Walled Culture the book, three years on
Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) was launched just over three years ago. A few weeks afterwards, I talked with journalist and editor Maria Bustillos about…
Fans of open access, unite: you have nothing to lose but your chained libraries
When books were rare and extremely expensive, they were often chained to the bookcase to prevent people walking off with them, in what were known as “chained libraries”.…
Top EU court’s advisor says manipulating transient data is not copyright infringement
One of the reasons that today’s copyright is such a bad fit for the modern digital world is that its roots lie deep in 18th-century law and analogue…
How to make money by acknowledging the difference between analogue and digital
One of the central ideas of Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) is that there is a fundamental difference between analogue and digital, and that copyright…
How copyright hinders the preservation of modern, digital culture
A recent Guardian interview with the British Library’s head of digital publications, Giulia Carla Rossi, reveals the problems caused by copyright for those tasked with preserving modern culture.…
Digital books do wear out – just like digital music, digital films and video games
There’s a great post by Brewster Kahle on the Internet Archive blog with the title “Digital Books wear out faster than Physical Books“. He makes an important point…
Top EU court’s advisor points out that geoblocks can be easily circumvented: time to get rid of them
One of the central ideas of both Walled Culture the blog and Walled Culture the book is that copyright simply doesn’t work in the digital world. One proof…
The digital creator economy: how big is it, and who’s making how much?
One of the most dramatic differences between the traditional, analogue world of creation, and the modern, digital one, is the democratisation that has taken place in this sphere.…
Analogue books go from strength to strength – helped, not hindered, by the digital world
Many of the worst ideas in recent copyright laws have been driven by some influential companies’ fear of the transition from analogue to digital. Whereas analogue formats –…
Rock star worth $450 million wins copyright case against widow who offered bootleg CD for €9.95
As the very first post on this blog pointed out, copyright is fundamentally unsuited to the digital world. It assumes that copying material is hard, and can therefore…