Little Brother » Download for Free

The CC-licensed free download is now available.

I did listen to the audio version over the weekend and I've got to say it's an amazing book that everyone should read. I got goosebumps a few times and started to tear once or twice too.

Little Brother has landed!

Today the day for the new Cory Doctorow novel Little Brother. Click on the cover art to buy your copy now. In fact, buy a copy for every teenager in your life. (I ordered one for me and one each for the two 15 year-olds in my life.)

Not sure what it's about? Check out these words from authors John Scalzi and Neil Gaiman.

Now, here's my question: Since I'll be in Colorado this weekend I had my copies shipped there. I was hoping to download the traditional free copy to my Sony Reader today in order to be able to get started on the book tonight. Hey Cory, where's the downloadable CC-licensed copy?

Oh, and there's a how-to blog based on the book too. w1n5t0n [INSTRUCTABLES] If you can't understand the name of the blog, you're too old ;-)

UPDATE: It looks like Cory will be posting the ebook version "just as soon as I get back to London (I’m presently in Toronto, visiting my family with my newborn daughter). It’ll likely be Monday or so — there’s a bunch of little clean-uppy things I need to do with the Little Brother distribution site that I need to be in my office with uninterrupted time to accomplish."

Additionally, there's a DRM-free audio version available which "comes with my own sampling license: once you own it, you’re free to take up to 30 minutes’ worth of material from it and remix and then redistribute it as much as you like, provided that you do so on a noncommercial basis, make sure that it’s clear that this is a remix and not the original, and make sure that you tell people where to find the original. This is in addition to all the fair use remixing that you’re allowed to do without my permission (of course!)." Maybe I'll buy that tonight and listen to it on the drive to CO. That sounds like a great plan.

Of Librarians, Photography, Copyright & Creative Commons

Before you read this post be sure you've read these other posts and I don't really feel like summarizing them, just responding to the issues at hand.

• 50 Reasons Not to Change
• Copyright Infringement and Creative Commons
• Creative Commons, Copyright and the Murky Middle
• Free Use Photos
• So What Are the Rules for Photographers?

I was going to post about this since I seem to be the "CC Guy" in the library world post-CIL2008 but then I decided not to as I'm not in the mood to write something worthy of what I have to say about it. Now, is looks like we will be discussing the issue on tonight's episode of Uncontrolled Vocabulary so I've decided to create this less-than-perfect response if for no other reason than to organizer my thought in preparation for tonight.

Resolved:

Whereas the original blogger of the image in question did not own the copyright on the image in the first place, they are just as "wrong" in republishing it on the Net as anyone involved.

Whereas the original blogger states "Please note that this image has a copyright, for non-commercial distribution with attribution" then displays the CC BY-NC-SA license, this wholly makes no sense. Either the image is under traditional copyright or it's under a CC license. You can't have it both ways.

Whereas Michael Casey followed the license as far as I can tell I consider him pretty much faultless in this situation.

Whereas the original blogger insists that you use her code to post that image anywhere else, that both a) does not jive with the CC license given and b) is not something most Web publishers will do since she could change the image to something else at any time and therefore that would display new, non-approved content on my site.

Whereas the original blogger is stating a copyright, and stating a CC license, and then stating that others must only post the image the way she wants, she is trying to have her cake and eat it too and that just won't work. Pick one. You can't have all three.

Whereas the original blogger issued a DMCA takedown notice to Yahoo! (owner of Flickr), I consider this to be a complete overreaction to the situation. She should have contacted Michael first and tried to work it out with him personally. I'm sure he would have been reasonable about it.

Whereas Yahoo! received the DMCA takedown notice they did the only thing that the law allowed them to do, and took the image out of Michael's account. Michael and I see this as completely unreasonable but I still find Yahoo! faultless since they had no choice under the DMCA. I hope that Yahoo! will restore the image pending their investigation.

Whereas Flickr does not allow for a public domain license, I agree that they should. Anyone know who to write to in encouragement of adding a PD license?

Whereas the new Free Use Photos Flickr group has been created, I believe this might only cause additional confusion and problems as most of those photos are in the "Free Use Photos" group yet still have a traditional full copyright listed for rights. In other words, we teach users to check the rights but now have to say "but as long as it's in this group, you're allowed to ignore the listed rights."

Whereas I was invited to participate in this group I have decided to respectfully declined. I am more than happy to let pretty much anyone use my photos as long as they give me credit. (In fact I've allowed several commercial organizations to use my photos without paying me.) My CC license allows for this just fine. I'm not willing to put my photos into the public domain at this point since then others could use my works without giving me credit.

Therefore I believe that the problem is not Creative Commons but a distinct lack of understanding of one or more of the parties. The solution is not to give up on CC as Michael has done, but further education.

Someone please do this

Here's an idea that I'd love for some forward-thinking library to take advantage of for this one's totally outside of MPOW's collection development policy: Download the CC-licensed Nine Inch Nails album, burn a copy to CD then catalog and circ said CD. Don't forget to get it cataloged into OCLC too!

