We quite clearly can’t get enough of McKenzie Wark (not least because he just dropped by to tell us about an older network book project, Speed Factory), and he’s recently been interviewed at Creative Commons.
As well as quoting Laurence Sterne, always a good sign, he notes that Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle (which we like almost as much as Raoul Vaneigem’s Revolution of Everyday Life) has been available for free online for years, but the print edition still sells well too. Giving away content for free is the great taboo of the publishing world (see Google Book Search &c.), but for those who’ve actually done it (Charles Stross’ Hugo-nominated Accelerando is a good example), it seems to give a boost.
The most important point from Wark’s interview, however, seems to be that it is not only technology which will take us to the next level. As well as the tools, we need “new cultural, social, and literary conventions. We need to relearn how to read and write.”
Didn’t know about the Stross book — thanks for the tip.
Bruce Sterling was the first person i came across who distributed a whole book free on the net.
Comment by McKenzie Wark — November 24, 2006 @ 6:38 am