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Cory Doctorow once again shines with a fine analogy on how to best spread your creative works in this age of the internets.

1. Your work needs to be easily copied, to anywhere whence it might find its way into the right hands. That means that the nimble text-file, HTML file, and PDF (the preferred triumvirate of formats) should be distributed without formality — no logins, no e-mail address collections, and with a license that allows your fans to reproduce the work on their own in order to share it with more potential fans. Remember, copying is a cost-center — insisting that all copies must be downloaded from your site and only your site is insisting that you — and only you — will bear the cost of making those copies. Sure, having a single, central repository for your works makes it easier to count copies and figure out where they’re going, but remember: dandelions don’t keep track of their seeds. Once you get past the vanity of knowing exactly how many copies have been made, and find the zen of knowing that the copying will take care of itself, you’ll attain dandelionesque contentment.

2. Once your work gets into the right hands, there needs to be an easy way to consummate the relationship. A friend who runs a small press recently wrote to me to ask if I thought he should release his next book as a Creative Commons free download in advance of the publication, in order to drum up some publicity before the book went on sale.

I explained that I thought this would be a really bad idea. Internet users have short attention spans. The moment of consummation — the moment when a reader discovers your book online, starts to read it, and thinks, huh, I should buy a copy of this book — is very brief. That’s because “I should buy a copy of this book” is inevitably followed by, “Woah, a youtube of a man putting a lemon in his nose!” and the moment, as they say, is gone.

I am often very interested to see the statistics on who and what reads what and where. But I totally agree with what Cory has to say there. Let that shit fly like it has never flown before.

Link

I just read an article on boingboing.net about how Apple and EMI have decided to sell EMI’s entire catalog of Music DRM-free. This good news does not come without a catch. The DRM-free music will be 130 percent more expensive then current DRM-entangled offerings. However the new music will be of higher quality and playable on most (if not all) music playing software and devices that is available today, unlike the current DRM-infested files that will only play on Apple iTunes or Apple iPods.

Ironically I started the day by reading and following up on various DRM articles. Here are links to the one and two and I feel are good starting points. Reading those articles made me very frustrated at the state of the union so to speak. Now I am happy to say that that gloom has lifted a little.
The main issue is that since Windows is the dominant platform today it stands a good chance of setting some serious policy around the world. If Microsoft sets the precedent for DRM, then we’re all screwed.
Another issue was how clever Microsoft is. They deploy Vista today, when there is almost no “premium (DRM-entrapped) content” available, so consumers will not run into too many of the problems that are described in the article. Also the hardware vendors have not yet had time to fully implement all the requirements of Vista and so many of the problems that are described in the article might not be readily apparent. However 3 or 4 years from now when people start realising the truth, it will be too late and we’ll all be screwed for real.

However the title of the article says that both Steve and Bill were kidnapped by Aliens. What do I mean by that?

Imagine if you will for a moment that people become aware of Vista’s “additional features” before it was too late and a slew of lawsuits along with a mass-exodus to Linux or Mac follow.

It will be the end of Windows as we know it.

Imagine if you will for a moment that DRM-free Music on the Apple iTunes Store outsells DRM-damaged music 10 to 1.
It might send a message to studios, lawmakers and humans that DRM is not needed, it does not work. What we, the customers need and want is NOT to be treated like pirates and thieves, but to simply be provided with a quick and easy way to spend our hard (or easy) earned cash on Music, Movies and other Digital Media.

So maybe the Bill Gates that set the guidelines for Vista deliberately designed the OS to be a consumer nightmare. Maybe the Steve Jobs that brokered the deal with EMI in fact expects DRM-free music to outsell DRM-ed music and already plans to simply stop selling DRM-wraught music in a heartbeat.

Would the real Bill and Steve do this? Or are they some sort of clones programmed to hook us up with a better computer industry?

Probably not. However of those two, I feel that Steve, while obviously caring about profits and Apple’s bottom line, knows what consumers truly want and might truly be serious in his recent post about music and drm.

It seems the general idea that revolutions can be won by the people (vote with your wallet etc) might not work in this case. The war against corporate tyranny can only be won with the initiative from other corporations. Of course in the end there needs to be some voting with your wallet, but it is up to the corporations to provide you with decent candidates to vote for.

On a personal note I stopped buying music from the iTunes store after it was no longer possible to strip the DRM from it. So now I might actually start again.

Technorati Tags: apple, drm, emi, itunes, microsoft, music