If you’re in the D.C. area, you’ll want to mark your calendar for a very special upcoming event. On 6/28, Public Knowledge, the New America Foundation and Copynight will co-host a talk by author, blogger and activist Cory Doctorow, on the topic of “How Copyright Threatens Democracy”. Full details and an RSVP form can be found at the New America Foundation’s website. Don’t snooze on this one, folks–this event is guaranteed to fill up fast. Full description after the break:
Join Cory Doctorow, co-founder of the UK Open Rights Group, in discussing his dystopian vision of the growing conflict between free speech and the democratic principles of the Internet and the business aims of commercial media giants. Co-hosted by the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative, Public Knowledge and Copynight DC, Doctorow combines his perspective as an author, activist, co-editor of Boing Boing to outline the threats to a free and open Internet, speech, creativity and fair use, and innovation from boundless copyright protections. Looking forward, Doctorow’s prediction is bleak:
This means war. It is time to stop treating the industry’s fight over copyright as a brush-war over creativity. The commercial media giants’ business models and ambitions are increasingly incompatible with a free and open Internet, and hence a free and open society.
Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger — the co-editor of Boing Boing and the author of the bestselling Tor Teens/HarperCollins UK novel Little Brother. He is the former European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in London.