gives me 'cannot read, formatted improperly' error in iBooks

      Reply
    5. Doug says:
      October 10, 2012 at 8:36 pm

      I can confirm that the ePub file on this site does not open in iBooks, but the ePub from Humble Bundle works just fine.

      FYI, the Humble Bundle version is more than twice the file size! (811 KB vs. 385 KB)

      Reply
      • Cory Doctorow says:
        October 10, 2012 at 9:18 pm

        Thanks! Ralph, who makes SiSu, the single-source epub converter I use, says that this validates, so there's something funky/fuggly about the conversion. If someone wants to convert to ePub I'll put it in the fan conversions...

        Reply
        • Alex says:
          October 13, 2012 at 2:09 pm

          I don't get it, can't you just put the Humble Bundle ePub here, since that's confirmed working? You must have both files, surely?

          Reply
          • Cory Doctorow says:
            October 13, 2012 at 2:51 pm

            Nope -- my publisher has the latter, and I'm not licensed to distribute it, and even if I was, it would lack the additional material (CC license, introductions, afterwords, explanatory notes, material for libraries and schools, etc) that my ebooks have

            Reply
    6. Trevor says:
      October 14, 2012 at 5:57 pm

      Don't miss the Fifty Shades of Commercial Interlude!

      Thanks, Cory!

      Reply
    7. Bob T says:
      October 15, 2012 at 1:10 am

      Return of Son of the Bride of Commercial Interlude, Part II...

      Awesome book, so far: You got me, Cory! About 60% through, and I had to buy the Kobo e-book. Keep it up!

      Reply
    8. Samuel Abram says:
      October 15, 2012 at 3:01 pm

      I fixed the issues with Pirate Cinema. It should work on iOS devices now:

      http://dl.dropbox.com/u/39658425/Cory_Doctorow_-_Pirate_Cinema_fixed.epub

      Reply
    9. James says:
      October 15, 2012 at 9:11 pm

      ePub version appears not to be working on my iPhone's iBooks reader. I can get it to work if I convert it from ePub to ePub with a converter I found, but then the formatting gets kind of messed up. I'm going to try to grab the Humble Bundle a week from now when I get paid, and just hope it works.

      Reply
    10. jan says:
      October 22, 2012 at 3:36 pm

      An improved epub version with full index and chapter titles is here:

      http:////www.nazioneindiana.com/wp-content/2012/10/Cory_Doctorow_-_Pirate_Cinema.epub

      I made it with the unaltered original ODT file and Writer2epub.
      http://lukesblog.it/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

      Reply
    11. girasole says:
      November 17, 2012 at 12:57 am

      Cora`s whole speech and the alchemy-metaphor...pah, thank you Cory! One of my reading-highlights of the year so far.

      (Q:Nobody went to jail, so did the viral reflashing of the laser-hats work? ;)

      Reply
    12. Haxagon says:
      December 6, 2012 at 6:19 pm

      Hey! I love Pirate Cinema. I wanted to let you know of a typo in the HTML version. A line reads "he'd urge them to do it it seemed they were in danger of passing by without helping themselves". The second "it" should be an "if".

      Reply
    13. lr says:
      March 25, 2013 at 11:40 am

      Dear Cory,

      I'm no film-maker, but I was thinking that it might be an interesting idea to create new novels by splicing together paragraphs from your novels to make a new story - in a similar way to that discussed in the book.

      I'm not clear whether I have permission to do this - and if I don't, whether I should do it anyway.

      It probably wouldn't turn out well. But then, it might. Isn't it worth a go?

      Reply

    Leave a Reply


    Creative Commons License
    • It’s generally accepted that fussing with computers is a narrative buzzkill, yet Doctorow’s unrivaled verisimilitude makes every click as exciting as a band of underdog warriors storming a castle. It’s not exactly Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book (1971), but with its delirious insights into everything from street art to urban exploring to dumpster diving to experimental cinema, it feels damn close. Share this:TwitterPinterestStumbleUponGoogle +1
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    ISBN: 978-1604864045

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