Canada’s THIS Magazine has published a great, immensely flatttering article about my writing and my work with EFF.
One central figure gets left out of this polarized version of the copyright wars: the artist. Putting aside the few vocal stars who have already made their millions, we seldom hear from actual creators. Enter Doctorow, guns drawn. “The copyright industry talks about how it needs to engage in further education of the general public so people understand more clearly what copyright does and doesn’t allow you to do,” he says. “If you need to understand copyright to listen to music or read a book, it’s like having to understand banking and securities law to withdraw five bucks for lunch. It’s nuts, and it tells you that the law has overreached.”
Doctorow’s answer? Give it away. And he does. More than 500,000 copies of his first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, have been downloaded for free from his website. In his view, free digital distribution allows authors to edge out the competition and acquire an audience. It seems to work. The paper run of Down and Out, published by Tor Books, sold 35,000.
