RiYL
RiYL
Brian Heater
Episode 086: Cory Doctorow
45 minutes Posted Dec 30, 2014 at 9:40 pm.
0:00
45:23
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Show notes
There are worse places to conduct an interview with Cory Doctorow than
the press center above the New York Comic Con show floor. Granted, it’s
still fairly low and a bit hectic that high up, but there’s want for
conversational inspiration. In fact, if there’s a complaint to be had,
it’s that 45 minutes is only enough to start scratching the surface.  Boing
Boing blogger, science fiction author, digital rights and privacy
advocate, Doctorow is one of those rare instances of an interview
subject  with whom a few externally imposed conversational restraints
might actually come in handy. But as a leading voice in the battle for
freedom of information, Doctorow certainly isn’t going to be the one to
enforce them. As it happened, the writer was on-hand to promote
In Real Life for First-Second, a YA graphic novel produced with Los
Angeles cartoonist Jen Wang that tackles the subject of human rights
through the lens of online goldfarming. By sheer coincidence, I also
happened to receive an email from McSweeney’s, asking if I’d like to
speak to the author for his upcoming treatise, Information Doesn’t Want
to be Free: Laws for the Internet age. The best option seemed to
be to simply sit down and see where the conversation took us. The result
is a free ranging discussion that manages to covered a whole lot
ground, while leaving me wishing for just a few more hours.