Subterranean Press has released a free podcast of Cory Doctorow’s After the Seige, his science fiction novella which you will recall won a Locus award at the weekend. The story is read by actor Mary Robinette Kowal and on Boing Boing Cory affirms that he’s rather pleased with the result. The free podcast idea continues to build on Cory’s (and other writers and artists) use of Creative Commons to make their work more freely available to enjoy and even to re-work, as long as its not for profit. I’ve said it before, but I still find it intriguing in this current climate where music and film company lobbies push ISPs to spy on their subscribers for possible bit torrent piracy, advocate stringent laws and fines (some warnings seem to offer up larger potential fines and sentences for copying than someone gets for drink driving), creators like Cory, Charlie Stross and others find they can use CC to raise awareness and interest in their works which then feeds back into a better following for the actual work you pay money for.
While not rubbishing the notion that digital piracy eats into company’s profits its hard to look at the stance of large media corporations and copyfighters like Cory et al and not come to the conclusion that the former are over-reacting badly to a new media they don’t understand and are afraid of while others see new media and digital distribution as a way to reach new audiences without relying on the mass marketing muscle of a big publisher or studio. After the Seige was later collected in Overclocked and also adapted by IDW for comics, now included in the new Cory Doctorow’s Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now.
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