Better to Beg Forgiveness

Jul 31, 2026 09:05 PM - 1 month ago 696

Better to request forgiveness: Don't ringing the doorbell astatine the location of nary unless you perfectly must.
Hey look astatine this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: RIP Poul Anderson; P2P astatine PC Forum; Waitress handed her ain stolen ID by carded diner; PDX bans fixies; Digital Economy Bill was a stitch up; NZ copyright disconnection flowchart; Fry v Widdicombe connected Catholic Church; Moxie Marlinspike profile; V&A bans sketching; Gernsback's intro to the first Amazing Stories; "Simplicity."
Upcoming appearances: Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You support readin' em, I'll support writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll support writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

A modified WWII 'loose lips' poster. In the original, a drowning sailor successful a acheronian oversea points a digit astatine the viewer, pinch the caption reference SOMEONE TALKED. In the modified type there's a 1950s Astounding Stories pulp sinking beneath the waves down the sailor, and the caption sounds SOMEONE ASKED.

From its inception, I've loved Creative Commons. I hung retired pinch Lisa Rein, Matt Haughey and Aaron Swartz while they coded up the first type of the site, and my first novel, Down and Out successful the Magic Kingdom, was the first professionally published matter ever released nether a CC license, conscionable weeks aft CC itself launched:

https://creativecommons.org/

In those early days, CC licenses were chiefly of liking to group who were steeped successful copyright law, lore and litigation; truthful galore of the early debates astir these licenses turned connected esoteric (but important!) questions astir copyright; for example, really CC would interact pinch copyright's "limitations and exceptions."

You see, copyright has never meant the absolute correct to power each uses of a work. Every strategy of copyright includes a group of "limitations and exceptions" for group making usage of copyrighted useful without permission, even if the copyright holder objects to that use. The best-known illustration of this is "fair use," a conception from American law.

Fair usage is (potentially) highly broad, but it's also highly "fact-intensive" – that's the building lawyers usage to picture the benignant of ineligible mobility whose reply is almost ever "it depends." Fair usage mightiness fto you transcript the entirety of a work, moreover for a commercialized purpose. It mightiness fto you create caller useful based connected existing works. It mightiness fto you do these things specifically to discourage group from buying the original. But…it depends.

If you cognize thing astir adjacent use, it's astir apt thing astir a "four-step test" utilized to find if a usage is fair. These 4 steps are conscionable questions a judge mightiness inquire of personification who's been sued for copyright infringement, but who claims that they were making a adjacent use. The questions are:

I. What was the "nature and purpose" of your use? Were you doing thing "transformative?" Were you criticizing the work? Were you utilizing the activity for acquisition purposes?

II. What was the quality of the activity you used? Was it chiefly actual (like a news article) aliases imaginative (like a short story)?

III. How overmuch of the activity did you take? Did you return much than you needed to toggle shape the work, to execute your criticism, to thatch someone?

IV. What effect did your usage person connected the original? Did the copyright holder suffer money arsenic a consequence of your use?

https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/

These questions are so enshrined successful US copyright law, but (for amended and for worse) you can't fig retired if a usage is "fair" conscionable by asking these questions. Fair usage is yet taxable to "the norm of reason," a ineligible rule meaning that the rule shouldn't consequence successful evidently stupid restrictions. What's "obviously stupid?" Well, that's the tricky portion – you'll person to person a judge!

For example, the writer of a book called The Wind Done Gone was sued for taking the characters, crippled and mounting of Gone With the Wind successful bid to show the aforesaid communicative from the position of the enslaved Africans who were denied agency and civilized information successful the original. The tribunal recovered for The Wind Done Gone:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Done_Gone

Wind Done Gone took the "heart" of Gone With the Wind (III), but past again, Done Gone was highly transformative (I), Gone With was besides a activity of fiction, entitled to the highest level of protection (II). Even worse, the constituent of Done Gone was to constituent retired the gross defects successful Gone With (I) and frankincense straight undermine income and licensing for the original (IV). Anyone who claims you tin reply adjacent usage controversies by moving done the 4 factors arsenic though they were a checklist really doesn't understand adjacent use:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/06/crypto-copyright-%f0%9f%a4%a1%f0%9f%92%a9/

