As copyright becomes more and more of a hot-button issue on the Web, inevitably more and more authors are releasing books on the topic.

The notable books (and controversial) books on the topic released in the past few years have included Digital Barbarians by Mark Helprin, Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen, The Little Book of Plagiarism by Judge Richard Posner, Remix by Lawrence Lessig and Free by Chris Anderson (which was the subject of a plagiarism controversy of its own) just to name a few.

However, William Aicher is a relatively new addition to this field. Though he has blogged about copyright-related issues on his site for some time, his first book on the topic, a short self-published work, is a relatively unusual entrant into the field.

But what makes Aicher’s book unique isn’t what can be seen on the cover, but rather that it is a book on copyright that manages to avoid being mired in debates on law, philosophy and/or personal anecdotes. Even more impressive, it avoids personal attacks and even comes across as balanced and nuanced.

Though not particularly earth-shattering, it manages to be friendly enough for a casual reader and still have enough to hold the interest of someone more dedicated to copyright issues.

Still, it seems to be a book struggling for an audience and that may be the biggest flaw the book has.

Background

Aicher’s tome is not a lengthy work by any stretch. At only 70 pages not counting forward and introduction, even an average reader can breeze through this on a lazy afternoon.

The book is divided into three parts.

1. Creation: This section discusses the motivations behind creation, monetary and otherwise, as well as the costs of creation and how they are affected by copying.
2. Yours and Mine: Here, Aicher writes about the morals and ethics of piracy and other copyright infringement, saving the strongest sting for those who, according to Aicher, build businesses on the back of infringement.
3. The Future: Finally, Aicher discusses the current legal and market situation and how it may affect creativity in the near future.

The second section of the book is by far the longest, with the third being just one short chapter long, thus making most of the book closely focused on the ethics of piracy, including both the participatory culture created on the Web and the temptation of free works.

Legally, the book focuses by far most of its energy on the DMCA, specifically the notice-and-takedown regime often discussed here on Plagiarism Today. However, Aicher has taken the view that the system has enabled companies to abuse the law to build businesses on the back of infringement while claiming safe harbor.

All in all though, the book avoids delving too deep into the law, you’ll find no citations of famous cases or legal opinions. Instead, the book draws its rather lengthy references section primarily from news articles and other books, including many listed above. There are even a few Wikipedia entries cited, even though that might not be the best source of information for a book to be treated seriously.

But even with the at-times wonky citations, the book does an overall decent job talking about the issues of creation, copyright and ownership and avoids nearly all of the pitfalls other books fell into.

The Good

What makes Aicher’s book stand out is one word: Balance.

In almost every regard, Aicher’s book manages to straddle the line between two pitfalls without veering of course. For example, though Aicher includes anecdotes in his book, including how he used to run a BBS for sharing guitar tabs in a previous life, the book never feels like an autobiography, unlike Helprin’s book. Though there is a great deal of research and citation, it never feels like a stuffy academic paper, like Lessig’s work can at times. Finally, even though he has sharp feelings on the the issues, he refrains from insults and even admits that everyone is trying to think of the artist’s best interest, unlike both Keen and Helprin in their books.

All in all, the book takes an incredibly even keel. No insults, no excess of academia, no nostalgia. Aicher clearly wants his book to be approachable and read by those who disagree with him and works hard to introduce conflicting opinions and rebut them gently. Though his arguments may not be anything earth-shakingly new, the tone and the way they are presented is very refreshing.

On the whole, Aicher’s book is very well-written and easy to read. It manages to float through the topic of copyright smoothly and comfortably. Much like a ship going through an ocean, it doesn’t merely skim the surface nor does it sink into the depths. Instead floats just deep enough to avoid drowning and takes the reader on a three-hour tour of the copyright issues, without winding up on a deserted island.

The Bad

Though the book is, overall, a solid work. There were a few issues I took with it.

For one, though the book’s brevity is not, in and of itself, a strike against it the book’s third chapter is painfully short. At barely ten pages, the discussion about the future would seem to me to be the most important part of the book, the natural climax of the previous sixty. In fact, one could almost call the previous sixty pages a great introduction for a weightier book about the future of copyright and creativity but, just as the discussion gets truly interesting, the book abruptly ends.

Also, there were also a few minor errors in the book. One example is on page 44 where he refers to the Pirate Party as being anti-copyright and seeking to abolish copyright. However, all Pirate Parties, including Sweden’s, to which he was referring, simply favor extreme copyright reform, in this case reducing the term to five years and making non-commercial file sharing legal.

