Cory Doctorow seems pleased (and with good reason) that his novel Eastern Standard Tribe is the subject of a scholarly paper. Dr. Graham J. Murphy wrote “Somatic Networks and Molecular Hacking in Eastern Standard Tribe,” which was originally published in Extrapolation, the journal of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, last year. Murphy is a professor in the Cultural Studies/Department of English at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.
Doctorow has posted the paper, in its entirety, on his web site at this link.
To whet your appetite, the paper begins: “An ongoing battle in the contemporary cultural sphere has to do with the relationship between advanced technologies and consumerism, economics, and artistic creativity. The skirmishes and legal warfare over MP3 file-sharing, (il)legal file downloads, alleged copyright violations, and the very ownership of bits have given fodder to such groups as the Recording Industry Association of America and Hollywood studios to proclaim the impending demise of the music and/or film industries as a consequence of digital downloading and online piracy. This millennium has been marked by lawsuits launched against internet service providers, peer-to-peer software companies, and individual users and consumers. On the other hand, in 2006 Apple’s iTunes reported its one-billionth legal music file download (at a per-download cost of 99¢) while Warner Brothers reached a deal with BitTorrent to allow online sales of its films, clearly demonstrating that profits can be netted through online mediums while also protecting artistic expression and intellectual property.” To read the rest, follow that link above.