Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
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Chokepoint Capitalism is my next book, co-written with the brilliant copyright scholar Rebecca Giblin. It’s a book about how the markets for creative labor were rigged, and how artists, fans, tinkerers, regulators and lawmakers can unrig them.
That second part is key: this isn’t just a book complaining about how tough things are for artists — it’s a book about how we can make things better.
There’s an obvious reason that our book’s focus on shovel-ready projects to put more money in artists’ pockets is important: you’d have to be a monster to prefer a world that underpays the writers, musicians, actors, and film and TV creators whose work heartens and delights you.
But there’s another reason that this focus on fixing creative labor markets is so important: because copyright, the primary tool we’ve given creators to give them power over their labor, has actually made things worse.
Continue reading "What is Chokepoint Capitalism?"
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Continue reading "Pluralistic: 17 Aug 2022: Chokepoint Capitalism Kickstarter is live"
I first learned about Dr. Thomas Radecki in the mid-1980s, when my grandmother became concerned that my Dungeons and Dragons hobby was going to unmoor me from reality and send me spiraling into delusion and misery, ending in murder.
Radecki was the psychiatrist who testified that the teenager Darren Molitor had murdered another teenager, Mary C. Towey, because he had been driven mad by D&D. Though the court rejected his testimony, Radecki built a career on his willingness to give expert testimony to the effect that young people were being driven to ghastly crimes by D&D.
I forgot about Radecki for decades, and then, last week, I learned that he had lost his medical license following revelations that he had enticed his patients — young people seeking treatment for addiction — into trading drugs for sex. He impregnated one of them. He is now serving an 11–22 year prison sentence.
Radecki attained fame by falsely accusing others of victimizing vulnerable young people for profit. He went on to victimize vulnerable young people for profit.
Takes one to know one.