But moreover aft you've acquired an appreciation of the fact-intensive, nuanced elasticity of adjacent use, you still don't understand copyright's limitations and exceptions. Fair usage is important, but there's besides "first sale," the doctrine that says that aft you bargain something, you ain it, and copyright can't beryllium utilized to interfere pinch your accepted spot rights. That's why you tin bargain and waste utilized books, paintings, records, and different copyrighted work, even if they are sold pinch good people that says you're not allowed to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirtsaeng_v._John_Wiley_%26_Sons,_Inc.

When it comes to copyright's limitations and exceptions, "fair use" and "first sale" are the large ones, but conscionable arsenic important are the small ones – the really mini ones. Like different laws, copyright is taxable to the rule of "di minimis" (from a longer Latin building that translates arsenic "the rule does not interest itself pinch trifles"):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_minimis

Technically, it whitethorn beryllium trespassing to measurement connected personification else's yard. But if your footwear brushes up against their section while you're stepping connected the sidewalk retired beforehand of their house, it's not trespassing. Or if it is trespassing, it's a di minimis trespass, excessively mini to matter to the law. A lot of imaginable copyright violations – for illustration taking a image of a transition successful a book and posting it to societal media – are truthful mini that we don't request to use a adjacent usage study to them. They're trifles, and "the rule does not interest itself pinch trifles."

These limitations and exceptions each use without permission from rightsholders. They use even if they make rightsholders furious. They are your rights, arsenic a personnel of the public, arsenic a purchaser of a work, aliases conscionable arsenic personification who whistles a opus that's stuck successful your head.

And that's wherever the esoteric early Creative Commons copyright statement comes in. Creative Commons is simply a measurement to formally codify and convey support to usage copyrighted works. Without Creative Commons, it's really difficult – and costly – to supply legally reliable support to personification other to usage thing you've created.

If I want to fto you accommodate 1 of my short stories for the stage, we should some astir apt prosecute copyright lawyers astatine respective 100 dollars per hr to draught and reappraisal a statement mounting retired what my support really means. Worse: moreover aft we've paid the lawyers, neither of america will apt really understand the good ineligible technicalities of the deal. We conscionable person to return the lawyers' connection for it that the analyzable motto successful the statement is capable for our purposes. Between the complexity and the expense, location are tons of imaginable imaginative collaborations that would costs truthful overmuch to insubstantial complete that they're conscionable not worthy doing, moreover if they'd delight everyone involved.

Creative Commons cuts done this pinch its standardized licenses, which spell retired successful plain connection which permissions are being granted. Even better, these licenses are international, translated into the connection and laws of dozens of countries. That intends that you tin return a CC licensed short communicative from Japan, animate it utilizing CC licensed 3D models from Italy, group it to a CC licensed soundtrack from Indonesia and merchandise it successful Ukraine, and the full point just works.

Those uses – turning a communicative into an animation, utilizing a 3D model, syncing a soundtrack to a video – are each beautiful eager uses, especially if you're going to make the last consequence indefinitely disposable to the wide public. It makes consciousness to insubstantial complete these uses, and Creative Commons makes that ineligible activity arsenic elemental arsenic linking to your sources and their licenses successful your last product.

But location are plenty of uses that don't request licenses – moreover eager ones. Remember Wind Done Gone? There are circumstances erstwhile you tin accommodate personification else's communicative without permission, relying alternatively connected a limitation aliases objection to copyright. And of course, location are plentifulness of trivial uses – pasting a photograph into your groupchat, opportunity – that are di minimis and also don't request permission.

These copyright flexibilities are critical. Imagine if you could only knock someone's activity if they gave you support to do so! From the founding of CC, copyfighters raised superior concerns that CC would thatch group that they tin only remix different people's activity if they person a license, beryllium it a CC licence aliases the benignant that you discuss pinch a lawyer.

