Today, a book that I have co-authored with Christian Engström (pictured), Member of European Parliament, is released with celebrations and signing in the European Parliament. The book is The Case for Copyright Reform.
The book is a compilation of the strongest articles on reform of the copyright monopoly from Christian Engström (MEP) and myself, edited into book format for readability and bedside-table friendliness for those who want the whole story in the same place and in an easy format.
It not only shows the problems with today’s situation, and traces them back to the history of the copyright monopoly, but also presents a comprehensive proposal detailing how things can be fixed, and shows how the proposal resolves the problems with today’s situation. The proposed solution is realistic and politically doable – not to mention that it has been picked up by the entire Green group in the European parliament.
The book also features parts from Mike Masnick (at Techdirt), Ernesto (at TorrentFreak), and Michael Geist (with acknowledgements).
You can download it here or buy a paper copy here. Other electronic formats are available at the book’s dedicated site. The book is released into the public domain; Creative Commons Zero.
Enjoy, and do let me know what you think! Is this kind of compilation useful to you? (To be honest, Christian and his assistant Henrik did the editing to book format from the individual articles. Credit where credit is due, etc.)
A very good read – i skimmed it through over a few coffee breaks but will digest it more thoroughly at home. Especially the breakdown on the numerous independent studies which have been performed and the summaried findings after the observation of empirical fact – That filesharing is not a problem. That the “lost sale” is nothing other than smoke and mirrors.
The extensive linking will no doubt be helpful the next time some copyright dogmatic insists on presenting personal opinion in ignorance over established fact.
My thanks to you Rick, Henrik and Christian.
Excellent timing, as the debate in the Netherlands is heating up.
Anonym sa…
Toppen!
Har redan beställt en papperskopia över Paypal då jag gärna vill ha en “riktig” bok att hålla i när jag ska läsa den NÄSTA gång! *ler*
(Då jag inte kan/orkar vänta så länge på en bok så håller jag just nu på att skriva ut PDF:n.
Ska bli jävligt intressant/skoj att läsa innan jag somnar inatt…)
Ha det
Jan
Why have your blog been down so much lately
Hardware problems. Hopefully, they are fixed for good this time.
I just wrote this to Christian, not realizing..
“Standing ovations. There is not much to add, very clear and simple. Try to make so that this book can be ordered online, i bet many people will order one, not for them self but as a gift to someone they think need to read it.”
Now i see that link to lulu.com. I think i will order and give a copy to someone..
I just bought the paper edition. I noticed it was free to download electronically. Later I thought, mmmm, the 7.99 paper edition is probably 7.99 worth of paper and ink. It cost a little more than that to send it to me..a total of about 16bucks. Then I thought, what about all those stories of online purchases costing more to send than the value of the item? Gouging was the word that sprung to mind. A mindset where, in order to survive, greed is good. My God! Can this movement get us back to basics? Where a persons pays the vendor what is fair and reasonable?
I am waiting with anticipation for my paper book. A fair price I have paid.
Any plans to publish this on amazon? would be easy to do and you can still offer it for free. Would be nice to integrate the book with the kindle ecosystem so I can jump between devices without worrying about where i left off.
I wrote my comments on the TorrentFreak article about the book, so I won’t go into too much detail here. But simply put, I really love it and I think this sort of thing was badly needed. The best thing about it is that it’s very easy to read and presents strong arguments all in one place.
I might’ve also mentioned the Kickstarter/IndieGoGo model in the “how will artists make money” section, which is just exploding exponentially at the moment (I’d describe it as something like the existing grant system for science, but with a closer connection to the public). It’s not crucial to the book’s argument, though.
My main complaint is that there are numerous small grammatical errors that should’ve been easy to fix (one every couple pages on average) . Plus a very confusing sentence on pg.69 (the one with the 70% and 50% numbers).
Still, it’s far worse to be boring or unreadable than to be a bit messy with the proofreading…
[…] The Case for Copyright Reform is een uitgave van Rick Falkvinge (Piratenpartij Zweden) en Christian Engström (Europarlementariër). Het boek bestaat uit essays over auteursrechthervorming door beide auteurs, aangevuld met bijdragen van Mike Masnick (Techdirt), Ernesto (TorrentFreak) en Michael Geist (Canadese auteursrechtdeskundige). Over de inhoud van het boek: It not only shows the problems with today’s situation, and traces them back to the history of the copyright monopoly, but also presents a comprehensive proposal detailing how things can be fixed, and shows how the proposal resolves the problems with today’s situation. The proposed solution is realistic and politically doable – not to mention that it has been picked up by the entire Green group in the European parliament. […]
[…] The Case For Copyright Reform contains a lot of good information that can get us started towards reforming the one industrial tool that is rapidly becoming dangerous to our society. No, no one is saying that copyright is a bad thing, but it’s become much bigger than it was ever intended, and is no longer even benefiting the real innovators and creators. The fight is only getting started, but at least a few people are already looking at alternatives that we can all accept. Check out more about it on Falkvinge.net. Creative Ramblings, General Ramblings, Technical Ramblings ← A Story For Tomorrow /* */ […]
[…] need to be toned down. Read about copyright reform in this article and the book published in it. Book Release: The Case For Copyright Reform – Falkvinge on Infopolicy I look forward to hear your opinions about the book, unless you just ignore it, of course. […]
[…] has a backgound as a tech entrepreneur. Falkvinge’s blog: Falkvinge on InfopolicyRead more: http://falkvinge.net/2012/04/24/book-release-the-case-for-copyright-reform/ […]
[…] a backgound as a tech entrepreneur. Falkvinge’s blog: Falkvinge on Infopolicy Read more: http://falkvinge.net/2012/04/24/book-release-the-case-for-copyright-reform/ http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-presents-acta-alternative-to-european-parliament-120427/ […]
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[…] writing a book is free and doesn’t require the exploitation of copyright (see other Pirates), being in the spotlight and making good money often requires […]
[…] writing a book is free and doesn’t require the exploitation of copyright (see other Pirates), being in the spotlight and making good money often requires […]
[…] writing a book is free and doesn’t require the exploitation of copyright (see other Pirates), being in the spotlight and making good money often requires […]
[…] Note: The link for the book “Copyright Reform” is not working at the time of publishing. Here is an alternate link. […]