Guest Column on Techdirt..

Strategies for the Digital Age: Beyond Mocking the Clueless

..In Robert Putnam’s fascinating book Bowling Alone he describes the way in which the threads of civil society and of trust frayed during the 20th century › Continue reading

The (C)rash (C)art… A new picture

From our music comic..   I wrote this up only two days ago and Keith Aoki turned it around and produced this..

(revised with comic life after thoughtful comments from readers.. Thanks!!) › Continue reading

Techdirt selling signed copies of The Public Domain..

And a lot more.  In an interesting experiment, Techdirt has launched a signed “book club“.  Apart from my book they are also including in the package signed copies of Bill Patry’s new book, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars, Boldrin and Levine’s Against Monopoly, Heller’s Gridlock Economy and Mike Masnick’s Approaching Infinity. Best of all, you get a.. › Continue reading

Homage to the Women of Public Radio..

And the men, too, of course – but bear with me. › Continue reading

Were we smarter 100 years ago..?

I have been rereading the legislative history of the 1909 Copyright Act.  I have come to the conclusion that 100 years ago we were smarter about copyright,  about disruptive technologies, about intellectual property, monopolies and network effects  than we are today. › Continue reading

Plato on Remix

Sometimes the past sends you wonderful quotations and images… One of the reasons why the comic drafting process is so much fun…

› Continue reading

How We Write a Comic

I am hard at work writing our new comic on the history of musical borrowing, with my two brilliant co-authors, Jennifer Jenkins and Keith Aoki.  › Continue reading

Twitter

I am a terrible poster boy for web 2.0 — I’ve spent a lot more time working to protect it than actually using it.  But recent experiences giving a lecture in Britain convinced me that Twitter really could be useful so I decided to take the plunge.  I am now “thepublicdomain” http://twitter.com/thepublicdomain › Continue reading

Shakespeare Debate

I am on Radio West today, talking about a subject far from intellectual property — the authorship of Shakespeare’s works, the subject of a novel that I wrote two years ago, called The Shakespeare Chronicles.  › Continue reading