Unshelved, Creative Commons, and blog editing :: Update

I don't know if my previous post had anything to do with Bill's new post (though I get the feeling it did) in which he clarifies their current non-decision on giving Unshelved a CC license. I'll just follow with my continued encouragement for "Mr. Con" to give it a go. You're practically doing it anyway, why not make it official?

And the reason for the editing of the blog post. Let's just say it involved a skateboard and Jim Croce. Thanks guys!

Unshelved, Creative Commons, and blog editing

I'm wondering about what's up with the guys over at Unshelved regarding Creative Commons. I wasn't going to blog about his until something happened. Here's the story:

Yesterday there was a post on the Unshelved blog in which Bill talked about giving permission to use Unshelved strips to promote your library. Great idea I thought. This morning I went to re-read that post and something seemed different. I though he'd listed some specific things you needed to do in order to use their comics which sounded a lot like a NC-BY-ND CC license and that they were aware of this so don't e-mail them about it. But today here's what I read:

..So here's our offer. We've got over two thousand strips about libraries and the things they go on there. Please use them to promote your library, school, or other reading-friendly cause. If you have questions about usage, or if you need a high-resolution version suitable for printing, just mail us.

Wait, where's the specifics? Where's the mention of Creative Commons? I did have a rough night's sleep last night. Did I dream it? Seems not. Here's what I found via the Google cache:

...So here's our offer. We've got over two thousand strips about libraries and the things they go on there. If you'd like to use some of them for noncommercial purposes, please do. Just use them intact, without alteration, attribute them to us, and show our URL and the correct copyright. If you have questions about usage, or if you need a high-resolution version, just mail us.

...P.S. To forestall a gazillion emails I will say that I am well aware of Creative Commons, and we are thinking (read: arguing) about it.

So, what's my point? There are two actually. First, guys, please make the plunge into the world of Creative Commons. My guess is that one of you likes the idea and the other doesn't. How about blogging about the pros and cons and get some outside opinions from the library world. Heck, many of us are reposting your strips on our blogs anyway. How about making it officially allowable and support the CC movement at the same time.

Second, as I warn my students in my blogging workshops, if you have second thoughts about something you wrote in a blog post, don't go back and remove it like it never happened. Write a follow-up post and clarify your position. Otherwise someone's going to notice and point it out since nothing on the Net ever actually gets deleted.

I've been BoingBoing'd

Honestly, after my conversation with Cory about the project I was hoping this would happen. There is now a BoingBoing.net post about the Creative Commons project I've been working on at the Commission. As a result the story has also been picked up by LISNews. (I'm now off to give a heads-up to our computer team about the potential spike in Web traffic.)

Are publishers finally starting to understand

First there was Lawrence Lessig, then Cory Doctorow (or was it the other way around?) who offered the complete texts of their books online, for free. You could read them on the Web site, download them, read them on your computer in Word, put them on your phone, iPod and/or eBook. Finally, you could print your own copy. Many readers ended up buying the publisher-printed copy anyway. Those who didn't make the purchase probably wouldn't have regardless of the availability of the free version. Other authors have started to follow.

And all was good.

But where were the publishers in all of this?

Then came the Baen Free Library. Long-time publisher of science fiction and fantasy, Baen offers more than 100 complete titles in formats from HTML to Rocket eBook (there's a dead format) to RTF. Just read online or download it to go. 4.6 million visits later, they're periodically adding new titles.

Neil Gaiman's publisher, HarperCollins, has started offering complete book for free online. Neil recently asked his readers to pick which of his books would be offered up. Much to his surprise, his largest book, American Gods was chosen and will be made available in the near future. I was excited. I'm not any longer. The problem is that in order to read the book you must do so on their site, in their reader.  The books are not portable in any way, shape, or form. Sure, you can search the contents (nice) and you can embed the book into your site (a la YouTube) but how does that help me read it on my device, when I want, when I don't have a WiFi connection?

Close, but no soup for you!

Next on deck, TOR books. Publisher of Cory Doctorow and many, many other authors I love to read. (L.E. Modesitt, Jr., Brian Lumley, and Brian Herbert, just to name a few.) They're about to launch their new site "Watch the Skies" and if you sign up, they'll e-mail you the link to a free eBook every week. No word on the level of control that they'll give you over said books but with Cory Involved and the word "download" being bandied about, I have all sorts of hope.

So publisher's, who's next?

Creative Commons @ MPOW

I don't usually cross-post between this personal blog and the office blog but a project I've been working on for about a month has just been implemented and I'm totally excited about it. Check out the details on the NLC blog.

CC-licensed Firefly FanFic by serious SciFi Author

Established and popular science fiction author Steven Brust has written My Own Kind of Freedom: A Firefly Novel and released it under CreativeCommons on his Web site. (.doc & .pdf) I've also uploaded the PDF version to my Scribd account. I've not started reading it yet but I've got it loaded on my Sony Reader so I'll be getting to it soon.