Cory "Copyfight" Doctorow writes about a "Heartwarming Creative Commons" success story:
Last week, I received the most remarkable letter from Jamie, a US Navy seaman stationed on a ship in the Mediterranean Sea. Because my novels are Creative Commons-licensed, he is able to download them and print them out onboard ship, and pass them around to his comrades. The absence of quality reading material on the ship has turned Creative Commons texts into hot items on the ship...
Link: Boing Boing: Heartwarming Creative Commons success story from the US Navy.
Okay, so it's true that these guys downloaded Cory's novels and passed them around. But give me a break -- there are tons of sites on the web, from Project Gutenberg to Google, where you you can download public domain novels. There are also some successful donate-books-to-the-military programs that these guys should know about. Heck, I'd be surprised if publishers wouldn't even donate books to the military if asked, even in electronic form.
So, sure, this guy's a Cory Doctorow fan and it's great that he was able to get the books easily, but there is plenty of good reading material on the net. Does Doctorow really have to spin this as part of the copyright wars he's obsessed with? Get real.
Yep, you're right. In fact, a guy at O'Reilly offered to send us some stuff the same day. And we got a couple pointers to the Baen Free Library and to the sci-fi section of Project Gutenberg. And other suggestions. But Cory's site, and his vociferous support of CC, is where it started. I didn't have to ask, didn't have to worry about it, just grabbed the stuff and was grateful for the CC license. For the record, he took it in exactly the manner I intended, which is why I mentioned "the copyfight, and why that's important."
Posted by: Jamie | Sunday, September 10, 2006 at 05:59 AM