Excerpt From Rob Reid's Year Zero; Plus A Chance To Win The Book

from the techdirt-book-club dept

As we announced a few weeks ago, the July Techdirt Book Club book is Year Zero written by Rob Reid and which comes out today, published by Random House. Rob will be joining us in a few weeks to talk about writing a comic sci-fi novel about the mess that is copyright law... but in the meantime, he's provided the following excerpt, which is Chapter 1. There is a "prologue" before this, which you can read here, or you can just watch this video, which more or less covers the prologue info: As part of this, Rob and Random House have agreed to do another give away, this time just for Techdirt readers, which will go to five commenters on this post, based on your voting scores on the comments. We'll give one copy of the book each to the highest ranked "funny" and "insightful" comments, and then the three highest total scores other than the top ranked (so either funny or insightful). There are a few conditions: you have to be in the US or Canada. I know this sucks for those of you not in those places, but there's nothing we can do about it. Also, to win, we obviously have to be able to contact you, which means (a) you need to be logged in when you comment, so we can email you and (b) you have to respond to our email informing you of your win within 24 hours of our email. Also, you can't win twice -- if you score the highest in multiple categories, you get a prize in one and the others will go to the runners-up. We'll keep the voting open until Wednesday night and then tally the votes. So, get to work with your funny/insightful comments...

CHAPTER ONE: ASTLEY

Even if she'd realized that my visitors were aliens who had come to our office to initiate contact with humanity, Barbara Ann would have resented their timing. Assistants at our law firm clearout at five-thirty, regardless -- and that was almost a minute ago.

"I don't have anyone scheduled," I said, when she called to grouse about the late arrival. "Who is it?"

"I don't know, Nick. They weren't announced."

"You mean they just sort of . . . turned up at your desk?" I stifled a sneeze as I said this. I'd been fighting a beast of a cold all week.

"Pretty much."

This was odd. Reception is two key-card-protected floors above us, and no one gets through unaccompanied, much less unannounced. "What do they look like?" I asked.

"Strange."

"Lady Gaga strange?" Carter, Geller & Marks has some weird-looking clients, and Gaga flirts with the outer fringe, when she's really gussied up.

"No--kind of stranger than that. In a way. I mean, they look like they're from . . . maybe a couple of cults."

From what? "Which ones?"

"One definitely looks Catholic," Barbara Ann said. "Like a . . . priestess? And the other one looks . . . kind of Talibanny. You know -- robes and stuff?"

"And they won't say where they're from?"

"They can't. They're deaf."

I was about to ask her to maybe try miming some information out of them, but thought better of it. The day was technically over. And like most of her peers, Barbara Ann has a French postal worker's sense of divine entitlement when it comes to her hours. This results from there being just one junior assistant for every four junior lawyers, which makes them monopoly providers of answered phones, FedEx runs, and other secretarial essentials to some truly desperate customers. So as usual, I caved. "Okay, send 'em in."

The first one through the door had dark eyes and a bushy beard. He wore a white robe, a black turban, and a diver's watch the size of a small bagel. Apart from the watch, he looked like the Hollywood ideal of a fatwa-shrieking cleric -- until I noticed a shock of bright red hair protruding from under his turban. This made him look faintly Irish, so I silently christened him O'Sama. His partner was dressed like a nun -- although in a tight habit that betrayed the curves of a lap dancer. She had a gorgeous tan and bright blue eyes and was young enough to get carded anywhere.

O'Sama gazed at me with a sort of childlike amazement, while the sister kept it cool. She tried to catch his eye -- but he kept right on staring. So she tapped him on the shoulder, pointing at her head. At this, they both stuck their fingers under their headdresses to adjust something. "Now we can hear," the nun announced, straightening out a big, medieval-looking crucifix that hung around her neck.

This odd statement aside, I thought I knew what was happening. My birthday had passed a few days back without a call from any of my older brothers. It would be typical of them to forget -- but even more typical of them to pretend to forget, and then ambush me with a wildly inappropriate birthday greeting at my stodgy New York law office. So I figured I had about two seconds before O'Sama started beatboxing and the nun began to strip. Since you never know when some partner's going to barge through your door, I almost begged them to leave. But then I remembered that I was probably getting canned soon anyway. So why not gun for YouTube glory, and capture the fun on my cellphone?

As I considered this, the nun fixed me with a solemn gaze. "Mr. Carter. We are visitors from a distant star."

That settled it. "Then I better record this for NASA." I reached across the desk for my iPhone.

"Not a chance." She extended a finger and the phone leapt from the desk and darted toward her. Then it stopped abruptly, emitted a bright green flash, and collapsed into a glittering pile of dust on the floor.

