You know, after a long, hard day of final exams, sometimes you just want to pour yourself a very large drink and read a good book. Sadly, these times tend to come at the end of the semester, when student loan funds are running low and one's budget is tight. You can afford a very large drink, or a new book - but not both.
Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig wants to help you. (Actually, he's probably never met you, doesn't know you, and cares not one whit about you - but stay with me here.) He's just released his new book, Code 2.0, on the Intertubes for free as a PDF file. It's all about internet governance structures - both legal and technical. I'm just starting it now, but I've Lessig's Free Culture (also available for free), and found it to be a cracking good read. That one's about the need for copyright reform - but it's really interesting, trust me.
Both books are released under a Creative Commons license, which is an absolutely splendid and remarkably progressive scheme for media licensing that I have neither the time, nor the patience, to explain in detail. The Creative Commons website can do that better, anyway. It's worth a look, if for no other reason than that it's got a large library of other free, creative-commons licensed books.
Anyway - thanks to Lessig and the Creative Commons, I can print out a good book for free, and blow the book-buying money on booze. Is that great or what?
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