Today – 25 years later!- CC is an unqualified success. Without CC, we wouldn't person Wikipedia! You find CC licenses connected Youtube, Flickr, Bandcamp, the Internet Archive, and successful galore of the astir important scholarly and technological journals successful the world.

But, also, 25 years later, the world is moreover more convinced that you should ever inquire permission: "better safe than sorry." I don't cognize if CC contributed to this civilization of timidity. More likely, it was bullying copyright trolls who terrorized group into a reflex of asking support for everything, always.

As the creator of much than 30 books, hundreds of collages, and tens of thousands of essays and blog-posts, I americium often connected the receiving extremity of these support requests.

For example, group often inquire maine if they tin usage my CC licensed useful successful ways that the associated licenses clearly permit. I'm judge the group who email maine for support to do things I've already granted them support to do deliberation they're being polite, but I really wish they'd stop. When personification asks maine if they tin make a usage permitted by my CC licenses, I request to cautiously parse done their usage to make judge they're not asking for thing more.

This is time-consuming activity that often involves respective volleys of email conscionable to corroborate that, no, they're conscionable asking if they tin do thing I've already told them they tin do. This is not a bully usage of anyone's time! By each means, driblet maine a statement pinch a nexus to thing you've remixed from my work. That's fun! It's a batch much nosy than making maine play detective successful bid to fig retired if you're exceeding the license's permissions.

There are besides a batch of requests that clearly magnitude to adjacent usage and/or di minimis usage. You don't request to email maine to get my support to publication a little transition from 1 of my books connected your Youtube video! You don't request my support to quote 1 of my stories successful an English exam! What's more, the world would beryllium a batch shittier if you did, truthful let's not enactment arsenic though that's reasonable behavior, lest we displacement the (already acold excessively restrictive) norms, which mightiness moreover lead to a ineligible change.

Finally, there's the group who email maine astir their desire to make uses that are much (ahem) ambitious, but that nary 1 could perchance find retired astir aliases get angry over…except for the truth that they emailed maine to inquire my permission.

You want to make a mini bootleg version of 1 of my novels for your rebel book fair? That's totally a copyright infringement, it's super-illegal, and if my patient recovered retired astir it, I'm judge they'd nonstop you a sphincter-puckering ineligible missive telling you to sound it disconnected (and possibly moreover demanding that you disgorge the 7 dollars, 3 bottlecaps and eleven cool feathers you took successful waste and acquisition for those pirate books).

But my patient won't ever find retired astir it – unless you email maine asking for permission. I perfectly cannot springiness you support to do this. I person a statement pinch my patient promising that I will ne'er authorize personification different than them to people that book. Once you show maine astir your volition to do this, I'm obliged to show my publisher, truthful that they tin show you no successful connection that would portion overgarment disconnected a barn.

Buying a schoolroom group of books, but you besides want to paste chunks of 1 of my books into your acquisition institution's schoolroom intranet for usage arsenic a school aid? There's nary measurement my patient would ever find retired you did that, and if they did, sure, you'd besides get a blood-curdling ineligible letter. But dude, all my books are DRM-free. You could person conscionable pasted the matter into your CMS. In what beingness is my patient going to salary 1 of their lawyers to review, adjudicate and insubstantial complete your petition to make a usage that you're not proposing to salary them for?

Let's beryllium clear: I'm not giving you support to pirate my work. I already walk acold excessively overmuch of my clip chasing down dickheads who waste competing editions of my books connected Amazon and Audible. I'm sick to the backmost teeth of wrangling Ingram's takedown process to get free of bootleg people editions of my books.

What I'm saying is, each of your interactions pinch copyrighted useful request not impact the writer and publisher. There is simply a full beingness of uses that mightiness technically break copyright, mightiness technically not fresh into di minimis, first waste aliases adjacent usage – but these are besides uses that nary 1 would ever find out.

