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Makers by Cory Doctorow Imagine a new type of Disneyland ride where the ride patrons themselves determine the content: Engineers Perry and Lester create an intelligent, self-regulating system of robot builders who construct and reconstruct an amusement park ride based on user responses. Through the use of a feedback joystick tracking likes and dislikes, plus contributions of physical stuff, riders create a 3-D "story" - a collage of sentimental artefacts through which a narrative emerges describing a common thread of our social history. Disneyland Wikified? Naturally the powers that be are not having any of this: If you remove the notion of an identifiable author or authors (either individual or corporate) how do you assert and profit from a copyright? "Makers" is a grand thought experiment, a David-and-Goliath battle between copyright-holding corporations and a new breed of creators who want to use all materials available to them as the building blocks of their creations. The difference between the current generation of mashup artists using print, audio or video and the heros in "Makers" is that in the novel's imagined future creative possibilities are amplified by the existence of a new type of computer printer which can construct 3-D objects. One of the central themes of this novel - the idea that the creative process is maximized through the participation of numerous (and often random) inputs, is reminiscent of Rudy Rucker's The Hacker and The Ants. In Rucker's book, the protagonist engineers intelligent robots through a process of virtual natural selection. (Computer programmed simulated environments test the capabilities of robot design by running different sets of design parameters through thousands of alternative scenarios). Similarly, the The Cathedral and the Bazaar theory of software development supports "Open Source" as the best means of developing quality software. With so much evidence against the value of single-author design when compared to more collaborative efforts, you can't help but wonder that if the copyright czars of today get their way and finally squash "free use" (and even "fair use") with their heavy-handed draconian use of legal force, what possible futures will never come into existence? Check out Free Soundtrack Music for legal free music downloads to use in video and multimedia productions. publisher's info Makers by Cory Doctorow A Tor Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates LLC 175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010