Another error was on page 61 when Aicher said that the law did not require that DMCA takedowns be filed by either the copyright holder or a designated agent and that such a requirement was the creation of Web hosts. That is simply not true. Section 512(c)(3)(vi) states that a notice must including the following:

A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

In short, if you submit a DMCA notice and you are not either the rightsholder or an authorized agent, you are committing perjury. Red flag takedowns are an unrelated issue that have all but been done away with in recent court decisions.

These errors are relatively minor and at least somewhat understandable given the angle Aicher is taking with the subject, but they serve to misstate the current copyright situation ways that are fairly vital.

Still, the technical details of the book play a fairly minor role in the work and the meat of the book is more about the broader issues. There, the book is solid and, even the parts I disagree with, I’m forced to admit that Aicher makes his case both compellingly and entertainingly.

Bottom Line

I want to recommend this book but I am unsure about who to recommend it to. If you’re reading this site, you probably are familiar with the back and forth of the copyright debate and have heard these arguments before, if not pondered them yourself. If you are interested in the copyfight, you either already agree with him or have your counter-arguments lined up already.

This best audience for this book is, in my view, people who have only a passive interest in the copyright debate. It’s a short, quick read that doesn’t lose even the most lay of the laypeople. It is akin to a tourist visit in the copyright wold, a horse-drawn carriage ride through the pro-copyright side of the argument. It sacrifices depth for breadth and quickness and that makes it approachable and at least somewhat useful to those with but a passing interest.

Unfortunately though, this audience isn’t likely to seek out this book or know to look for it. Even if they were given a copy, I doubt many would read it. Your casual file sharer or person that just doesn’t think about copyright isn’t going to sit down and read a book on the subject, even if they can get through in the time it takes to finish a bottle of wine.

Still, if you are interested in copyright you can do a great deal worse than Aicher’s book. Though far from perfect, short and not ground-breaking, it’s a good book to have on your shelf and considering that a paper copy is only $9.95 and a Kindle copy $4.95, it’s cheap to own and takes almost no time. Just don’t expect to be blown away or have your views changed.

It may not change your life, but it certainly won’t make you regret reading it.

When I review books, or any other product, I feel that it is my duty to convey whether the book is worth the time and money to read. Since it is possible, maybe even easier, to enjoy and be provoked by a book that you have diverging opinions with, I would like to try and keep my opinions on copyright out of the work.

However, as was with the case with Andrew Keen’s Cult of the Amateur, the benefit of the book is greatly hindered by clearly erroneous and/or misguided arguments. As such, it is important to address both the book itself and the merits of the argument.

But, as I review Mark Helprin’s book Digital Barbarism, I am not going to turn my review into an assault on his positions. Many others, far more qualified than I, have done so already including the editors at Copysense and even Lawrence Lessig himself via his wiki.

So the goal of this review is not to refute or support Helprin, but to let you know whether or not you want to run to your bookstore and pick up a copy of the book.

Spoiler Alert: You won’t.

First Impressions

In the opening pages of the book, Helprin paints himself as a sympathetic character. We learn that the book is a response to a deluge of criticism that befell him after he penned a New York Times editorial about copyright entitled “A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn’t Its Copyright?“, which became the target for those wanting to argue against perpetual copyright.

But to hear Helprin tell the story, it was, in large part, a misunderstanding. The headline being the editor’s (poor) decision and much of the talk about perpetual copyright being a misunderstanding of his intentions.

As an author, I can understand and appreciate this. I know well what it is like to have the mob, with torches lit, come to your door over a misunderstanding. However, unlike Helprin, I realized that much of the fault was my own. After all, especially when writing in a journalistic setting, it is the writer’s responsibility to write so that they can not be misunderstood. Where I learned from my mistakes and moved on, Helprin wrote a book.

Helprin, however, walked into his column with a unique combination of arrogance and ignorance. When describing the decision to write on copyright, he says he asked himself, “Who thinks about copyrights other than the few who hold them?” and that his goal was to pick a topic so dull as to not attract any attention.

Not only does this show a great misrepresentation of the law, especially since nearly every human produces copyrightable works, but also of the current climate on the Web, where copyright is one of the most controversial topics. It was as if Helprin had slept through the entire Napster era, the 35,000 RIAA lawsuits and The Pirate Bay trial, all issues that brought copyright to the forefront of even most lay of laypeople.

However, for our copyright version of Rip Van Winkle, this book represented an opportunity. It was a chance to correct his mistakes and present either a modified argument or new support for his existing one.

That’s why it is a terrible shame he failed to do either.

