EricHoefler.com

Doctorow’s Anti-DRM Address to Publishers

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Cory Doctorow spoke at the O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference1 recently and warned against allowing platforms to determine whether or not publishers would use DRM on digital works. Ultimately, Doctorow argues against DRM altogether, and this speech is a concise and convincing presentation of that argument. His message for publishers in particular is that, [...]

Trusting Others with My Content

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

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Yesterday, I wrote a few notes about Zhura, an online collaborative script-writing platform. Overall, I really like it. However, what makes me hesitate to work exclusively on that platform is my concern over what happens with my content. I’m not questioning the integrity of the people behind Zhura, and their terms of use are clear [...]

The Public Domain

Thursday, December 11, 2008

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I’ve just started reading James Boyle’s The Public Domain, thanks to recent mention on the BoingBoing blog. If Cory Doctorow is to be believed (and he is), then it’s an important book and a good read. What I’ve seen so far confirms that. I’m encouraged by Boyle’s optimism, his assertion that this issue is important for [...]

Snarky Copyright Comment

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

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I thought this comment on a TechCrunch post was wonderfully snarky (and accurate) enough to be quoted and shared: Let me see if I have it right. The discussion centers around: Thieves (illegal downloaders)Freeloaders (can be thieves too, believe Everything should be freeee!!)Stupid Mules (stubborn labels)Artists (content producers: will play for biscuits, new strings, one sheet of [...]

Copyright, Confusion, and Cooperation

Saturday, June 21, 2008

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I’ve been collecting posts, videos, etc. related to the copyright controversy in my Del.icio.us account, tagged copyright. As a writer, English teacher, lover of film and literature, and friend of many artists, I’m very concerned about this issue (as a survey of recent posts here should indicate). However, the more I learn, the less sure I [...]

Free Fiction

Friday, June 6, 2008

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Paul Krugman has an op-ed piece entitled “Bits, Bands, and Books” in The New York Times today about the influence of digital content on existing business models. His focus is on “books.” The basic argument is that, as it becomes easier to duplicate and distribute digital content, the ability to make money from that content will [...]

Still Not Convinced

Saturday, May 31, 2008

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I keep trying to understand the position of the “copyright abolitionists,” but so far, I’m still not convinced. Here are a few points I’m stuck on … and there are probably others as well. I think this is an extremely important issue, though, so I’ll continue to learn and think about it. Freely Sharing Ideas Thomas Jefferson [...]

Copyright and the Control of Information

Sunday, May 11, 2008

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Neil W. Netanel defines the problem newspapers face in the digital age: Newspapers thus suffer from the classic public goods problem. Producers of quality journalism invest heavily in investigating, reporting, editing, and fact checking. But once they make their work product available, they cannot prevent many others from copying from and reading their work without payment. [...]

Am I Wrong?

Sunday, April 13, 2008

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Distributing copies of a “Harry Potter” book, in any format, without payment, is wrong according to my best understanding and ethical sense so far. But stopping the publication of a lexicon for the world of Harry Potter — which to me is a clearly transformative kind of thing — seems equally wrong.

Plugging Our Ears

Sunday, March 30, 2008

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This morning, Doug Noon shared a post entitled “The Fiction of Intellectual Property.” The post and the comments are thoughtful, but ultimately frustrating. What follows isn’t a direct response (hence, I didn’t leave a comment), but just some thoughts that have been kicking around my head for a while related to that post [...]

Gnuosphere on File Sharing

Friday, December 28, 2007

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Peter Rock has been graciously helping me continue to think about copyright over on his blog. It started with his post "sharing denies nothing" in which he says: Most certainly, file sharing does not include payment (hence “sharing”), but that’s very different than an active “denying” of payment. While the difference is subtle, it is significant [...]

Lessig on TED

Friday, December 21, 2007

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I’m still reading Larry Lessig’s Free Culture, which is excellent so far. In the meantime, while following the Lane Hartwell controversy, I found a link to Lessig’s March, 2007 talk at TED (posted Nov. ‘07). He ends with a strong emotional appeal about how this controversy is affecting and will continue to affect “kids”: We made [...]