Kevin Kelly's Scan This Book!

Kevin Kelly's recent article in The New York Times Magazine has generated a lot of attention and controversy.

Based on a few quotes from Kelly's article I read on Lee Goldberg's blog and elsewhere, I wasn't going to read Kelly's article because I was under the impression that it was the usual utopian gas about how digitization and ebooks will transform publishing.

I have now read Kelly's article and I'm glad that I did. It is actually a very reasonable piece.

Goldberg claims that Kelly wants to abolish copyright and make all books available online for free. Not so. Nowhere does Kelly argue for the abolition of copyright. What he does argue for is some attempt to rationalise the concerns of authors and publishers with the reality that digitising content, including text, becomes easier all the time and it is therefore inevitable that more and more will find its way online with or without the permission of publishers and authors.

"But a new regime of digital technology has now disrupted all business models based on mass-produced copies, including individual livelihoods of artists. The contours of the electronic economy are still emerging, but while they do, the wealth derived from the old business model is being spent to try to protect that old model, through legislation and enforcement. Laws based on the mass-produced copy artifact are being taken to the extreme, while desperate measures to outlaw new technologies in the marketplace "for our protection" are introduced in misguided righteousness. (This is to be expected. The fact is, entire industries and the fortunes of those working in them are threatened with demise. Newspapers and magazines, Hollywood, record labels, broadcasters and many hard-working and wonderful creative people in those fields have to change the model of how they earn money. Not all will make it.)"

Remember Hollywood's initial response to Sony's Betamax? They tried to sue it out of existence. It's good that they failed, because revenues from DVDs are now the studios' main source of income.

The Conservative Playbook

Via Doc 40 comes this, a classic.

STEPHEN COLBERT WAS NOT FUNNY
By Dave V. (edited slightly by RM)
Stephen Colbert was not funny.
Helen Thomas is old and batty.
Mexicans are taking our jobs.
Iraq sent its WMDs to Syria.
Democrats don't want to wiretap terrorists.
Joe Wilson admitted that Valerie Plame wasn't covert.
Tom DeLay is like Jesus Christ.
Karl Rove has a faulty memory.
Scooter Libby has a faulty memory.
No one could have anticipated that the levees would be breached.
We do not torture.
There is no global warming.
There is global warming, but humans aren't causing it.
Howard Dean can't raise money.
John Kerry is a flip-flopper.
George W. Bush is a decider.
John McCain is a straight shooter.
Dick Cheney is a sober shooter.
Nobody at the White House knows Jack Abramoff.
Democrats do.
The economy is doing great.
Evolution isn't supported by the facts.
Diebold voting machines are secure.
Fox News is fair and balanced.
Mission accomplished.
Bill Clinton did it too.
No one could have anticipated the Iraqi insurgency.
The budget deficit will be cut in half in four years.
Anyone who thinks Dubai shouldn't control our ports is racist.
No one who thinks we should build a wall along the Mexican border is racist.
George Allen isn't a racist . . . anymore.
Terry Schiavo wants to live.
Andrea Clark wants to die.
We've turned a corner in Iraq.
There is a war on Christmas.
There is a war on Easter.
There is no civil war in Iraq.
The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
Bush won Florida in 2000.
Losing by 2 million votes in 2000 is a mandate.
This administration will hold itself accountable.
Brownie did a heck of a job.
Kathleen Blanco never asked for federal help.
Ray Nagin should have used the buses.
Gay couples seek to destroy marriage.
Man existed alongside the dinoraurs.
The earth is 6,000 years old.
America is a Christian nation.
George W. Bush is a Christian man.
George W. Bush is a great guy to have a beer with.
George W. Bush is a war hero. John Kerry isn't.
John Kerry outed Mary Cheney.
John Kerry shot himself in the leg to earn his medals.
Al Gore thinks he invented the Internet. Franklin D. Roosevelt was a communist and a terrible president.
Ronald Reagan was the best president in history.
Hillary Clinton will be the Dem nominee in 2008.
Bill Clinton caused 9/11.
Bill Clinton was offered Bin Laden on a silver platter and turned it down.
Saddam Hussein attacked us on 9/11.
No one could have anticipated airplanes flying into buildings.
We have removed the Taliban from Afghanistan. The Iraqis will welcome us with open arms and flowers.
It could take six days, six weeks - I doubt six months.
Pat Tillman was killed by enemy fire.
Yellow magnet car ribbons help the troops.
The insurgency is in its last throes.
They hate us for our freedom.
The only way to get Zarqawi is to invade Iraq.
We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here.
When they stand up, we'll stand down.
Iraqi oil will pay for the war and the reconstruction.
Gas prices are high because of liberal environmentalists.
Gas prices are high because of taxes.
Drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge will lower the price of oil.
Unemployment numbers have never been so low.
Outsourcing will create more jobs.
The vast majority of Bush's tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum.
Tax breaks for Hummers are good for the economy.
Tax cuts increase federal revenue.
The estate tax hurts family farms.
Private accounts will save Social Security.
Bush will make health insurance affordable for low-income families.
The Healthy Forests Initiative will help forests.
No Child Left Behind will help children.
The Clear Skies Initiative will reduce air pollution.
Republicans are compassionate conservatives.
Republicans are pro-life.
Nothing is more important in a time of war than cutting taxes.
Democrats hate America.
Hillary Clinton murdered Vince Foster.
"Bin Laden Determined to Strike within the U.S." was a historical document.
The national anthem should only be sung in English.
Jesus would have voted for Bush.
Whenever we say "wiretap," that means we're going to get a court order.
Chris Matthews will not let anything get by him.
George Bush was a successful businessman.
The government is tapping your phone to protect you.
Dissent is unpatriotic.
Valerie Plame is a traitor.
Patrick Fitzgerald is going to indict Joe Wilson.
Jeff Gannon is a serious journalist.
Rush is right.
The media is liberal.
You're either with us or against us.
A vote for John Kerry is a vote for Al Qaeda.
George Bush doesn't read the polls.
Congress had access to the same intelligence.
Iraq is the central front on the war on terrorism.
Republicans are the party of ideas.
Those trucks we found in Iraq were mobile biological weapons labs.
We know where the WMD are.
Anyone who leaks information will no longer be part of this administration.
Sex education causes STDs and increases pregnancy rates.
HPV vaccine will cause teen sex cults.
Harriet Miers would be a great Supreme Court justice.
Vice President Cheney no longer has ties with Halliburton.
Bush will restore honor and integrity to the White House.
Up is down.
Black is white.
Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.

Copyright 2006 Daily Kos (and sent by Bill H.)