Books

Grumpy old men

TechnoLlama has written an excellent rant against Helprin’s Digital Barbarians here is a short excerpt:

Several things bother me about what I have read about Digital Barbarianism. Obviously, the title is a non-too-subtle slight against digital culture, those of us engaged in online environments are the barbarians at the gates, and real creators and civilised people who must stand up against the onslaught of the unwashed masses, upstarts, amateurs and misguided young kids. I have read several excerpts, and Helprin comes across as a grumpy old man who is not actually defending copyright, but attacking youth.

It’s well written and argumented so read it!

Posted on by mklang

Google books and Oscar I

King Oscar I of Sweden 1799-1859 was the son of one of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, one Napoleon’s marshals who became king Charles XIV John of Sweden. During Oscar’s time as crown prince and heir to the Swedish throne he was very socially active. Among other things he wrote a series of articles on popular education, and (in 1841) an anonymous work, “Om Straff och straffanstalter”, advocating prison reforms. The latter was translated in many languages and in English was given the title On Punishments and Prisons. More info on Oscar and photo on wikipedia.

This is not really common knowledge even in Sweden but was mentioned briefly in a documentary tonight and it sparked my curiousity. So I looked for the book, searching the online databases of second hand bookstores. No luck. Then, almost as a joke, I googled it. And there it was on google books. Cool but it was not like I was going to read it online. Then I saw the download button. Within minutes of hearing of the book for the first time I had a pdf of it on my computer – Google books is too cool!

The book seems quite interesting and I look forward to comparing it to Panopticon. Here is a quote:

It is undoubtedly, both the right and the duty of society, to punish every action which can disturb the public system of justice; it can even, if the offender has, by a relapse, shown himself incorrigible, or his offence is of a nature to endanger the public safety, render him incapable of again injuring the other members of the community. But does this right extend farther that to the loss of liberty, by which the object is gained? Every punishment, which goes beyond the limit of necessity, enters the jurisdiction of despotism and revenge.

Posted on by mklang

Remix available for download

Lawrence Lessigs book Remix: Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy is now  is now Creative Commons licensed and ready for download from the Bloomsbury Academic page.

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‘Lessig’s proposals for revising copyright are compelling, because they rethink intellectual property rights without abandoning them.’
Briefly Noted The New Yorker

‘Lessig… has written a splendid combative manifesto – pungent, witty and persuasive.’
Financial Times

‘… Lessig is surely right that digital culture requires governance that is more subtle and ecological, judging a balance of forces between commerce and community, than precise and draconian.’
Books of the Week, The Independent

‘Prof Lessig is formidably qualified…his latest book, REMIX will enhance his cult status on the web.’ The Guardian

To hear Lawrence Lessig talk about his book Remix you can listen now to the NPR interview (37 min 51 sec)

Posted on by mklang

The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control

An interesting sounding book The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control by Ted Striphas is out now both in print and in a online Creative Commons version or as the author puts it:

…not only as a copyrighted, bound physical volume, but also as a Creative Commons-licensed electronic book.  You can download the e-edition by following the “download” link of the navigation bar, above, or by clicking here.  The file is a “zipped” .pdf of the complete contents of Late Age, minus one image, for which I was (ironically) unable to secure electronic publishing rights.

I don’t want to split hairs but the digital version is also covered by copyright – but I get what he means. This sounds like a really interesting book and I am looking forward to reading it. For those of you who want more than the title here is the blurb:

Ted Striphas argues that, although the production and propagation of books have undoubtedly entered a new phase, printed works are still very much a part of our everyday lives. With examples from trade journals, news media, films, advertisements, and a host of other commercial and scholarly materials, Striphas tells a story of modern publishing that proves, even in a rapidly digitizing world, books are anything but dead.

From the rise of retail superstores to Oprah’s phenomenal reach, Striphas tracks the methods through which the book industry has adapted (or has failed to adapt) to rapid changes in twentieth-century print culture. Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Amazon.com have established new routes of traffic in and around books, and pop sensations like Harry Potter and the Oprah Book Club have inspired the kind of brand loyalty that could only make advertisers swoon. At the same time, advances in digital technology have presented the book industry with extraordinary threats and unique opportunities.

Posted on by mklang

Boyle Public Domain podcast

Here is an interesting podcast of James Boyle on his book The Public Domain (via BoingBoing)

Professor James Boyle describes how our culture, science and economic welfare all depend on the delicate balance between those ideas that are controlled and those that are free, between intellectual property and the public domain —the realm of material that everyone is free to use and share without permission or fee

Intellectual property laws have a significant impact on many important areas of human endeavour, including scientific innovation, digital creativity, cultural access and free speech. And so Boyle argues that, just as every informed citizen needs to know at least something about the environment or civil rights, every citizen in the information age should also have an understanding of intellectual property law.

