A very entertaining podcast by SF writer, Net activist, and uber-blogger Cory Doctorow covering copyright, concentration, print-on-demand, the future of the codex and more. The problem with electronic books, he suggests, is in part that they are extremely good at distracting you – you need ‘monkish, iron self-discipline’ to read a long work online. Hence he suggests, one of the best things about the codex is precisely that it isn’t electronic – it can’t distract you with emails, phone calls, IMs, RSS and all the rest, and is therefore the best tool available to help a reader concentrate on a sustained piece of writing.
He also talks about his new Creative Commons-licensed novel – though frustratingly he doesn’t go further into his thoughts around giving away free fiction.
Definitely worth a listen.