I have been a fan of David Bollier since I read his book Silent Theft so I was happy to see that he had written a new book on the importance of the public domain and the commons. The book, Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a
Digital Republic of Their Own is also available for download under a Creative Commons license. From the website:
One of the big themes of Viral Spiral is the enormous value generated from making one’s work openly available on the Internet. While publishing traditionalists are skeptical of this new reality, a number of pioneering authors and publishers have shown the commercial appeal of posting their books online using one or another Creative Commons licenses. Among the more notable authors are Cory Doctorow, Lawrence Lessig, James Boyle, Yochai Benkler, Dan Gillmor and Peter Barnes. In the same spirit, New Press has authorized the following download of the text of Viral Spiral. I hope that anyone who has the chance to browse through the PDF version of the book will want to buy a hard copy.
- Download Viral Spiral (PDF, 980kb)