I recently came across the Transitive Grace Period Public License (alternate link) by Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn. I fonud it interesting because it’s very similar — almost identical — to something I had first starting floating about ten years ago. I called it the (TPL). I’m sure this is a case of “great minds think alike”. One things that I like about my write up is that I gave some of the rationale behind why this approach is a fruitful one:

Amazon can reach in and randomly destroy the books on your Kindle remotely over Whispernet, without asking your permission first. Well, technically, thanks to the terms and conditions that you have to agree to before you buy the Kindle, you gave them permission in advance. Well, no thanks. I think the Sony e-Reader is a much better choice as a result. Yet another reason why people should Just Say No to DRM.

When I have a moment, I’ll try to tally up the responses that I got to “An ethical question involving ebooks”and see if there are any interesting patterns based on self-identified generational markers. Obviously, this is not a properly controlled survey, so the results aren’t going to mean much, but it is interesting that some fairly passionately written comments came from folks who self-identified as coming from generations that broke with the common stereotypes of their respective demographic groups.

I recently purchased a short story from Fictionwise, which was not DRM’ed, so I could easily get it into a form where I could read it on my Sony eReader. Thanks to that short story, I was introduced to an author, and a character, which I found very engaging. When I decided to find out more about the character, I found that the author had written two additional short stories, and three additional novels many years ago, but has since stopped writing any more books involving that character.

Russell Coker, commenting on my last blog, and apparently after exploring some of the links stemming from the SFWA kerfuflle, apparently stumbled on a post from former SFWA VP Howard V. Hendrix, where he took the amazing position (for a SF writer) that he hated the using the internet, and that people who posted their stories on the web for free download were web-scabs, has taken the position that since such comments were an attack on our (Open Source Developer’s) community, that he would resolve “to not buy any more Sci-Fi books until I have read all the freely available books that I want to read”.

I recently came across three very well written and very thoughtful blog postings by Rick Cook (author of the Wiz Zumwalt Wizardry series): Copyrights, Whack-the-Gopher, and SFWA — Why I Quit The Economics of Theft: Son of Whack the Gopher WHACK THE GOPHER III: The Return of the Mutant Grandson The incident which kicked off these postings was an informal DMCA takedown notice posted by the Vice President of the Science Fiction Writers of America, Dr.