Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age

I loved the thorough exploration of modern pitfalls for content creators and bite sized mini-thought experiments; Doctorow's unimpeachable ideas and intellect provide great insight, some solutions, and plenty of discussion.

as an audiobook, it's a failure. between wil wheaton's self-aware, melodramatic and distracting narration or the interstitial music cues, this audiobook does not measure up to its lofty intellectual contents. I've never so wanted to hear an author's ideas and simultaneously been so repulsed by an audiobook's recording.

EVERY. SINGLE. CHAPTER. ends with a clunky little piano ditty which sounds like a variation of "Chopsticks" banged out by an hyperactive five-year-old on an out of tune upright. these little musical stingers have the consistent ability to dilute any potency of the actual ideas. this recording makes the audiobook sound like a nerdy collection of Andrew 'Dice' Clay zingers complete with musical punctuation for the Lawrence Lessig set. the interstitials are like the opposite of 'NPR Music' - awful ostentation which completely removes you from the experience.

I found myself flinching at the end of every sentence or pause for fear of being yet again accosted with that saccharine and caustic piano staccato. I'm a gourmand of hundreds of audiobook's and podcasts and until now, I'd never run into such a strange and misguided editorial choice.

Doctorow presents us with fun historical anecdotes and a fresh take on copyright issues in the digital age. However, the audiobook experience is marred by jarring, discordant piano and snare drum riffs which not only sound pretentious, but highly annoying.