Walking up to next month’s Tools of Change conference, O’Reilly Media has been publishing a series of interviews with some of the people scheduled to speak. Interestingly, they have talked with people on a range of topics, not necessarily the ones they are presenting on in February.
In a post that went up yesterday, I got to summarize what I’ve learned studying piracy. If you’ve followed that work, you’ll find that I return to several familiar themes:
- piracy may be an issue, but we could use more data before deciding;
- the instance of piracy is not the same as its impact;
- DRM does not stop piracy; it mostly frustrates consumers; and
- a good offense (meeting customer requirements) may be the best defense against piracy.
It’s fun to see these ideas, all of which have developed over time, collected in one post. Much credit goes to Jenn Webb, who interviewed me last month and worked hard to turn our conversation into the piece that ran on Radar. If you’re looking for a gifted writer, she freelances out of a snowbound enclave in Michigan.
A scheduling note: If you are thinking about attending Tools of Change, today (January 11) is the last day to register and obtain the early-bird discount. I’ve attended and presented at several TOC events, and I have always found them stimulating, productive and worth the investment.
If you need one more reason, I have been invited to give one of this year’s keynote addresses: “Context first: A unified field theory of publishing“, scheduled for 4:35 p.m. on Tuesday, February 15. I’m looking forward to attending the conference and presenting my ideas. There may be some talk of piracy.
