read

Malcolm McLaren died yesterday.

I am reading André Breton's Mad Love. In it, he speaks of desire and chance and poetry. He invokes Baudelaire, Rimbaud. Well I'm only on page 30ish. With my pencil, I take notes in the margins. I underline. I circle. I star things. I wonder if the iPad (or any e-reader) can replace this experience with a text.

I read Randy Cohen's post in The New York Times on the illegal download of e-books. I've never really thought about piracy and books in this way (although if pressed I'd probably confess to having photocopied more pages of some books and magazines than copyright may have allotted and to having published 'zines comprised of elaborately subversive cutting-and-pasting *cough*) I've never thought of a black-market in hardcover books. I like to buy at used bookstores. Did we sign the EULA to transfer our copies therein?

I think of Lautréamont's claim that "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress demands it."

Progress, then -- this changes everything?

There are many albums and songs I have owned in multiple formats. I still have my cassette tape of Pyromania, for example, the very first album I bought with my own babysitting income. But I've also purchased Def Leppard mp3s so I can have the songs on my iPod (DON'T JUDGE), and it's a bit irksome to have to pay for the same 3 songs twice. Don't I already own "Rock of Ages?" Or do I only own the version that comes attached to memories of junior high school and Union Jack t-shirts, the version that I own no device on which it can play?

I own at least 3 copies of Frankenstein, at least 3 of some version of Grimms' Fairy Tales. (All for the same device -- the bookshelf! Phew!) I'll spare you the lesson in literary history, but in both cases, having multiple versions of the text is important when teaching/researching. But seriously, do I have to buy Frankenstein again so I can have it on my e-reader? (And don't be a smart-ass and say it's a free download. And don't be a smart-ass and say "Audrey, don't you prefer print?")

I wrote a post on RWW this week this week on the potential impact of two legal decisions: one curtailing the power of the FCC to regulate ISPs and one granting the British government authority to crack down on any internet technologies/websites/users accused of copyright infringement.

Intellectual property: who owns ideas? Who owns what we create? Digital equity / digital access: who controls our access to those ideas? Who determines ownership?

I often repeat "'Buy my soda,' said the moose diarrhea salesman." Sometimes we're fed a lot of shit, ya know. I had a copy of Beyond the Valley of the Gift Police at one point in time, and I'd sure like to listen to some Jello Biafra now... but nothing on Lala and $12 on iTunes? Um, no.

End of week one of freelancewriter-icity: words written. Work done.

Sometimes we subscribe wholesale to visions and mythologies. It can indeed be surreal.

Audrey Watters


Published

Audrey Watters

Writer

Back to Archives