Remixing Cory's column title

Remixing Cory's column title

Jul 06

When Cory posted his new column, entitled “Science Fiction is the Only Literature People Care Enough About to Steal on the Internet.” I thought to myself, “That’s a pretty dumb idea.”

Upon reading the column, it turns out the title is not the thesis of his article. The piece talks about the history of copyright and winds along to his conclusion, which is that science-fiction authors are using the net to comunicate with their fans, even going so far to release whole texts online for free – this in turn creates fans, fans help promote, creating new fans, and so on – all of whom buy hardcopies, equaling success for the author. Yay! I agree. However, the title still bugs the shit out of me.

It should have read, given the subject, “The internet brings creators and consumers together, to the benefit of both parties.” The original is just a no-duh – nerds like sci-fi (and comics and technial books, the other two favorites for internet print ripping) and nerds understand the net and its related technologies. Completely independant of creator wishes, these three types of publications will always be ripped off online. If my mom and her gereation ruled the web, Sue Grafton would be “The Only Literature People Care About Enough To Steal.”

Not people, Cory. Nerds. Because they have the time and patience to work the tech. As it gets easier to use, maybe Sweet Valley High will become The Only Literature Worth Ripping Off. As I recall from the first days of mp3s, metal, electronica, and classic rock were The Only Music Worth Ripping Off, but once ripping became push button, and expanded beyond the demographic of the Tech Worker, Top 40 quickly topped the list. Bear in mind, that before OCR became more useful, The Only Publications Worth Ripping Off were porn mags – and that was driven by nerds too. Nerds, plus porn, plus scanner, minus the need to worry about turning print text to digital text, equaled proliferation – in fact, it probably still exceeds the amount of sci-fi ripped and upped today.

This all ties back to his main point – the internet brings the creators and consumers together, resulting in more success for the creator and extra perks, beyond the mere text of the publication (creator contact, commentary, etc.) for the consumer – the illegal distribution of their works didn’t hamper sales, it helped generate sales, particularly for any works beyond the ripped text. Going back to my point, guess who pioneered this whole idea of directly interfacing with their fans – porn stars. S’true.

I haven’t got a clue why Cory chose the title he did, but it kind of detracted from his point, which was a solid arguement. So, ignore the title and read the column.