Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books / Paper for the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference, 2004

Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books
Paper for the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference, 2004
February 12, 2004
San Diego, CA
Cory Doctorow
doctorow@craphound.com
Forematter:
This text is dedicated to the public domain, using a Creative Commons public domain dedication:
> Copyright-Only Dedication (based on United States law) > > The person or persons who have associated their work with this > document (the Dedicator ) hereby dedicate the entire copyright > in the work of authorship identified below (the Work ) to the > public domain. > > Dedicator makes this dedication for the benefit of the public at > large and to the detriment of Dedicator's heirs and successors. > Dedicator intends this dedication to be an overt act of > relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights > under copyright law, whether vested or contingent, in the Work. > Dedicator understands that such relinquishment of all rights > includes the relinquishment of all rights to enforce (by lawsuit > or otherwise) those copyrights in the Work. > > Dedicator recognizes that, once placed in the public domain, the > Work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, > modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited by anyone for any > purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and in any way, including > by methods that have not yet been invented or conceived.
I haven't come to a perfect understanding. I don't know what the future of the book looks like. But I have ideas, and I'll share them with you:
Even better: they level the playing field between writers and trolls. When Amazon kicked off, many writers got their knickers in a tight and powerful knot at the idea that axe-grinding yahoos were filling the Amazon message-boards with ill-considered slams at their work — for, if a personal recommendation is the best way to sell a book, then certainly a personal condemnation is the best way to not sell a book. Today, the trolls are still with us, but now, the readers get to decide for themselves. Here's a bit of a review of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom that was recently posted to Amazon by A reader from Redwood City, CA :