Cory Doctorow's Blog, page 36
February 14, 2019
Interview with Taming the Net: “How to preserve the freedom of the internet without letting the internet destroy democracy.”
I recently recorded an interview with Yascha Mounk for Slate’s “Taming the Net podcast (MP3), whose mission is: “How to preserve the freedom of the internet without letting the internet destroy democracy.” Mounk and I talked about how the internet enables abuses, but also enables us to push back against those abuses.
February 11, 2019
A free excerpt from UNAUTHORIZED BREAD, my latest audiobook
Unauthorized Bread is the first installment of my next science fiction book for adults, Radicalized, which comes out in just over a month; the audiobook is available DRM-free on Google Play and direct from me.
Unauthorized Bread is a story about refugees, rent-seeking, DRM and the housing crisis, and the audiobook, read by Lameece Issaq, is amazing. Tor.com is hosting an excerpt from the book.
January 29, 2019
Announcing the audiobook for Unauthorized Bread: a DRM-free tale of DRM-locked appliances, refugees, and resistance
Unauthorized Bread is the first of four audiobooks that make up my forthcoming book Radicalized and read by the talented actor Lameece Issaq. The book, published by Macmillan Audio, is a Google Play exclusive, as part of a deal I made to celebrate the launch of a major DRM-free audiobook store that challenges Audible’s monopoly on the store. But the Google Play folks have graciously permitted me to sell it with my other DRM-free audiobooks, so you can buy it direct if you prefer.
There’s th...
January 27, 2019
Video and audio from my closing keynote at Friday’s Grand Re-Opening of the Public Domain
On Friday, hundreds of us gathered at the Internet Archive, at the invitation of Creative Commons, to celebrate the Grand Re-Opening of the Public Domain, just weeks after the first works entered the American public domain in twenty years.
I had the honor of delivering the closing keynote, after a roster of astounding speakers. It was a big challenge and I was pretty nervous, but on reviewing the saved livestream, I’m pretty proud of how it turned out.
Proud enough that I’ve ripped the au...
January 25, 2019
Interview on A World That Might Just Work with Terrence McNally
This week, I sat down for an interview (MP3) with Terrence McNally for his World That Just Might Work show to talk about information politics, science fiction, oligarchy, resistance, and hope!
January 16, 2019
Revealed! The cover of RADICALIZED, my next book of science fiction
On March 19, Tor Books will release my next book, Radicalized, whose four novellas are the angry, hopeful stories I wrote as part of my attempt to make sense of life in our current moment.
As with my novel Walkaway and the reissues of my adult backlist, Radicalized will have a cover by the amazing Will Stahle, who is, for my money, the best cover designer working in the business at the moment.
Today, Tor has published Stahle’s cover for Radicalized, and holy fucking shit, is it ever great.
January 7, 2019
Big Tech loves disruption, when they’re doing the disruption
My latest Locus Magazine column is “Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me,” and it analyzes how Big Tech has been able to “disrupt” incumbent industries, but has repurposed obscure technology regulations to prevent anyone from meting out the same treatment to their new digital monopolies.
I cite the example of Uber and Lyft, which have gutted the (often corrupt and rentier-riddled) taxi industry, but which can’t be similarly cannibalized my driver co-ops without risking legal retaliation throu...
December 31, 2018
Video from the launch of the EFF/McSweeney’s “End of Trust” project launch with Cindy Cohn, Annalee Newitz, and me!
The End of Trust is the first-ever nonfiction issue of McSweeney’s, co-edited by McSweeney’s editors and the staff of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; on December 11, we held a sold-out launch event in San Francisco with EFF executive director Cindy Cohn, science fiction writer and EFF alumna Annalee Newitz, and me.
Lisa Rein recorded the event for Mondo 2000, producing a partial transcript, an audio recording (MP3) and a video.
Cindy Cohn: “The first reason is that there’s a fundamen...
December 24, 2018
Christmas podcast with Poesy, 2018 edition
An annual tradition (MP3)! Poesy is now 10 — nearly 11! — and this year, she’s decided to offer us a detailed makeup tutorial, with some bonus horseback riding advice. There’s even a musical number!
December 17, 2018
False Flag: my science fiction story about the future of copyright filters in an Article 13 Europe
The Green European Journal has published a package on the proposed new European Copyright Directive: first, an outstanding interview with the rebel Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda (previously); and then a new science fiction story I’ve written to show what a future where our speech is governed by unaccountable black-box copyright censorbots might look like: “False Flag.”
Agata had always assumed that getting the footage would be the hard part. As it turned out, a covert North Sea drone inserti...
