We are making available here, in a single posting, all of Eric’s columns from Jim Baen’s Universe on copyright.

We hope you enjoy this collection of the

Salvos Against Big Brother:

A Matter of Principle

by Eric Flint

I’m going to be writing a regular column on the subject of electronic publishing, and the challenges it poses to modern society—as well as the opportunity it provides. This column will take up a number of related issues, including such matters as the proper length of copyright terms, the nature of Digital Rights Management and why we are opposed to it, and the largely mythical nature of so-called “online piracy.”

We decided to keep this column separate from my general editor’s preface for each issue—see “The Editor’s Page”—because we think the issue is important enough for a separate column of its own. Furthermore, there will usually be a number of specific matters relevant to each issue of the magazine that I will need to address in “The Editor’s Page” that would simply get in the way of this discussion.

We’re calling the column “Salvos Against Big Brother” because that captures the key aspect of the problem, so far as Jim Baen and I are concerned. Both the publisher of this magazine and its editor believe that so-called Digital Rights Management (DRM)—by which we mean the whole panoply of ever more restrictive laws concerning digital media, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)—are the following:

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The next few books I have coming out, either as author or editor, are the following:

This month: Eric Flint, 1636: The Saxon Uprising just came out.

May 2011: Christopher Anvil, Rx For Chaos. This is a mass market paperback reissue.

June 2011: Eric Flint and Dave Freer, The Sorceress of Karres. This is a mass market paperback reissue.

July 2011: Eric Flint, Ring of Fire III. Virginia DeMarce’s 1635: The Tangled Web is being reissued this month in a mass market paperback edition.

October 2011: Eric Flint, Worlds. This collection of some of my short fiction is being reissued this month in a mass market paperback edition.

November 2011: Eric Flint, 1635: The Eastern Front. This is a mass market paperback reissue.

January 2012: Eric Flint, Grantville Gazette VI.

While Eric's still in the South Pacific, we'll point out that his latest column in the just-relased first issue of Jim Baen's Universe second year is about the relationship between drm-free ebooks and the opacity of the book market. 

It starts: 

In my last essay, I approached the question of so-called online piracy from what I called a "negative" standpoint—by which I meant that I was content with knocking down the arguments advanced in favor of DRM. In this essay, I want to turn the problem around and approach it from a positive standpoint, by examining the many ways in which a non-DRM approach to electronic publishing can help the situation of authors and publishers."

 Read the rest of it (and the new issue of Universe) here.  http://baens-universe.com/articles/salvos7

 (The article is free, the rest of the magazine requires subscription to read more than the first half.  You know the principle,  "Hey Kid!  Come'ere!  Try this! The first-half's free!) 

–Loyal Minions 

As one of the loyal minions, it occurs to me that some of you may not be aware that Eric's semi-monthly editors column at Jim Baen's Universe is free and open to read without a subscription. 

 Therefore, I think it might be appropriate to post links to those essays here, since Eric "blogs" on Baen's Bar and in his Universe editorial column rather than on his web site, leaving most of the content here to his crew of minions.  There are two sets of columns "Salvos Against Big Brother" – which is Eric's take on the long-running copyright and drm debate, and "The Editor's Page." 

 I'm including links to both below.

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