Steal (and Share) this Book!

Cyberpunk author James Morris is encouraging people to rip him off -- by buying his book in PDF format and giving it away to as many other people as you want!...

The media establishment is still having trouble coming to terms with the digital revolution. The Internet remains impossible to control, being global, unlike the legal system. The only answer from big content owners seems to be imposing even more draconian restrictions than were in existence before digital technology hit the scene...

Fortunately, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig is trying to forge a way somewhere in between the total copyright control preferred by the RIAA and MPAA, and the free-for-all of the Bit Torrent sites. His new Creative Commons licenses (creativecommons.org) are starting to win favour around the world. It’s copyright informed by a heavy dose of Open Source. Some types of Creative Commons license even give free rein for reuse in new works, although the original creative works are still owned commercially by their authors alone. In all cases, however, non-commercial sharing is entirely freed up...

This why I have chosen to publish my first novel under a Creative Commons license. It’s called The Escapist, and you can read more about it at TheEscapist.co.uk . Creative Commons doesn’t mean that much for a paper printed work. You can share a book around legally already, and photocopying or scanning an entire literary work is too impractical to be much of a danger. But my book is also available as an Ebook – and not just a non-printable, non-copy-able encrypted digital reader format, but a standard PDF you can print or share as much as you like. The only thing you can’t do with it is sell the copies you make. So, if you like the sound of The Escapist and do buy it in one of its forms, please share it around as much as you like. Be my guest and rip me off!

Buy the PDF for BP 1.99 or get the softcover straight from the publisher.