"What the . . . ?" I basically talk for a living, but this was all I could manage.

"We're camera shy." The nun retracted her finger as if sheathing a weapon. "And as I mentioned, we‘re also visitors from a distant star."

I nodded mutely. That iPhone trick had made a believer out of me.

"And we want you to represent us," O'Sama added. "The reputation of Carter, Geller & Marks extends to the farthest reaches of the universe."

The absurdity of this flipped me right back to thinking "prank" -- albeit one featuring some awesome sleight of hand. "Then you know I'll sue your asses if I don't get my iPhone back within the next two parsecs," I growled, trying to suppress the wimpy, nasal edge that my cold had injected into my voice. I had no idea what a parsec was, but remembered the term from Star Wars.

"Oh, up your nose with a rubber hose," the nun hissed. As I was puzzling over this odd phrase, she pointed at the dust pile on the floor. It glowed green again, then erupted into a tornado-like form, complete with thunderbolts and lightning. This rose a few feet off the ground before reconstituting itself into my phone, which then resettled gently onto my desk. That refuted the prank theory nicely -- putting me right back into the alien-believer camp.

"Thank you very kindly," I said, determined not to annoy Xena Warrior Fingers ever, ever again.

"Don't mention it. Anyway, as my colleague was saying, the reputation of Carter, Geller & Marks extends to the farthest corner of the universe, and we'd like to retain your services."

Now that I was buying the space alien bit, this hit me in a very different way. The farthest corner of the universe is a long way for fame to travel, even for assholes like us. I mean, global fame, sure -- to the extent that law firms specializing in copyright and patents actually get famous. We're the ones who almost got a country booted from the UN over its lax enforcement of DVD copyrights. We're even more renowned for our many jihads against the Internet. And we're downright notorious for virtually shutting down American automobile production over a patent claim that was simply preposterous. So yes, Earthly fame I was aware of. But I couldn't imagine why they'd be hearing about us way out on Zørkan 5, or wherever these two were from.

"So, what area of the law do you need help in?" I asked in a relaxed, almost bored tone. Feigning calm believably is a survival tactic that I perfected as the youngest of four boys (or of seven, if you count our cousins, who lived three doors down. I sure did). It made me boring to pick on -- and useless as a prank victim, because I'd treat the damnedest events and circumstances as being mundane, and entirely expected. It had also helped me immensely as a lawyer (although by itself, it had not been enough to make me a successful one).

Sister Venus gave me a cagey look. "It's sort of . . . an intellectual property thing."

Filed Under: aliens, book club, contest, giveaway, rob reid, year zero
Companies: random house

Aliens v. The RIAA! Win An Early Release Copy Of Year Zero, Techdirt's July Book Club Offering

from the join-in-the-fun dept

Okay, I know it was just two days ago that we announced the Techdirt Book Club book for June (and, a reminder that tomorrow at 1pm PT/4pm ET, we'll be holding a Q&A with Patricia Aufderheide for the Techdirt Book Club book for May), but today we're "pre-announcing" the Techdirt Book Club book for July. And that's because if you want to get a free hard copy of the book, you can enter a giveaway starting today. You may remember, a few months back, Rob Reid (founder of Listen.com, among other things) got plenty of attention for his rather humorous talk about copyright math. And, earlier this week, we wrote about his op-ed for the WSJ concerning ways to compete with "free."

But none of that compares to Year Zero, Reid's new novel, which is being released on July 10th. It's all about aliens who go bankrupt after they realize they owe the record labels more money than exists in the universe, because they got hooked on our music, and shared that music with other aliens. Rob has released a video trailer as a teaser for the book, which is quite amusing:
I've had a chance to read the book, and I can say that it's awesome. Think Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, but with copyright law driving a major plot line. A mainstream humorous sci-fi novel that uses the Berne Convention as a key plot point and tosses aside casual references to Larry Lessig and Fark? Yes. Count me in. And, unlike most novels that bring up copyright, this one gets the legal issues mostly right (there is one point where trademark and copyright get confused, but it's so minor, you'll let it slip).

Anyway, as we said, this will be the Book Club book for July, and we'll be doing some fun things with Rob to have him engage with everyone here—but, if you're lucky, there's a chance for you to get a physical copy of the book delivered a month before it's actually released. Rob has the details on his blog, but basically you have to let him know (via a comment on his blog, a tweet or a Facebook comment) what song you'd like to beam to the aliens. Thirty winners -- ten from the comments, ten from Twitter and ten from Facebook (though you can enter all three) -- will be chosen at random to get books. So, go ahead and beam some songs to aliens. And just hope the RIAA doesn't claim that you're "inducing" infringement by doing so...

