Cory Doctorow’s new book Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free is ostensibly a guide for creators on how to approach the Internet, and does so in an extremely informative, yet conversational manner. Furthermore it is concise, making it very accessible. When people ask me why I care so much about copyright and DRM, I will point them to this short and entertaining book.

Funnily enough, this book reminded me a lot of Astra Taylor’s The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age (which I was critical of in my Literary Review of Canada review). One thing I didn’t like about her book was tone. I had even expressed that she be more academic in her approach. I think that opinion was wrong. She should have taken an approach more like Doctorow: conversational and entertaining.

Doctorow lays out a lot of the challenges that today’s creators face. He is familiar with the means of production and the regulations concerned (he did spend a number of years at the EFF fighting this stuff) and communicates it easily. Furthermore, he offers realistic solutions. This is the kind of book I wish Taylor had produced.

Although I didn’t think People’s Platform was all that great, I still recommend it to people because it encapsulates a lot of the Internet criticism of the past five years or so. Doctorow essentially does the same thing for copyright, piracy and digital locks, and then shows how it affects the wider society through censorship, privacy and surveillance. I prefer his execution. There is some overlap (and sometimes conflicting), but otherwise I think these books complement one another, and will probably recommend them as a pair. I would love to see Taylor’s review of Doctorow and vice-versa.