My Ideas Want To Be Free (As In Beer)

A couple months ago, I discovered that a book I'd co-edited, and on which I was eligible to receive royalties, was downloadable for free on the internet. I was happy about this! What advances my career isn't people paying money for my book -- it's people reading it and being aware of my contributions to philosophical debates. It's why I was eager to submit the paper I mentioned in the previous post to an open-access online philosophy journal.

So I'm happy to see that Senator Jeff Merkley (to whom I just made another big Leadership PAC contribution) has come out against SOPA and PIPA. I once commented to one of his staffers that they should make sure there aren't any health risks associated with being on the right side of too many issues, because if there are, he might hurt himself.