Cory Doctorow to me was an unknown name before the OSM course. As I understand the man stands out by writing his novels etc. under the Creative Commons license, meaning that anybody can download, print etc. his works as long as the user doesn’t disrupt the CC laws.
Question in mind is however now – can the man survive or even prosper with this type of business model (or rather principle).
To answer that question, I’d like to elaborate my views on the current state of intellectual property in the world.
There is an abundance of it. Every man, girl and ape is producing music, films and text by its laptop, often designing the end-product to be as merchandisable as Fox or Sony publishing firms would make it.
That leads me to question, what is the difference between the two type of business-doing? Answer – the latter is more expensive.
So yes – Cory Doctorow is doing smart move, promoting and acting under Creative Commons, as he has now more space (possession) of public knowledge than the thousands of other writers acting by the traditional ways.
The multitude of free collaborative channels offered to artist today in all greatly raises the question of “what is the point of using old methods of doing business in the entertainment sector”. Music videos that costs millions, and are published later on MTV – pointless. Just mash something up on youtube. Recording that see hundreds of studio time put into them – pointless. No consumer has the time to truly enjoy the perks. Just publish something often and fast on iTunes. etc.
So in conclusion, it is still unclear to me how Cory Doctorow will become a millionaire by writing novels, but if money is not an object, the man has reached (or reaching) every other goal intended.
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