The Meat of the Book

Helprin’s lack of understanding of the nature of copyright on the Web is understandable. By his own admission he is a man who spends as little time in front of a screen as possible and has an extreme love affair for more traditional means of communication. He drives the point home early by expressing preference for a fictional 1908 world versus an equally-fictional not-too-distant future one, even though the 1908 world required weeks for letters to be sent and received.

However, his decision to write a book entitled “Digital Barbarism” without a rudimentary study of the digital culture is rather striking. His first, and most critical, blunder was to lump all copyright reformists into one category. The Lessig’s of the world are no different than The Pirate Bay admins. All of them, in Helprin’s mind, are copyright abolitionists and need to be treated as such because any scaling back of rights or reform of copyright law (other than more extensions) is just a step down the road to abolition.

Of course, to read Lessig’s work and watch his lectures is to understand that he is very much a believer in copyright, Lessig does not wish to abolish copyright (without copyright Creative Commons would collapse) nor does he condone piracy, a point he makes repeatedly. His reforms, though still very sweeping, are targeted at re-balancing copyright law, not ending it.

But once Helprin lumps the commons into the abolitionist movement, he doesn’t stop. He plows forward with arguments against the abolition of copyright, many of which are very compelling and very correct, but are poorly targeted. It is like arguing against fascism to someone who just wishes to add a new tax. The “slippery slope” is neither slippery nor absolute. A movement in one direction does not always equal a revolutionary rush to the extreme on that side.

Yet, that’s how Helprin spends the book. Attacking shadows with arguments that don’t fit. Though at times the rocks he throws are well-aimed, the targets are a figment of his own imagination and a product of his own stereotyping.

Wasted Pages

Though the other reviews and even the big copyright symbol on the cover might lead many to believe that this is a book about copyright issues, much of it is not. Helprin makes much of his case against copyright abolition largely through anecdotes. But while personal stories are a natural addition to such books, both Lessig and Keen used them in theirs, Helprin’s anecdote/argument ratio is extremely high.

Helprin has led a very accomplished and exciting life, that much is clear from this book. I hope to have one half as exciting over the next thirty years or so. However “Barbarism” is not intended to be a memoir nor does it read like one.

The problem with “Barbarism” is that his stories, without any central plot or direction, tend to wonder aimlessly, often for pages at a time. When the word “copyright” is finally mentioned again, it feels as if it was the punchline to a very long, very bad joke. His stories are so tangential to the main issue that only one, the tale of him stealing an ear of corn from a farmer’s field, seemed to have any solid connection to the issue.

One example, he tells two stories about him fighting, or trying to fight, bulls. The first a bull in France that was rather tame and played nicely, the other one that had broken loose on his own property and nearly killed him. All of this was to explain that the response to his article was like a bull, specifically the second one. Many pages spent for an analogy that would have been just as effective with two lines.

In the end, much of the book felt like a stereotype portrayed by the character Abe (Grandpa) Simpson from The Simpsons. A teller of long, winding tales that go nowhere until the teller seems to fall asleep only to wake up back on topic.

Petty Insults

When Helprin isn’t telling stories that he tries to connect to copyright, he is insulting his perceived enemy. However, though he is at times a very witty author in this book, that edge seems to dissipate far too often and he uses words so blunt they could bludgeon someone to death.

For example, at one point, Helprin describes his opponents as “mouth breather”, “Slurpee-sucking geeks” “beer-drinking dufuses” and more (Thanks to the New York Times for pointing me to the quote I needed). Even the title of his book refers to his perceived opponents as “barbarians”, which in and of itself is a derogatory term.

For every valid point Helprin makes over the course of the book, his arguments are undermined endlessly by his pettiness and stereotyping. Since the targets of his insults are typically the younger generations, this also furthers the image of Helprin as an old man yelling at the “darn kids” even if the kids are twenty and thirty-somethings.

The result of Helprin’s painting with broad strokes is that even supporters of copyright, such as myself, find ourselves in his crosshairs, alienating the very people that may have been in the best position to rush to his defense.

Flawed Arguments

When you whittle away the personal asides and petty insults, you wind up with precious few pages that actually address the issues of copyright and offer any significant input on the issue.

On that front, I actually support some of Helprin’s founding principles, namely that no man should be entitled to the work of another for free without permission, that copyright has helped make possible the vast and diverse culture we have today, that artists create something well worth protecting and that copyright is, in large part, about protecting the investments of time, money and energy put into a work.