Filed Under: aliens, book club, contest, hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, riaa, rob reid, year zero

Not Only Can You 'Compete With Free' You Have To If You Don't Want Your Business Overrun By Piracy

from the basic-economics dept

Rob Reid, who recently got a ton of well deserved attention for his hilarious TED talk on copyright math, has a WSJ op-ed piece, in which he tries to explain why there's so little ebook infringement, compared to music infringement. The crux of his argument? Even though the big publishers aren't really great about this stuff, rather than fight the technology, they were actually quick to embrace the technology and make authorized works available for purchase. Contrast that to the music industry, which sued every advancement in technology, including the first MP3 player, and didn't actually license an MP3 download store until many, many years after MP3 players were widely available.

Compare this to the situation in books. Although it had some small-time forerunners, the Kindle, like the Rio MP3 player, brought portability to a mass market. But the Kindle launched with licenses rather than lawsuits from the key rights-holders in its domain, and offered more than 90% of the day's best sellers when it shipped.

This meant that consumers discovered digital books through a licensed experience that delighted them. Exciting hardware, a critical mass of titles and Amazon's retail sensibilities were all integrated into a single elegant package that piracy has never matched.

Of course, piracy emerged anyway. Countless unlicensed e-books can be found online, and millions of people use them. But sales figures suggest that relatively few of these downloads represent foregone purchases. Most Kindle, iPad and Nook owners seem to view piracy as a low-rent and time-consuming experience compared with the sanctioned alternatives. They probably wouldn't if the publishers had kicked things off with a five-year content boycott.

This highlights a key point that many of us have been trying to make for a long, long time. The "answer" to the "piracy question" is not greater enforcement or more draconian laws, as the entertainment industry keeps telling us, but rather more legitimate services that can provide good value to consumers. The music industry failed at that for so long, that it really helped drive the culture of infringing music.

For years, we've pointed out that of course you can compete with free. But what Rob's article is highlighting is even more fundamental. Not only can you compete with free, you must compete with free or you're going to lose out. If you don't offer a legitimate alternative, people will flock to the illegitimate ones. Yes, some people will always infringe, but over and over again we see how legitimate services pull people away from file sharing and towards paying -- if they provide enough value at a reasonable price.

Now, I know that some will quibble with one other major difference between books and music that Rob sort of leaps over in his piece: it was much easier to create digital music than ebooks. You could just take CDs and drop it into your computer and there you go. There really wasn't a simple equivalent for books. Sure, lots of people have scanners, but that's a laborious process. Still, I'm not convinced that was really as big a deal as I'm sure some will make of it. That's because once a single copy of a book is digitized, it's very quickly available all over the place. And there were plenty of people working to digitize books long before the Kindle came along. It might have been a limiting factor, but certainly not a complete hindrance to ebook infringement.

Either way, the key takeaway can hardly be challenged: the way to deal with piracy is to offer good legitimate services, and preferably more than just one, so they can compete on adding value. Unfortunately, many in the industry like to just dip their toes in the water with a few services -- and as soon as they become successful, seek to raise prices. That's no way to encourage a long term market success.

Filed Under: compete with free, copyright math, kindle, mp3, piracy, rob reid

When Entertainment Industry Numbers Are More Suited To Comedy Than Analysis

from the sorry-MPAA-but-nobody's-buying-it dept

We've often criticized the entertainment industry for their use of utterly bogus math to claim massive, completely unrealistic losses from piracy. As Mike once noted, "it would actually be kind of funny... if policy makers and the press didn't actually believe those numbers and pass bad legislation based on them."

That said, it can still be pretty damn funny, as this brilliant 5-minute TED talk by Rob Reid demonstrates:

If you didn't watch the video (you should), it's a sarcastic take on "©opyright Math™" in which Reid plays along with the industry's numbers in order to expose how ridiculous they are:

The movie folks also tell us that our economy loses over 370,000 jobs to content theft, which is quite a lot when you consider that back in '98 the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that the motion picture and video industries were employing 270,000 people. Other data has the music industry at about 45,000 people. And so the job losses that came with the internet and all that content theft have therefore left us with negative employment in our content industries. This is just one of the many mind-blowing statistics that copyright mathematicians have to deal with every day. And some people think that string theory is tough.

Reid doesn't do any actual debunking, because he doesn't need to—the numbers are so plainly false that just putting them in the spotlight is enough to get the audience laughing. It's a lot of fun, but it also underlines the bigger question: why do journalists and policy makers still blindly accept and repeat those same numbers? Hopefully, as more and more people recognize the industry's claims for the comedic fiction that they are, that will begin to change.

Filed Under: bad math, piracy, rob reid, ted talks
Companies: mpaa