In his biography, Cory Doctorow describes himself as an award-winning science fiction novelist (Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Eastern Standard Tribe), a contributor to numerous publications (Wired, New York Times), a blogger and co-editor of boingboing.net (the Web’s most complete directory of wonderful things). But underlying all his work as an author is an underlying commitment to understanding, advocating and protecting our increasingly digital lives.
He worked as the Director of European Affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org) and still maintains a connection to the organization in San Francisco. The EFF acts as an educator, watchdog and lobby for digital rights and online copyright issues, and the group has an excellent email newsletter that helps keep the present danger clear.
As with his novel Little Brother, Doctorow doesn’t just lecture on electronic rights. He practices a lot of the not-quite-ready-for-this-decade ideas he espouses. He argues convincingly that copyright law needs to be reimagined in the digital age if it’s going to remain relevant. While publishers of words and music still set their lawyers upon the legions of digital “pirates” out there, the complete text of most of Doctorow’s short story collections and novels (including Little Brother) are available for free on his site, craphound.com.
Similarly, he’s found imaginative ways to promote his most recent book. In addition to soliciting online videos illustrating the use of some of his privacy-protecting techniques, he regularly posts new ideas on the how-to site www.instructables.com. Already submitted are guidelines for handling a traffic stop, encrypting your gmail, lying to authority figures and blending into a crowd.
As of this writing, the book has been on the New York Times’ Best Seller List (children’s books) for six weeks, and Cory Doctorow has been on a book tour for as long. While he was signing books and speaking to people in the real world, he also took a few minutes to reply to a few of the Advocate’s questions online.
Mark Roessler: I was delighted that the Bay Guardian (a San Francisco area alternative weekly) played such a pivotal part in overthrowing the Department of Homeland Security. Given the state of the newspaper industry these days, I wonder why Marcus didn’t share his story with an online news service first. Or possibly a blogger. Do you really think alt-weeklies will figure in the revolution?
Cory Doctorow: I’ve tried to come up with a clever answer, but basically the answer is, it was better for the story, esthetically speaking.
Been checking your apartment for bugs and surveillance cameras much more since the book came out?
Nope. I just live clean.
Teen sex. It’s been a while since I read a young adult book, but I guess this stuff is mandatory now. I thought you handled the sex scenes well, and they served to strengthen relationships, but they felt a bit out of place with the rest of the book. I wonder whether you or your publisher felt those scenes obligatory to attract an audience.
No. Neither I nor my publisher put in anything to attract an audience. I wrote the book that I thought would make the best possible novel, esthetically speaking. My publisher asked for no changes on the basis of commercial fortunes (with the exception of asking me to replace “fuck” with “f__k” in two spots for reasons having to do with one of the major kids’ book promoter’s standards), only for reasons having to do with what my editor believed would make it a better book.
Do you think the circumstances that brought about the hippy movement and people like Hoffman were unique? Given all that’s happened since Bush has been in office without much public outrage, I wonder if a real resistance effort might still be generations away. Do you see reasons for more immediate hope?
Sure—Hoffman and his crowd arose out of the McCarthy era, after all. There’s plenty of burgeoning political engagement, and although the looters will walk away with a huge fraction of the U.S.’s wealth when this administration is through, we may be able to war-crimes-trial a few of our profiteers and bring them to justice.