I’m here in Wilson Library, sitting next to Will Raymond, Kirk Ross and Bob Bradley. Ruby Sinreich is here, and Corey Reece, and a lot of other interesting UNC students, faculty and staff. No sign of Doctorow or Paul Jones, yet. OK, they’re here. But, quick, look at a picture of Corey’s son. Paul tells us Doctorow’s visit is sponsored by ibiblio, the j-school and Carolina Free Culture, “and paid for by Duke.” [Claps and laughs.] CD: “Bits are never going to get harder to copy … networks get faster and faster … no future where networks will get harder to log into, more expensive … from here, bits get easier and easier to copy.” Explanation of how DRM is based on cryptography. “There’s a reason we put letters in envelopes.” EFF. Doctorow’s talk is being recorded. Link will be up in a couple of weeks here (see his 2004 talk in this same room here). “The key is the smallest secret we can keep.” More about DRM and breaking the crypto behind it and how it’s broken every day, “because DRM doesn’t work.” Mean time between an iTunes release of a song and availability on p2p network is 3-4 minutes. “We need to get used to copyable bits.” Science fiction writers don’t and haven’t predicted the future. “If we did predict the future, it was a mistake. We predict the present or the near past.” People expressed they hated reading online even though they spent all day reading things online. Didn’t believe them. But computers good for reading lots of little things in quicker and quicker succession. Buy $1000 worth of CDs in a record store, you can rip and burn and mashup and put onto iPod and and … but with DVD can legally only watch it. Good news for writers is ebook is … ebooks act as an enticement rather than a replacement. Copying is inherently a social activity. When I make a copy for you, it carries a little bit of reputation. … the more copyable something is, the easier it is to make it sociable. “Step 3, a chastened America returns to the mall.” Creative Commons. Join EFF. Get involved locally with extraordinary community of student movement Free Culture.