Yes, it sounds ironic – but if you read the book you’ll understand the point here. I wrote Starving the Artist. It is mine. I alone have the right to determine how much it should cost. And now, with all the back-and-forth over property rights, I’ve decided it’s more important for people to read my book and gain some perspective than it is to try to convince them to pay for it. After all, the book is not meant to preach to the choir. It is meant to be a thoughtful conversation on the value of intellectual property and how property rights encourage quality creative works to continue to be created.

Anyway, just go download your free copy here.

Just promise you’ll actually read it.

I’ve read SOPA, and agree that there are some areas where it definitely needs work (in particular the forced removal or addition of words and links from privately owned web sites), but it is also my firm belief that there is a need for improved methods of piracy enforcement on the web.

Above all, however, I believe that the work of creators has value, and is their own property to do with as they wish. Illegal downloading of pirated material, as well as the sale of counterfeit goods, is harmful not only to our economy – but to the future of high-quality creative works.

So, today, I’m setting the price of my 2010 book, Starving the Artist: How the Internet Culture of “Free” Threatens to Exterminate the Creative Class and What Can Be Done to Save It to FREE for the PDF over at Lulu.com.

It’s a fairly quick read (less than 100 pages), and it will give you something to do while Wikipedia’s down.

(And of course, I’d really appreciate it if you’d buy a copy in book or Kindle format over at Amazon… but that’s up to you.)

Here’s the quick synopsis:

For a lot of people, creation is their livelihood. For others, it’s where their livelihood ought to be. As Richard Florida wrote in his 2004 book, The Rise of the Creative Class, “Stimulating and glamorous as it may sometimes be, creativity is in fact work…The creative ethos is built on discipline and focus, sweat and blood.” All music, art, movies, writings and games were brought into being by their creators – and for these creators to have created them, there was some underlying motivation to do so. Without their creators and their motivations, creative works simply would not be. Why then, in today’s Internet culture, is all creative work expected to be free? Why is it that some individuals feel it is their right to take things that do not belong to them, without receiving any permission to do so? Why, in the Internet culture of “free,” are those creations we enjoy and value most the ones that we are most likely to simply take?

Spoiler alert: It doesn’t go so well for the musician.

It started when I tried searching for songs I’ve cowritten. Amazingly, I found almost every song I’ve ever released – even songs in Swedish. Now, to clarify, Grooveshark does not have a licence to feature any of these songs, and they don’t pay me anything. It’s essentially a filesharing site, with users uploading music libraries to be streamed by other users. Much like YouTube, Grooveshark says its service is legal as they have a DMCA takedown procedure in place.

via Behind the music: Why won’t Grooveshark remove my music? | Music | guardian.co.uk.

Judging from internal emails, Grooveshark opted for forgiveness. In a April 27, 2010 email to Sina Simantob, a Escape Media Group director, Andrew B. Lipsher, then a partner at private equity firm Greycroft Partners, explained that he understands "the ask forgiveness and not permission strategy. It is a hard one to swallow as an investor knowing what I know, but the labels have been so horrible and naïve that I think it is the only one that makes sense."

via Internal Emails in Grooveshark/Universal Case Show Grooveshark Opted to Post First, Ask for Permission Later | Billboard.biz.

Here’s a reality check: Groupon lost $456.3 million in 2010. It lost $146.5 million in Q1 2011. Sounds like a winner, huh?

…

Groupon has all the classic hallmarks of the 90′s era dot-com failure. Big new idea: check. Media hype: check. “Too good to be true” come-on to consumers: check. Endless need to expand into new markets/acquire new customers or perish: check. One-trick pony: check.

Read the full article here.‘Hot’ Doesn’t Equal ‘Profitable’ | ClickZ.

And for some really good meaty bits, be sure to read the “new lessons to learn if we want to avoid the mistakes of the past” at the end of the article. I’m shocked at how many people never learned these lessons.

Ultimately, we’ve all been stuck in some collaborative hallucination believing ad-supported music can work. It’s yet another indictment of the ad-supported model — the one Last.fm and Pandora have found problematic. Many have tried, yet nobody has really managed to make it work, because advertising isn’t enough to pay licensing fees across millions and millions of on-demand tracks.

via Spotify Shift Signals the End for Ad-Supported Music: Tech News and Analysis «.

“Criminal activity online is everyday eroding the work of America’s economy and workforce,” said NMPA President and CEO David Israelite. “Songwriters and music publishers stand with the millions of Americans whose work depends on our nation’s founding principle of intellectual property rights to support efforts to address this illegal activity.

via Mi2N.com – Music Publishers Support Congressional Call For Enforcement Tools To Combat Digital Theft.

It appears that the major music labels are upset with Amazon for not securing licenses for their cloud music player system. I honestly don’t really understand what the issue is here – it’s really no different from having a portable hard drive you take with you everywhere you go, is it?

Amazon argues that Cloud Drive and Cloud Player are just services that let users upload and play back their own music, just like “any number of existing media management applications.” After all, licenses shouldn’t be necessary for users to play their own music, right? The labels seem to disagree — they expressed shock following Amazon’s announcement, with a Sony Music representative implying that the company was looking into legal options.

via Music Industry Will Force Licenses on Amazon Cloud Player — or Else | Epicenter | Wired.com.

And by the way, if you’re looking for a cheaper solution that so far isn’t under any scrutiny I’m aware of, check out Winamp Orb. Basically it allows you to make your music collection on your home computer available for you to access anywhere. I’m assuming it is a bit more complicated for casual users than Amazon’s cloud is though.

Even if you have no human kindness at all and care only about yourself, how can a moment of passion be worth all the damage you do to your reputation?

via Althouse: I really do feel sorry for these young people who screw up their internet reputation..

For those of you unfamiliar with The Copyright Alliance, they are a “a non-profit, non-partisan educational organization dedicated to the value of copyright as an agent for creativity, jobs and growth.” They’re also the recent recipient of the Arnold Broido Award for Copyright Advocacy.

All-in-all, they’re a fantastic organization (in my opinion), and one that any creator or individual who cares about copyright or artists’ rights should be aware of and follow. You can learn more about them here.