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By Paul Biba

Anis Shivani has a very thought provoking review of Free, by Chris Anderson and Digital Barbarians, by Mark Helprin, in The Huffington Post. It’s very clever to juxtapose the two. The review is far too long to quote, but here’s a paragraph:

headshot.jpgThese two books represent a full-throated debate between advocacy of free as the most viable price for content on the Internet, and unreconstructed support of copyright in virtual perpetuity. Chris Anderson explains how any number of profitable business models can be built on free, whereas for Mark Helprin the “creative commons” is a bad idea which makes us more barbaric by the day. Anderson is the clear winner in the argument, his ideas looking forward to the future, while recognizing the difficulties authors, musicians, and journalists will undoubtedly face in transitioning to free; Helprin comes off as driven by nothing but the profit motive as incentive for artistic creation.

 
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