Information Wants to be Free. No, It Doesn't.

Frankly, information doesn't care whether it's free or not. It has no mind to make any assessment of its own value.

It's the cheapskates who don't want to pay for information who want it to be free.

I'll admit that my kneejerk reaction is to be one of those cheapskates. Who wants to pay for stuff if you don't have to? But we need to get past being kneejerks.

Today's New York Times has an article by Motoko Rich about the growth in digital book piracy. On one site, Scribd (which insists that it will immediately remove any text that it finds to have been posted illegally), a commentator termed the service "like the robinhood [sic] of ebooks." No, this is not Robin Hood. These pirates are not the good guys, stealing from filthy rich capitalists so that poor little you can read the book for free.

These days, the publishing business is having a hard time making ends meet. As always, most published authors don't make a living by writing. So if you really can't afford to pay for that book you want to read: Get thee to the library.