Cory Doctorow's Business lectures on "Life in the Information Economy"

Cory Doctorow is one of my favorite bloggers - his insights are keen, he is a leader in information rights and ownership, and he is a great storyteller and author. Cory recently delivered some lectures at Cambridge in the UK entitled "Life in the Information Economy".

One of the things that Cory has helped me to realise is that information has often been unequally linked to capital gain - i.e., people write not for pleasure or to share ideas and information, but people write in order to craft the most 'popular' and 'salable' work in order to make money... The problem with this equation is that it shackles one's thoughts to whatever is acceptable, popular and consumer oriented. This kind of mindset will seldom push the boundaries and present anything new. The second 'side effect' is that it robs you of sharing your real wealth with the world! If you have to sell what you produce you are limiting your audience to those who have money, and within that audience to those who are willing to spend their money on your product...

Cory was the one who encouraged me to give away my books (or at least make electronic copies available for free download). Since doing this I have had more readers, more feedback (and more sales!)... In Steve Biko's words I write what I like, and I am pleased to say that quite a few people are reading what I write because they don't have to stretch themselves to get it! They don't have to make choices about whether it is worth spending the money to buy a book, or whether my book is better than someone else's books... They can simply download the books, dip in, see if it catches their fancy, or move on to something else.

Well, you can watch Cory's lectures here! Enjoy...