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Makers

Chapter 2: About this download
By Cory Doctorow
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About This Book

The narrative follows a pair of inventive collaborators whose do-it-yourself creations spin out into commercial ventures, and a journalist who documents their rise and the responses of established corporations. It traces the process from tinkering and community-driven fabrication through rapid commodification, corporate takeover attempts, legal and ethical clashes over intellectual property, and the economic strategies that try to monetize peer-produced goods. Scenes alternate between technical detail, social networks of makers, and satirical portrayals of corporate theater, examining how grassroots innovation collides with market pressures, governance choices, and the messy consequences of scaling small-scale creativity.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Makers

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
*** This is a COPYRIGHTED Project Gutenberg eBook. Details Below. ***
*** Please follow the copyright guidelines in this file. ***

Title: Makers

Author: Cory Doctorow

Release date: December 1, 2010 [eBook #34527]

Language: English

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAKERS ***

Copyright (C) 2010 by Cory Doctorow.

Makers

Cory Doctorow

doctorow@craphound.com

Tor Books: 978-0765312792
HarperCollins UK/Voyager: 978-0007325221

Last modified 21 Sept 2010

Contents

About this download

There’s a dangerous group of anti-copyright activists out there who pose a clear and present danger to the future of authors and publishing. They have no respect for property or laws. What’s more, they’re powerful and organized, and have the ears of lawmakers and the press.

I’m speaking, of course, of the legal departments at ebook publishers.

These people don’t believe in copyright law. Copyright law says that when you buy a book, you own it. You can give it away, you can lend it, you can pass it on to your descendants or donate it to the local homeless shelter. Owning books has been around for longer than publishing books has. Copyright law has always recognized your right to own your books. When copyright laws are made—by elected officials, acting for the public good—they always safeguard this right.

But ebook publishers don’t respect copyright law, and they don’t believe in your right to own property. Instead, they say that when you “buy” an ebook, you’re really only licensing that book, and that copyright law is superseded by the thousands of farcical, abusive words in the license agreement you click through on the way to sealing the deal. (Of course, the button on their website says, “Buy this book” and they talk about “Ebook sales” at conferences—no one says, “License this book for your Kindle” or “Total licenses of ebooks are up from 0.00001% of all publishing to 0.0001% of all publishing, a 100-fold increase!”)

I say to hell with them. You bought it, you own it. I believe in copyright law’s guarantee of ownership in your books.

So you own this ebook. The license agreement (see below), is from Creative Commons and it gives you even more rights than you get to a regular book. Every word of it is a gift, not a confiscation. Enjoy.

What do I want from you in return? Read the book. Tell your friends. Review it on Amazon or at your local bookseller. Bring it to your bookclub. Assign it to your students (older students, please—that sex scene is a scorcher) (now I’ve got your attention, don’t I?). As Woody Guthrie wrote:

“This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin’ it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.”

Oh yeah. Also: if you like it, buy it or donate a copy to a worthy, cash-strapped institution.

Why am I doing this? Because my problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity (thanks, @timoreilly for this awesome aphorism). Because free ebooks sell print books. Because I copied my ass off when I was 17 and grew up to spend practically every discretionary cent I have on books when I became an adult. Because I can’t stop you from sharing it (zeroes and ones aren’t ever going to get harder to copy); and because readers have shared the books they loved forever; so I might as well enlist you to the cause.

I have always dreamt of writing sf novels, since I was six years old. Now I do it. It is a goddamned dream come true, like growing up to be a cowboy or an astronaut, except that you don’t get oppressed by ranchers or stuck on the launchpad in an adult diaper for 28 hours at a stretch. The idea that I’d get dyspeptic over people—readers celebrating what I write is goddamned bizarre

So, download this book.

Some rules of the road:

It’s kind of a tradition around here that my readers convert my ebooks to their favorite formats and send them to me here, and it’s one that I love! If you’ve converted these files to another format, send them to me (doctorow@craphound.com, subject Makers Conversion) and I’ll host them, but before you do, make sure you read the following:

  • Only one conversion per format, first come, first serve. That means that if someone’s already converted the file to a Femellhebber 3000 document, that’s the one you’re going to find here. I just don’t know enough about esoteric readers to adjudicate disputes about what the ideal format is for your favorite device.

  • Make sure include a link to the reader as well. When you send me an ebook file, make sure that you include a link to the website for the reader technology as well so that I can include it below.

  • No cover art. The text of this book is freely copyable, the cover, not so much. The rights to it are controlled by my publisher, so don’t include it with your file.

  • No DRM. The Creative Commons license prohibits sharing the file with “DRM” (sometimes called “copy-protection”) on it, and that’s fine by me. Don’t send me the book with DRM on it. If you’re converting to a format that has a DRM option, make sure it’s switched off.

    • This file is licensed under a Creative Commons US Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license:

    http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

    You are free:

    to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work

    to Remix — to adapt the work

    Under the following conditions:

    Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

    Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

    Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

    With the understanding that:

    Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Other Rights — In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license: Your fair dealing or fair use rights; The author’s moral rights; Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights. Notice — For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.

    Dedication:

    For “the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things.”