Here’s part four of my reading of Bruce Sterling’s brilliant, seminal book The Hacker Crackdown, a 1992 book that recounts the events that led to the founding of The Electronic Frontier Foundation, my former employer.
My latest InformationWeek column just went live. It’s called “A Behind-The-Scenes Look At How DRM Becomes Law” and it a rarely seen look at the sausage factory that is DRM standards negotiation. This stuff all happens behind closed doors, and it’s ugly as sin. When you’ve watched them bury bodies in meeting after meeting, it’s pretty fun to exhume a couple and rattle their bones.
Intel’s presence on the committee was both reassurance and threat: reassurance because Intel signaled the fundamental reasonableness of the MPAA’s requirements — why would a company with a bigger turnover than the whole movie industry show up if the negotiations weren’t worth having? Threat because Intel was poised to gain an advantage that might be denied to its competitors.
We settled in for a long negotiation. The discussions were drawn out and heated. At regular intervals, the MPAA reps told us that we were wasting time — if we didn’t hurry things along, the world would move on and consumers would grow accustomed to un-crippled digital TVs. Moreover, Rep Billy Tauzin, the lawmaker who’d evidently promised to enact the Broadcast Flag into law, was growing impatient.
You’d think that a “technology working group” would concern itself with technology, but there was precious little discussion of bits and bytes, ciphers and keys. Instead, we focused on what amounted to contractual terms: if your technology got approved as a DTV “output,” what obligations would you have to assume? If a TiVo could serve as an “output” for a receiver, what outputs would the TiVo be allowed to have?
This is sweet — the McMaster University Daily News Summer Book Club has chosen my novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom as their summer reading pick.
“I chose Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom because I am a science fiction fan first and foremost, and because he’s a Canadian author,” says Trzeciak. “Doctorow publishes under the Creative Commons license, which makes his work freely available in any language, which I think is really interesting. His work isn’t way-out sci-fi, but it gives us a glimpse into the possible future.”
(Thanks, Derek!)
This is sweet — the McMaster University Daily News Summer Book Club has chosen my novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom as their summer reading pick.
“I chose Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom because I am a science fiction fan first and foremost, and because he’s a Canadian author,” says Trzeciak. “Doctorow publishes under the Creative Commons license, which makes his work freely available in any language, which I think is really interesting. His work isn’t way-out sci-fi, but it gives us a glimpse into the possible future.”
(Thanks, Derek!)
Next week, I’ll be in San Diego, teaching the Clarion science fiction writers’ workshop at UCSD. Each of the six instructors will be giving a reading/signing at the Mysterious Galaxy bookshop — this week, it’s Karen Joy Fowler, reading on Friday, July 13, along with Emma Bull and Will Shetterly (see my review of his latest, The Gospel of the Knife).
I’ll be reading and signing on July 18 — hope to see you there!
Time: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 7:00 PM
Title of Event: Clarion instructor Cory Doctorow visits!Mysterious Galaxy Books
7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
Suite #302
San Diego, CA 92111
Tel: 858.268.4747
Link,
Here’s part three of my reading of Bruce Sterling’s brilliant, seminal book The Hacker Crackdown, a 1992 book that recounts the events that led to the founding of The Electronic Frontier Foundation, my former employer.
I did an interview yesterday morning on CBC’s Q, talking about the Universal Music Group threat to pull their music out of iTunes.
Here’s part two of my reading of Bruce Sterling’s brilliant, seminal book The Hacker Crackdown, a 1992 book that recounts the events that led to the founding of The Electronic Frontier Foundation, my former employer.
I’ve been podcasting my fiction since September 2005, and I’ve basically caught up. There are a couple of novels in the can that will be coming into print shortly, and some collaborative stories, but apart from them, I’ve read it all.
So now I’m reading other people’s stuff — at least while I get more in the can. I’m starting with Bruce Sterling’s brilliant, seminal book The Hacker Crackdown, a 1992 book that recounts the events that led to the founding of The Electronic Frontier Foundation, my former employer. Bruce released the book as a free electronic download nearly 10 years before I did the same with my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.
This book changed my life — and the lives of countless others. It inspired me politically, artistically and socially. Last week, I saw Bruce at his home in Serbia and asked him if he minded my reading this aloud for the next 20 weeks or so. He gave me his blessing — so here it is.
