I released this book a little over a year ago…

I released this book a little over a year ago under the terms of a Creative Commons license that allowed my readers to freely redistribute the text without needing any further permission from me. In this fashion, I enlisted my readers in the service of a grand experiment, to see how my book could find its way into cultural relevance and commercial success. The experiment worked out very satisfactorily.
When I originally licensed the book under the terms set out in the next section, I did so in the most conservative fashion possible, using CC’s most restrictive license. I wanted to dip my toe in before taking a plunge. I wanted to see if the sky would fall: you see writers are routinely schooled by their peers that maximal copyright is the only thing that stands between us and penury, and so ingrained was this lesson in me that even though I had the intellectual intuition that a “some rights reserved” regime would serve me well, I still couldn’t shake the atavistic fear that I was about to do something very foolish indeed.
It wasn’t foolish.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

A note about this book, February 12, 2004

Other Cory Doctorow Quotes

I think that if I’m still here in ten thousand years, I’m going to be crazy as hell. Ten thousand years, pal! Ten thousand years ago, the state-of-the-art was a goat. You really think you’re going to be anything recognizably human in a hundred centuries? - View Quote Details on I think that if I’m still here in ten thousand…
The universe gets older. So do I. So does my backup, sitting in redundant distributed storage dirtside, ready for the day that space or age or stupidity kills me. It recedes with the years, and I write out my life longhand, a letter to the me that I’ll be when it’s restored into a clone somewhere, somewhen. It’s important that whoever I am then knows about this year, and it’s going to take a lot of tries for me to get it right. - View Quote Details on The universe gets older. So do I. So does my…
There’s something to the idea of the autonomous character. Big chunks of our wetware are devoted to simulating other people, trying to figure out if we are likely to fight or fondle them. It’s unsurprising that when you ask your brain to model some other person, it rises to the task. But that’s exactly what happens to a reader when you hand your book over to him: he simulates your characters in his head, trying to interpret that character’s actions through his own lens. - View Quote Details on There’s something to the idea of the autonomous character. Big…
Larry poured himself a coffee. “I hate when they come in here with computers. They sit forever at their tables, and they don’t talk to nobody, it’s like having a place full of statues or zombies.” - View Quote Details on Larry poured himself a coffee. “I hate when they come…
I swore I’d be done, and that would be the end of it. And now I am. There isn’t a single place left on-world that isn’t part of the Bitchun Society. There isn’t a single thing left that I want any part of. - View Quote Details on I swore I’d be done, and that would be the…
Trying to learn about the future from science fiction is like trying to learn about love from romance novels. - View Quote Details on Trying to learn about the future from science fiction is…
The Bitchun Society had all but done away with any sort of dull, repetitious labor, and what remained—tending bar, mopping toilets—commanded Whuffie aplenty and a life of leisure in your off-hours. - View Quote Details on The Bitchun Society had all but done away with any…
I’m of the opinion that science fiction writers suck at predicting the future. We mostly go around describing the present in futuristic clothes - (such as) Mary Shelley, Bill Gibson, and many others. - View Quote Details on I’m of the opinion that science fiction writers suck at…
Lying on my hotel bed, mesmerized by the lazy turns of the ceiling fan, I pondered the possibility that I was nuts. It wasn’t unheard of, even in the days of the Bitchun Society, and even though there were cures, they weren’t pleasant. - View Quote Details on Lying on my hotel bed, mesmerized by the lazy turns…
I’m not a lawyer— I’m a kind of mouthpiece/activist type, though occasionally they shave me and stuff me into my Bar Mitzvah suit and send me to a standards body or the UN to stir up trouble. I spend about three weeks a month on the road doing completely weird stuff like going to Microsoft to talk about DRM. - View Quote Details on I’m not a lawyer— I’m a kind of mouthpiece/activist type,…