On that front, Helprin does a decent enough job defending the idea of copyright. In the third chapter, he has a fairly interesting discussion of the philosophies of Jefferson and Macaulay that, more than any other part of the book, actually provokes thought and makes a good case for copyright.

However, over the course of the book, he completely fails to answer to his detractors. While he cites thousands of nasty emails received, acknowledges the presence of Lessig’s wiki rebuttal to his Times column, he addresses the actual arguments of neither. He says they are there and moves on, only making fun of their grammar and/or the method with which they were delivered (Helprin really didn’t like that Wiki format Lessig used).

Worse still, he rehashes many of the same arguments form the column, only more fleshed out. For example, throughout the book he makes many (flawed) comparisons between intellectual property and real property. However, it was those arguments, in large part, that created the connection between his name and perpetual copyright, something he is now disavowing (though still favoring extensions).

In short, Helprin seems to have emerged from his ordeal with the Times none the wiser. He is repeating the same arguments like a failed General sticking to the same tactics. With no new arguments and a dismal failure at understanding what it is he is writing about, Helprin steps into the same tar pits again, just merely putting his foot down harder.

Helprin’s arguments fell flat in the 1000-word Times column and now fall equally flat over the course of a 220-page book.

The Devil Inside

However, perhaps Helprin’s greatest enemy is himself. Throughout the entire book he seems to contradict his own views and ideas. Though it may be an attempt to find balance within himself, it comes across as a see-saw back and forth between the extremes.

Where once he claims to hate the “infernal machines”, to prefer a circa-1900 life to a modern one and to spend as little time in front of a computer as possible, he also claims to own five computers, have come up with an idea for an eBook reader he proposed and even simply “loves” machines. (Note: He does say he is in favor of people using machiens but not machines using people. However, he fails to distinguish between our growing dependence on computers to, for example, our current dependence on cars.)

Where he claims to be against perpetual copyright due to the intent of the framers of the Constitution, he also bases many of his arguments on the ownership of physical property, which is perpetual.

Even the book itself is a contradiction, at the same time he cries out against iPhones and BlackBerries his book, most likely due to his publisher’s decision, is available on the Kindle and, thus, the iPhone, which is exactly how I read it.

But no matter the cause of the latter conflict, it is smacking to read an attack on iPhones and other smartphones that is being sold on the iPhone.

Sadly, of the three conflicts, it is the least confusing and the least troublesome.

Bottom Line

Helprin’s book is $25 dollars if you purchase the book in print or $10 if you purchase the Kindle version. However, it is not worth either. Though the Kindle version is the best way to read this book (I tried both), it is because it allows you to break the book up into much smaller sections than Helprin provides (Chapter 2 alone takes up almost half of the book) and makes it easier to go through Helprin’s rambling stories.

Though the book feels hefty when you pick it up at your bookstore, it is very thin on actual commentary and heavy with largely-unrelated stories, insults and stereotypes. There is little in this book that is not in his op-ed pieces and, I would argue, those pieces say it better. At least in those you do not have to sit through pages and pages of Helprin’s disjointed memories to reach a barely-tangential point about copyright.

Though Helprin is right when he says that this book is not a memoir, it is because a memoir would have an ongoing plot and a sense of direction. In truth, an actual memoir could have been a very good book, it is clear that Helprin is a talented author with a lot of great stories to tell, but this is not the format for them.

I would pass on this book and stick to his op-eds. The novel-length copyright polemic is one that few authors can tackle. Helprin is not one of them. Though I think he is a very talented writer and may look up some of his other work, this is not the format for him.

Fortunately, long-time friend of the site Patrick O’Keefe recently released a book targeted at helping forum and community administrators run their sites. The book, entitled “Managing Online Forums“, is a broad guide to running a Web-based community.

It is a book that all forum administrators, especially new ones, should look at picking up. Not only can the advice in this book help you grow your community, but it can also help keep your site on the right side of the law and a good neighbor on the Web.

A Practical Guide

Perhaps, the best way to describe O’Keefe’s book is “down to earth”. The book is not merely content on providing the information forum admins needs to do their jobs, but to provide real-world examples.

Throughout the book there are call outs and sample documents for readers to look at and mirror on their own sites. For example, chapter three, which discusses setting up forum guidelines, not only details the requirements for a good set of forum rules, but provides several examples of good guidelines, including some used on the author’s actual forums.

Likewise, chapter six, which discusses how to handle problem users, is laden with actual stories of forum participants gone wild, almost all of which are pulled from the author’s actual experience as a forum administrator.