The Public Domain: enclosing the commons of the mind

MP3 Link

Posted on by mklang

Political Economy of Innovation

Here is another interesting book available for download under a Creative Commons BY NC SA license. Its Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets: The Political Economy of Innovation by Peter F. Cowhey and Jonathan D. Aronson. Download it, buy it and check out the blog for extra material.
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Innovation in information and communication technology (ICT) fuels the growth of the global economy. How ICT markets evolve depends on politics and policy, and since the 1950s periodic overhauls of ICT policy have transformed competition and innovation. For example, in the 1980s and the 1990s a revolution in communication policy (the introduction of sweeping competition) also transformed the information market. Today, the diffusion of Internet, wireless, and broadband technology, growing modularity in the design of technologies, distributed computing infrastructures, and rapidly changing business models signal another shift. This pathbreaking examination of ICT from a political economy perspective argues that continued rapid innovation and economic growth require new approaches in global governance that will reconcile diverse interests and enable competition to flourish.

The authors (two of whom were architects of international ICT policy reforms in the 1990s) discuss this crucial turning point in both theoretical and practical terms, analyzing changes in ICT markets, examining three case studies, and considering principles and norms for future global policies.

Posted on by mklang

Liberty for free – later

The title almost becomes a meta-comments for so many things…

Giving away books online for free has worked for many authors. The customers who download tend often even to buty the books. Most of the evidence is anecdotal but Cory Doctorow, Lawrence Lessig & Yochai Benkler have done well by following this principle.

The publisher Faber is now trying this with a twist. It will let readers will let readers decide what to pay for to download a digital copy of Ben Wilson’s What Price Liberty?.The Guardian writes:

In the book, Wilson argues that the contemporary assault on civil liberties in the UK follows a decline in the importance and status of ideas of liberty in Britain’s national culture, and that it is only through an understanding of history that we can fashion a liberty fit for the 21st century.

The recommended price is £14.99 but you can download the pdf for free. Now I doubt that many will pay for the pdf but I don’t think that the free pdf will limit or decrease sales. The smart thing that Faber is doing is releasing the free ebook six weeks before the launch of the physical copy with the main aim “to stimulate debate for the issues at the centre of this book, as well as generating interest for the book itself”.

The annoying thing is that you cannot download the book until April 27 – so this news is not really news its more about something which will be news. Anyway the book sounds interesting so I will be keeping tabs on this. Even if I would have preferred to download directly – this is the generation of instant gratification and I just didn’t get any!

Posted on by mklang

Boyle in Cambridge

James Boyle, author of The Public Domain, writes on Boing Boing:

Just a note to say that I am giving a lecture March 10 at 6pm at London’s RSA on my new book, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. The lecture hall is gorgeous — Cory has been a frequent speaker there — it has a fabulous series of paintings on the theme of “Progress” by James Barry, featuring earnest waistcoated men with theodolites and many scantily clad young women whose main hope appears to be that The Progress of Human Culture is going to give them something more substantial to wear than a precariously secured bedsheet. The mural is worth the price of admission alone (free but you must register). Following that I’ll be giving the first Arcadia Lecture at Cambridge on Cultural Agoraphobia and the Future of the Library March 12. Hope to see UK BB’ers at one of these events…
The Public Domain: enclosing the commons of the mind (Thanks, Jamie!)

Wish I could be there.

Posted on by mklang

The gift makes the slave as the whip makes the dog

Like most computer people I spend most of my days reading and writing off a computer screen not producing a large product but doing my work (which in total is a large product). As a researcher I use most of my reading time to read books which are either necessary or helpful for my work. But the best imput comes from reading works written by people in other fields, written for different reasons and intended for different audiences. And yet I all too often find myself reading books filled with ideas that are either similar to others’ I have read earlier or ideas with which I will predictably agree with.

It’s not much of a comfort to say that the statement above applies to most of my colleagues.

Right now I am sitting on the train to Stockholm happily reading a book which breaks this trend “Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The riddles of culture” written by the anthropologist Marvin Harris. I came across this marvelous eskimo proverb:

The gift makes the slave as the whip makes the dog

So cool. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Reciprocity is everything.

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Librarything memes: loving useless data

Librarything has introduced some cool new functions to their already fun site. Well the site is fun for us book nerds!

It turns out 47% of my known authors are dead (195 dead, 173 live & 492 unknown) and 89,5% male (male 447, female 52 & 362 unkown) .

I just love this kind of useless data!

Posted on by mklang