My latest InformationWeek column is up! “How Big Media’s Copyright Campaigns Threaten Internet Free Expression” describes why artists should be less alarmed by piracy and more alarmed by copyright enforcement systems that raise the cost of publication to the advantage of the established players and the detriment of new companies that might offer a better deal.

The Internet’s current, incredible diversity is great news for artists. The traditional artist’s lament is that our publishers have us over a barrel, controlling the narrow and vital channels for making works available — from big gallery owners to movie studios to record labels to New York publishers. That’s why artists have such a hard time negotiating a decent deal for themselves (for example, most beginning recording artists have to agree to have money deducted from their royalty statements for “breakage” of records en route to stores — and these deductions are also levied against digital sales through the iTunes Store!).

But, thanks to the web, artists have more options than ever. The Internet’s most popular video podcasts aren’t associated with TV networks (with all the terrible, one-sided deals that would entail), rather, they’re independent programs like RocketBoom, Homestar Runner, or the late, lamented Ze Frank Show. These creators — along with all the musicians, writers, and other artists using the net to earn their living — were able to write their own ticket. Today, major artists like Radiohead and Madonna are leaving the record labels behind and trying novel, net-based ways of promoting their work.

And it’s not just the indies who benefit: the existence of successful independent artists creates fantastic leverage for artists who negotiate with the majors. More and more, the big media companies’ “like it or leave it” bargaining stance is being undermined by the possibility that the next big star will shrug, turn on her heel, and make her fortune without the big companies’ help. This has humbled the bigs, making their deals better and more artist-friendly.

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Georgi Ivanov and Maya Georgieva have translated my Radar story Scroogled into Bulgarian and Christian Woehrl has translated the story into German and uploaded it to the Internet Archive.

Scroogled (a story about the day Google became evil) was the first Creative Commons licensed story to appear in Radar Magazine, and it’s been translated by fans into French, Spanish, Russian, and Persian as well!

Link to Scroogled in Bulgarian,

Link to Scroogled in German PDF,

Link to Scroogled in German HTML

My Nebula-award-nominated story 0wnz0red has been translated into Swedish by Johan Anglemark for the Finnish fanzine Enhörningen, and released under a Creative Commons license. 0wnz0red was the first sf story ever published on Salon and it has been reprinted several times — nice to see it reaching Nordic fans, too! It seems that “0wnz0red” translates into Swedish as “Ägd!”

Tio år i Silicon Valley, och allt Murray Swain hade fått ut av det var en bilring, begynnande flint och ett liv som var ensamt och tomt och genomruttet. Hans enda vän i Kalifornien, Liam, hade förvandlats från en lönnfet programmerarformad potatis till ett levande skelett på dödsbädden ett år tidigare, med herpesblemmor i full blom över hela kroppen i brist på immunförsvar. Minnesgudstjänsten pryddes av ett inramat foto av Liam på examensdagen; hans kropp hade skänkts till vetenskapen.

Liams bortgång hade verkligen sabbat allt för Murray. Han hade hamnat i en av de spiraler med klinisk depression som förr eller senare hade drabbat alla åldrande smarta unga kodare som han känt i datorbranschen. Ögonen blev fuktiga på morgonen vid andra kaffekoppen och när blodsockerkraschen inträffade på eftermiddagen satt han och grät tyst i sitt bås och klinkade slumpmässigt på tangentbordet för att dölja sitt motbjudande hulkande. Hans papperskorg svämmade över med använda näsdukar och det gick ett rykte bland kvällsstädarna att han var obotlig onanist. Det omöjliga i ryktet blev snabbt uppenbart för alla andra kodare på våningsplanet som, ständigt på jakt efter pr0n, hade utforskat omfattningen och gränserna för censurproxyn på huvudkontorets nätverk. Trots detta upprepades det med illa dold glädje i den kollegialt grabbiga atmosfären på arbetsplatsen och lustigkurrar envisades med att dumpa samlingar av miniatyrflaskor med handkräm som de stulit från konferenshotell på hans skrivbord.

Link to HTML version, Link to PDF version

My latest Guardian column is online: “Why a rights robocop will never work.” In it, I address the issue of automated copyright enforcement systems and why they are a bad idea:

It would have to perform with near-perfection: even if it turns out that it catches every single infringement except for video that is re-cut to 16:9 with letterboxing at 31fps, then all the pirates will just encode it that way and evade the filter, meaning that the system would generate an unacceptable level of false negatives.

In other words, all the money spent on the system would be for naught because it would fail to catch a significant proportion of pirates.

It would also have to be nearly perfect in regards to false positives – every time it misidentified a home movie of your kids’ first steps or your gran’s 85th birthday as Police Academy 29 or Star Wars: Episode 0, Jedi Teen Academy, your own right to use the Internet to communicate with your friends and family would be compromised – likewise unacceptable.

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