I remember the main reason that I don’t like Cory Doctorow.

He’s a hugely overrated writer. That’s annoying. Luckily he gives his books away for free. I would be mighty peeved if I had to pay for them.

But that’s not the main reason.

The main reason (as I was reminded by typing up this post today) is that he called for the destruction of a public art work in Chicago. Why did he want it destroyed? Simply because he didn’t agree with the artist’s view on the artist’s rights concerning copyright of images of the sculpture. He wrote (in this post on his very influential blog), “they […] should melt the goddamned sculpture down for scrap.” He was talking about Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate.”

I happen to agree with him re: the right of the public to photograph things in, um, public. The artist and city officials are dead wrong on this issue. But to call for the destruction of what is a very beautiful work of art, especially from another creative — Doctorow’s a writer remember — is really sickening. He probably wasn’t serious. It was all probably just a bunch of hype. But really, it’s sad. He’s taken his copyright dogma to fundamentalist extremes if he really thinks it’s OK to destroy art work as an option in copyright disputes.

What’s next? book burnings of non-creative commons licensed books?

update
Rob Meyers doesn’t agree with me (and it is me T.Whid, not MTAA (MRiver has an annoying habit of not having the opinions that I want him to have)).

Rob sounds like he’s OK with destroying Kapoor’s stuff because he doesn’t like the artist’s work. He says Doctorow was being rhetorical, which is true. But it’s the kind of rhetoric I find repulsive. And then there’s this:

[..] I would say in all seriousness that if a work of art is that harmful to society (in a practical rather than a symbolic way), destroying it is the less harmful option for art itself.

I’m sure all the bookburners and christian-morals censors would heartily agree with you.

It’s simple. You can’t change copyright law by destroying art works. You do it by petitioning law makers, demonstrating, civil disobedience etc, etc.

If you simply don’t like an art work you can ridicule it, write scathing crits of it or, better yet, ignore it. permanent link to this post