INFORMATION DOESN’T WANT TO BE FREE
In sharply argued, fast-moving chapters, Cory Doctorow’s Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free takes on the state of copyright and creative success in the digital age. Can small artists still thrive in the Internet era? Can giant record labels avoid alienating their audiences? This is a book about the pitfalls and the opportunities that creative industries (and individuals) are confronting today — about how the old models have failed or found new footing, and about what might soon replace them. An essential read for anyone with a stake in the future of the arts, Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free offers a vivid guide to the ways creativity and the Internet interact today, and to what might be coming next.
Doctorow’s favorite creators and thinkers wrote about their philosophy on the arts and the Internet on Boing Boing, including Molly Crabapple, Amanda Palmer, and Neil Gaiman.
Cory Doctorow talks about Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free with Publishers Weekly. Listen to the radio segment here.
Praise for Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free:
“Filled with wisdom and thought experiments and things that will mess with your mind.”
— Neil Gaiman, author of The Graveyard Book and American Gods
“Cory Doctorow has been thinking longer and smarter than anyone else I know about how we create and exchange value in a digital age.”
— Douglas Rushkoff, author of Present Shock and Program or Be Programmed
“Author, Internet guru, and practical philosopher Cory Doctorow gives hard-headed advice about how to gain fame and fortune using the Internet. Along the way, he explains a great deal about the hidden workings and dangers of modern technology. Whether you want to make money online or just surf safely, there’s much to learn in this fast-moving and entertaining narrative.”
— Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
“Doctorow has spoken and written on these issues many times before but never quite so persuasively. Required reading for creators making their ways through the new world.”
—Kirkus (starred)
“Doctorow… might be the perfect person to parse our deeply dystopian present.”
—Baltimore City Paper
“Each of the miniessays and lengthy sidebars Doctorow offers in support of his laws is an education in itself. … [his] hard-won information-age wisdom is for everyone who consumes copyrighted material today—which is everyone.”
—Library Journal (Starred)
“Doctorow effectively holds his audience by offering some intriguing analogies with equally intriguing ramifications.”
—The Boston Globe
“Cory Doctorow’s punchy, instructive Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age is a must-read for anyone who hopes to make a living selling creative work online. A buoyant and geeky manual, it teaches creators how to make today’s complex intellectual property rules and technology work for them.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free is the most entertaining and informational book on copyright law you’ll ever read.”
—Shelf Awareness
“An excellent, sometimes sobering primer on copyright and creativity in the Internet age.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
—GigaOm