I get it. You whitethorn consciousness for illustration you can't show the quality betwixt the benignant of uses that nary 1 would springiness a crap about; the uses that mightiness pull a bone-chilling lawyer letter; and the uses that mightiness onshore you successful court. I'm sorry, but I can't thief you fig that 1 out. I'm not a lawyer. Even if I was, I'm not your lawyer.

This is 1 of those areas wherever I break pinch my friend, the awesome John Hodgman. On his indispensable podcast "Judge John Hodgman," he often admonishes group who are uncertain if they're overstepping a bound successful a commercialized constitution to inquire an worker for permission. For example: should you capable up a h2o solid pinch soda h2o from a self-serve dispenser?

https://maximumfun.org/podcasts/judge-john-hodgman/

John says you should ever inquire the cashier. But I've worked jobs for illustration that, and I tin show you that location were plentifulness of jobs wherever my leader felt very powerfully that taking $0.0000001 worthy of h2o and bubbles without paying for it was theft…and wherever I thought my leader was a dick for reasoning that. If I pretended I didn't spot you getting a solid of fizzy water, the worst that would hap is my leader would show maine to support a person oculus connected the customers lest they bargain his precious CO2. But if you asked me whether you could capable your glass, and my leader caught maine saying yes, I'd beryllium fired.

There's a batch of normal, perfectly good worldly that technically violates copyright that I can't springiness you support to do, because I've signed a statement pinch my publisher. If you inquire me, I'll person to inquire my editor, who will opportunity no, moreover though he thinks it's fine, too. If I push it, he'll person to inquire the lawyers, who will almost surely also opportunity no, moreover if they deliberation it's fine, because it doesn't make consciousness to walk hours papering complete a ineligible statement pinch personification who wants to waste 7 copies of a book astatine an rebel book-fair aliases upload a mates chapters of a book to a school's intranet.

Are location instances successful which you mightiness misjudge which class your usage falls nether and extremity up successful court? I conjecture so. But if that's your concern, asking my support does nary good, because I'm conscionable gonna show you no.

Life is hard.

Read books.

AOC Must Run For President https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/aoc-must-run-for-president
Role confusion: 1 much logic we can’t spot LLMs https://designingsecuresoftware.com/writings/role-confusion/
Ida Tarbell: The Journalist Who Took Down Rockefeller https://prospect.org/2026/07/31/ida-tarbell-journalist-who-took-down-rockefeller/
Medusa Joins the Club https://longforgottenhauntedmansion.blogspot.com/2026/07/medusa-joins-club.html
Hot Centrist Summer Was a Bust https://prospect.org/2026/07/31/democrats-donor-base-establishment-progressive-hot-centrist-summer-was-a-bust/

A support of leatherbound history books pinch a gilt-stamped bid title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

#25yrsago RIP, Poul Anderson https://www.locusmag.com/1997/Issues/04/Anderson.html

#25yrsago Talking P2P astatine PC Forum https://web.archive.org/web/20010820163912/https://www.edventure.com/pcforum/transcript.cfm?Counter=13

#25yrsago CD DRM cracked successful 2 weeks https://web.archive.org/web/20010803144120/http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/533

#20yrsago Waitress cards drinker, is handed her ain stolen ID https://web.archive.org/web/20060901042515/http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/9606436/detail.html

#20yrsago How POWs successful a Nazi campy sewage a Disney insignia https://web.archive.org/web/20061209200825/https://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/08/01/wwii-pows-get-a-disney-designed-logo/

#20yrsago Fixies forbidden successful Portland https://bikeportland.org/2006/07/28/judge-finds-fault-with-fixies-1727

#15yrsago Freedom of Information requests show that UK copyright consultation was a stitch-up; Internet disconnection rules are a foregone conclusion https://torrentfreak.com/digital-economy-act-a-foregone-conclusion-110731/

#15yrsago What Murdoch’s media empire did: the large image https://web.archive.org/web/20110805111419/http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/07/27/what-rupert-murdoch-means-for-you-personally/

