"The Pirate's Dilemma" - free e-book

[TadW]

To download, simply click here. You’ll be taken to a checkout page where you can set the price anywhere from $0.00 upwards. You’ll need to enter an email address before you can download it.

ThePiratesDilemma.com

From Publishers Weekly
Music journalist Mason, a former pirate radio and club DJ in London, explores how open source culture is changing the distribution and control of information and harnessing the old system of punk capitalism to new market conditions governing society. According to Mason, this movement's creators operate according to piratical tactics and are changing the very nature of our economy. He charts the rise of the ideas and social experiments behind these latter-day pirates, citing the work of academics, historians and innovators across a multitude of fields. He also explores contributions by visionaries like Andy Warhol, 50 Cent and Dr. Yuref Hamied, who was called a pirate and a thief after producing anti-HIV drugs for Third World countries that cost as little as $1 a day to produce. Pirates, Mason states, sail uncharted waters where traditional rules don't apply. As a result, they offer great ways to service the public's best interests. According to Mason, how people, corporations and governments react to these changes is one of the most important economic and cultural questions of the 21st century. Well-written, entertaining and highly original, Mason offers a fascinating view of the revolutionary forces shaping the world as we know it. (Jan. 8)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[zelda_pinwheel]

thanks, looks very interesting !

[cen]

I might be going blind but what format is it in?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by cen

I might be going blind but what format is it in?

The format is pdf.

[Adam B.]

I just went through the process, it's a PDF.

It looks pretty good on the iLiad zoomed with full screen iPDF.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

And it reflows for PDAs, too. Good job!

[Walk Broad]

Wait, wait, wait!

50 Cent?!? A visionary ?!?!?!

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I'm not commenting on that until I read the book.

[Ervserver]

I'm betting he has had many visions

Originally Posted by Walk Broad

Wait, wait, wait!

50 Cent?!? A visionary ?!?!?!

[TallMomof2]

MobiCreator did a credible job of transforming the PDF to a PRC file. All the links worked and the pictures looked good. There were a few bloops where a page number was inserted but not too bad.

[Donnageddon]

Thanks, Tad!

[UncleDuke]

price is right

[pieter]

Hehe. "Pirates"
Whatever the perspective, it is a stupid term to use.

Some people use it in a negative sense: Pirates are those who steal from others what they have no right of owning. Pirates are arrogant and have a general "me first" attitude to everything they can get the hands on. Just like those pirates who attacked other boats and stole what wasn't theirs.

Other people use it in a positive sense: Pirates are those people who truly understand how digital content and the internet work. They are visionaries who sail the digitised waves and will lead us into a new future. Just like those brave pirates who sailed their boats around the seas and braved the waves and storms.

Basically, pirates have nothing to do with digital content or the internet. Pirates rape people. Pirates kill people. Pirates steal food from boats. This has nothing to do with digital content and copyright issues. It's as silly as calling hard-rockers or christians pirates.
Or on the other side of the spectrum: there is no brave new world on the internet. It's just a bunch of people sensing business opportunities with the changing culture of digital content. None of these people would probably last a month on real pirate ship. Or vice versa, real pirates were probably the last people to bring about any culture change sailing about on old boats attacking other boats.

Can't we just drop the term? It's just as silly when anti filesharing people use it, as when pro filesharing people use it.

[HarryT]

He also explores contributions by visionaries like Andy Warhol, 50 Cent and Dr. Yuref Hamied, who was called a pirate and a thief after producing anti-HIV drugs for Third World countries that cost as little as $1 a day to produce.

Hmmm. Should we be applauding someone who ignores the patent rights of drugs companies who have spent billions developing those drugs, and who need to recover those costs by selling the drugs? It's not the cost of the chemicals or the manufacturing process that determines the price of drugs, but the R&D costs. Those drugs wouldn't exist had that money not been spent.

So yes, I'd certainly go along with calling this "Dr. Yuref Hamied" a "pirate and a thief" if he manufactured drugs which were still under patent without paying the appropriate fee to the patent holder. Or is he suggesting, I wonder, that people have some God-given "right" to drugs without paying for them?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

So yes, I'd certainly go along with calling this "Dr. Yuref Hamied" a "pirate and a thief" if he manufactured drugs which were still under patent without paying the appropriate fee to the patent holder. Or is he suggesting, I wonder, that people have some God-given "right" to drugs without paying for them?

So how many people can die before you have a right? 10000? 1 million? 1 billion?