So I went to show my face for the first and last time at the Singapore Writers Festival, to meet Cory Doctorow and to show off my communist tendencies with this shirt:
The talk was FUN! Cory Doctorow can speak and he spoke “non-stop” about Copyright issues. And do get this guys, we are not against copyright but we are against restricting freedom in the name of copyright. One thing that will stay on my mind is the example of absurditiy of copyright he gave about the recent murmurs of extending copyright protection upto 70 years to any author. He said copyright protection encourages living authors to write more but extending such a protection to DEAD authors will NEVER encourage them to write any more! There is NO INCENTIVE to do that!
Oh, about the shirt again, I thought I will be one of the teeming millions who will attend the talk wearing the same shirt. I was wrong! Imagine my surprise to see I was the only one!
Even though blogging fever has caught on, other facets like Creative Commons, BoingBoing and cool stuff discovered through blogging has not! And I think this is no surprise given that Singapore government is taking pains to define blogs as “diaries”!
Cory also had some criticism for the Singapore government which has paddled along with the US in its FTA and enthusiastically made piracy criminal!
Several thoughtful ideas came up, like how piracy is not an issue for big broadcasters, software manufacturers, etc as much as disappointed audience and lack of people in the theatres or in the shops. And how if there was a three day slip in the making of the War of the WOrlds, the theatres would have been empty on July 4th (the day it was released). And making movies or products with such high dependency on timing is simply unsustainable.
My thought (inspired form Cory’s talk), as I told Cory too, is that what RIAA and others are attempting to do is similar to what cryptographers did before WWII - Security Through Obscruity. Preventing Piracy will somehow give them more profits, more success. Preventing people from accessing their software, their movies will simply bring down the entire system (like it did for the Germans in WW2).
We then wandered about and got a 20% discount voucher from Kinokuniya for filling up the “feedback survey” form about Cory’s Talk. Also, this is when Cory walked up and said “I like your shirt” (or as this Deepak spitefully says “you were hovering around Cory like a butterfly”). Heheh, got to take a pic with the Antrix Deepak and Cory. Antrix Deepak also got a self printed and self bound book for Cory to be autographed!
Finally, after tearing ourselves apart from the Cory Spell, we roamed around town and came back for the Bloggers Nite. As I had promised, I did wear my Little Black Dress:
The Blogger Nite was very quiet which was good coz me, Deepak and Ashwin got to talk a lot to Cory. I was very impressed with Cory and he appeared to me like a human Google. Talk veered around Trusted Computing and I finally saw what a catastrophe it would bring along. And I wonder why U.S. Senators dont see that [Dear old Enron could have gotten away with Trusted COmputing].
Oh, Deepak J also got Cory to sign on one of Cory’s fav book by Ian Mcdonald which tickled Cory to no end!
Got to meet a lot of people like Ambar, Andres Brink, Daryl.
After an eventful two hours, Preetam took us out to a pub nearby (Que Pasa) which just floored me with its antique decor. They even had ancient newspapers plastered on the wall!
Two drinks later, I was headed home.
Photos: All photographs related to Cory’s talk an Bloggers Nite are here