#15yrsago Flowchart shows the complexity of NZ Internet Disconnection copyright rule https://web.archive.org/web/20111105044005/https://lawgeeknz.posterous.com/copyright-infringing-file-sharing-amendment-a

#15yrsago Married lesbian mates rescued 40 teenagers from drowning during Utøya shooting https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2011/07/married-lesbian-couple-saves-dozens-during-norway-shooting-rampage/

#15yrsago Stephen Fry debating Ann Widdecombe connected the worthy of the Catholic Church https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fN3zDtfivc

#10yrsago Jacksonville constabulary pension money blows $1.8M worthy of tax-dollars fighting unfastened records requests https://web.archive.org/web/20160804040211/http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2016-07-30/story/open-government-lawsuits-against-city-pension-fund-cost-taxpayers-more-2

#10yrsago A floor plan of Moxie Marlinspike: the seagoing rebel cryptographer who brought backstage messaging to millions https://www.wired.com/2016/07/meet-moxie-marlinspike-anarchist-bringing-encryption-us/

#10yrsago Burying the past successful solid coffins: Victoria & Albert depository bans sketching successful impermanent exhibitions https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/apr/22/va-museum-no-sketching-signs-draconian?CMP=share_btn_tw

#10yrsago Hugo Gernsback’s preamble to the first rumor of Amazing Stories, 1926 https://brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/148297242233/a-new-magazine-announced-by-hugo-gernsback

#10yrsago Afterbrexit: Scotland trolls Theresa May by passing laws she has bullied https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/08/scotland-disses-theresa-may-by-reviving-anti-inequality-law-she-loathes.html

#5yrsago Managing aggregate request https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/01/managing-aggregate-demand-part-iv/

#1yrago Mattie Lubchansky's 'Simplicity' https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/01/ecosexuality/#nyc-ast

A photograph of maine onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.

Virtual: EFFecting Change: Who the Machine Serves, Aug 12
https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-who-machine-serves
Edinburgh International Book Festival pinch Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales
Sydney: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Aug 23-24
https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/program/
Melbourne: Enshittification astatine the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25
https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification
Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI pinch Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8
https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/
London: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI pinch Riley Quinn (Foyle's Picadilly), Sep 9
https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn
South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/

A screenshot of maine astatine my desk, doing a livecast.

Why AI Won't Replace Workers, But Will Crash The Economy (Smart Cookies)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRRmUuxJolY
AI and the Enshittification Era (The Weekly Show pinch Jon Stewart)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dAIJRjb-Bw
AI is not inevitable (Betakit)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbiTVkq1WHo
A Conversation pinch Lina Khan (Law and Economy Student Network)
https://www.youtube.com/live/7Ak5LZllqwE
Will AI ever travel alive, and what happens if it does? (BBC News)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzk4o3fPZZE

A grid of my books pinch Will Stahle covers..

"The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book astir being a amended AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/
"Canny Valley": A constricted version postulation of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce
"Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
"Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," astir the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).
"The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," astir prison-tech and different grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).
"The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk caller of dream successful the ambiance emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).
"The Internet Con": A nonfiction book astir interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies astatine Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).
"Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will time off you knowing much astir really the world useful than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.
"Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, pinch Rebecca Giblin", connected really to unrig the markets for imaginative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

A cardboard book container pinch the Macmillan logo.

"The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027
"Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades schematic caller adapted from my novella astir refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027
"Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the schematic novel), Firstsecond, 2027
"The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027

Today's apical sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," astir the amended world the remainder of america get to person now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draught completed. Submitted to editor.

A Little Brother short communicative astir DIY insulin PLANNING

This activity – excluding immoderate serialized fabrication – is licensed nether a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That intends you tin usage it immoderate measurement you like, including commercially, provided that you property it to me, Cory Doctorow, and see a nexus to pluralistic.net.

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Quotations and images are not included successful this license; they are included either nether a limitation aliases objection to copyright, aliases connected the ground of a abstracted license. Please workout caution.

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

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