Some refreshing political reading

If you're like me, sick and tired of ridiculous election banners and flyers that make absolutely no sense, and instead you want to read some serious politics, let me recommend "Det sovande folket" by Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. Apparently not too easy to get hold of in your local book store, but luckily there's always the Great Library in Alexandria The Pirate Bay. You can download the book here.

Free - or not

I read a couple of reviews of Chris Anderson's book on the new business models on the web, "Free - the future of a radical price", and found it to be intriguing. So intriguing in fact that I wanted to have a closer look at it, and possibly even buy it. The review mentioned that the book was, true to it's content, available for free on the web.

So I googled it, and found that it was indeed available for free at Scribd, but wait...

Are you freakin' kidding me? The book is arguing that trying to protect your intellectual property with various kinds of annoying restrictions is not a very good idea in this new economy, yet it's actually utilizing the very same, ridiculous techniques as the rest of the entertainment industry, providing the consumers with a sub-quality product (who wants to read a 274 page book online, with no option for saving or downloading???) and the infamous and hysterically annoying geographical restrictions found on DVD's and several streaming video sites, to mention a couple. Makes me wonder if Chris Andersson's publisher, Random House, has even read the book they're publishing, or if it's all just a bad joke.

Granted, you can download the sound book version in MP3 format here, but who wants to listen to a book for seven hours? Where's the damn PDF?

Needless to say, I'm not contributing to Chris Andersson's and Random House's "radical economy".

One streaming book, please.

Five publishing houses were the first to abuse the new Ipred law, attempting to start legal proceedings against the owner of an FTP server, claiming he had made publicly and widely available copyrighted material. Those of you knowing what an FTP server is will know that they usually don't make anything "publicly and widely available".

Anyway, one of the publishers behind this revolting act, Storyside, has come up with a brilliant idea to battle piracy (besides violating human rights and suing their customers): A "Spotify-like" service for sound books. Yes, that's right, folks!

Helena Gustafsson, VD på Storyside, funderar i lite andra banor och vill utveckla nya kanaler för distribution av ljudböcker. Hon tror att människor vill köpa ljudböcker på olika sätt och är övertygad om att det finns flera modeller som ännu inte testats.

– Jag tror till exempel på en sajt som Spotify fast i bokform. Strömmade ljudböcker ska vara billigare än nedladdade, den som vill äga en produkt måste vara beredd att betala, säger hon.

Right. Now, who on earth would be interested in sitting in front of his computer listening to a streaming sound book? Sound books are for long car rides, intercontinental flights or maybe even subway rides, provided they are long and boring enough. And the idea to actually charge money for this? Umm, well, good luck. Especially now that you've alienated your customers by taking legal actions against them.

Another one of these bright minds, Shadi Bitar of Earbooks, is looking for laws and regulations on the Internet:

– Vi hoppas att det ska införas lagar och regler på internet. Det är väldigt svårt att konkurrera med det som är gratis och först om vi får en legal marknad kan våra tjänster utvecklas, säger Shadi Bitar, VD på ljudboksförlaget Earbooks.

Well, Shadi Bitar, here's a newsflash: There are laws and rules on the Internet, just as there are in real life. And the police have traditionally upheld them, cracking down on child pornography, frauds and scams. The problem is that you and your comrades in crime insist on bending these rules and even creating your own rules enabling you to act as both police and judge.

Anyway, for those of you interested, the publishing houses involved in the abovementioned judicial farce are:

• Bonnier Audio
• Earbooks
• Norstedts
• Piratförlaget
• Storyside

They're all on my do not buy-list (or "don't feed the monster" list), and they should be on yours too.