The SFFaudio Podcast #075 – TALK TO: Hugh McGuire

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #075 – Jesse and Scott talk to Hugh McGuire, the founder of LibriVox.org.

Talked about on today’s show:
LibriVox’s Wikipedia entry, Ear Ideas, Book Oven, Hugh’s top secret audiobook project [coming soon], the free software movement, Richard M. Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, how are things going on the web, viruses and spam, WordPress, Internet Archive, volunteer staffing, the 2010 $20,000 fundraiser, the Wayback Machine, Project Gutenberg, TV Archive, the Library Of Congress Twitter archives, better Twitter than Facebook, “if the aliens ever arrive and look at the YouTube comments we’re screwed”, innovation comes from a wealth of public commons, a looser copyright system will result in more innovation to the benefit of society, The Iliad by Homer (translated by Samuel Butler), the Recorded Books version of The Iliad, solo vs. collaborative recordings, The Most Powerful Idea In The World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention by William Rosen, patents, rewarding innovation with temporary monopolies, the captains of capitalism, innovators should be given prizes vs. a permanent monopoly, extracting rent, rent seeking behavior, legislation to extend copyrights and patents is damaging, the orphan works problem, the chilling effect of a murky copyright regime, Bill C-32 (Canada’s crappy copyright legislation), Canadian libraries don’t promote LibriVox, the Dewey Decimal system, search LibriVox by genre, “I love the 714 section of the library”, redesigning LibriVox (hopefully by the end of 2010), non-English audiobooks on LibriVox, English is just too kick-ass, volunteerism is embraced by Americans, Canadians are more conservative (than Americans), short non-fiction on LibriVox, the Short Non-Fiction Collection Volume 1 on LibriVox, The Somnambulists by Jack London, ratings on LibriVox, solos vs. collaborative readings, plays on LibriVox, the dramatized LibriVox Othello, LibriVox’s King Lear, public domain materials, putting LibriVox audiobooks into the commercial marketplace (Amazon.com and eBay), creative commons vs. public domain, professional narrators getting their start on LibriVox, Mark Douglas Nelson, Gilgamesh, The King by Robert Silverberg, people write books for reasons other than money, five free audiobook editions of Anne Of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, you don’t want me asking you for permission!, a monopoly is the ability to sue your way to profits, 39 Steps by John Buchan (read by Adrian Praetzellis), Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, Aural Noir, literary fiction then crime and mystery and THEN Science Fiction, going straight to the authors, “its piddly for the publisher but it’s NOT piddly for the author”, the bureaucracy of corporations, “Any authors interested getting their books turned into audiobooks…”

Posted by Jesse Willis

Archive.org: Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig

SFFaudio Online Audio

Internet Archive - Open Source AudioI don’t know if there exists a non-fiction book with more downloads than Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. The Archive.org stats show it having been downloaded more that 13,000 times. That’s impressive. More impressive is how readable it is. The narrators are all amateurs and they occasionally mispronounce a word or stumble over the descriptions of the images and charts in the paperbook. It doesn’t matter though. The content is delivered extremely well – Lessig is an excellent explicator, and the book is highly relevant for anyone who visits this website. Americans in particular will find immense value in this audiobook. I highly, highly recommend it.

Free Culture by Lawrence LessigFree Culture
By Lawrence Lessig; Read by various
18 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 9 Hours 42 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: AKMA / Turnstyle.org
Published: 2004
Provider: Archive.org / Open Source Audio

I got this audiobook through a torrent. You can get it that way too. Unfortunately I don’t know how to link to a torrent so I’ve made a HuffDuffer podcast feed for it…

Podcast feed: http://huffduffer.com/jessewillis/tags/free_culture/rss

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Here’s the entire audiobook for streaming listening too…


Those still unconvinced should have a look/listen to this April 17, 2009 powerpoint enhanced that Lessig gave at the University of Pennsylvania. It’s entitled The Forbin Problem – its title takes inspiration from the AMAZINGLY AWESOME Science Fiction movie called Collusus The Forbin Project.

Posted by Jesse Willis