I'm fascinated by what Cory Doctorow is doing to promote his new book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Yes, it's available at bookstores everywhere, as they say in advertisements (including Amazon, by clicking the link above), but take a look at this entry in his blog, BoingBoing:
As I promised, I've released the complete text of the book (in ASCII text, HTML, and printable PDF) under a Creative Commons license. Download it, share it, email it, post it to your site, drop it in your P2P file-sharing cache!
So, here's a guy who -- through the success of his blog -- commands a lot of "word-of-mouthness," and he's willing to go out on a limb to prove that providing something for free on the Net in bits does not preclude folks from still buying it in book form. I hope it works. I really do.
After all, do I use one of the "file sharing" networks to find music? Yes, I do. (I can hear the sirens approaching already as the RIAA sends out the shock troops.) Has that stopped me from buying CDs? Absolutely not! If I hear something I really like, I go out and buy it. I want to own it. I want to have it in my possession. An image on a hard disk doesn't do it for me.
Good going, Cory. I'm rooting for you and think you (and your incredibly forward looking publisher!) will still make money. Please keep us posted on how this works out.
9:00:26 AM 
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