But while the examples and hand-holdiong may help gear the book toward novice admins, a group for which there is precious little help, there is enough detailed information to make it useful for veterans. Specifically, the later chapters about adding new features to the forum and making money will likely have strong appeal to forum veterans and those already running sizable communities.

Still, the majority of the book is definitely geared toward inexperienced admins and works to help them learn the lessons in print that most have to learn the hard way.

Why This Book Is Important

As someone who has worked with dozens of community and forum admins, I know well how “over their heads” many admins get. This is especially true when it comes to legal matters, such as copyright infirngement, trademark issues and privacy.

With forum software, such as phpBB, often being as easy to install as one click and free community sites such as Yuku making it easy to set up and run your community with no cost, the decision to set up a community is often an impulse one made without consideration of the practical requirements.

This lack of administrator preparedness is big part of why forums are being used as spam blogs and communities are often some of the most difficult sites to get infringing works removed from.

An administrator that is unprepared to handle the realities of running a community does a disservice not only to their members, but to the rest of the Web. Fortunately, this book not only makes it easy to learn what you need, but provides the tools to execute an effective strategy.

If you are setting up a forum or even just thinking about it, this is information that you can not afford to be without.

Conclusions

If I were going to lob a complaint at this book it would be that its audience focus was too narrow. Though bloggers and other Webmasters may get some out of the book, it is clear that the vast majority of the content is geared at forum admins and, more specifically, novice admins.

Still, this is an important group to target. Not only do they need the most help establishing and growing a healthy forum, but also with dealing with the inevitable headaches that come with it. Those who have been “behind the curtain” of large forums are a fairly small group and, overall, are reluctant to share their information.

On that note, if you do not purchase a copy of the book, you can visit the book’s Web site and download the relevant templates, including user guidelines, staff member guidelines and contact templates (for when a user violates a rule).

The point is though, no matter where you get it from, this is information every forum admin needs to know. The greatest asset this book has is combining the information into one resource.

However, for me, that is reason enough for it to have a place on my shelf.

Keen, who founded a Web startup named AudioCafe during the dot com boom of the nineties, Keen describes himself as “an insider now on the outside who has poured out his cup of Kool-Aid and resigned his membership in the cult.”

That viewpoint rings loudly through the entirety of the book. Throughout the work, Keen attacks the new Web with the same vigor of someone trying to debunk a cult, even using many of the same tactics.

However, the message of the book ultimately falls flat. Though many of the questions Keen raises are valid, the book, in the end, falls victim to the exact same sins it accuses the new Web of, including poor analysis, misleading information and overt bias.

The book becomes no better, though no worse, than the bloggers and wiki editors it criticizes.

A Real Horrorshow

Most of Keen’s 200-page polemic reads as much like an afterschool special as it does an argument. The book bounces, almost rapid fire, from topic to topic laying out the most horrible statistics and telling the worst-case stories. The entire work, it appears, is designed to answer the question “What’s the worst that can happen?” in vivid color.

Furthermore, none of the sacred cows on the Web are safe. Wikipedia, blogging, Myspace and Creative Commons are all major targets, but the book also explores the perils of Internet pornography, online gambling and identity theft.

Though many of the topics at hand are not new or unique to Web 2.0, they are lumped in regardless. You learn how online gaming drove a college class president to rob a bank, how online dating can destroy your life and search engines can violate your privacy.

Indeed, much of the book reads like a diatribe against technology and the Web itself. Keen talks about the theft of laptops with data on them, about an identity theft that may or may not have taken place over the Web, the closing of small record stores and the downfall of newspapers and mainstream media. Yet, at every turn he blames the Internet and the new Web, ignoring other, often glaring factors that contributed to these events.

It seems the only time Keen speaks positively is when he is talking about the halcyon days of the mainstream media, days that were, quite literally, decades ago.

Those Were the Good Ol’ Days

Throughout the book, Keen stresses that without editors, professional journalists and large news organizations, that we can not expect to get deep, effective and analytical reporting. According to Keen, we will have no idea what is true without this expert guidance.

As someone from a journalism background, I agree that there is much to be said for journalism education and, especially, journalism ethics. However, when referencing the power of the mainstream media, Keen does not pull his idols from today’s crop of journalists or even the recent past, but rather, from the Kronkite era of the sixties and seventies.

Though, at the end of his book, Keen says that he is “neither antitechnology nor antiprogress” and that he is “the last person to romanticize a past in which we wrote letters by candlelight and had them delivered by pony express,” Keen does indeed seem to romanticize the past a great deal, at least the past that he feels best illustrates the qualities in journalism he admired.

As he continues to look back, Keen talks at great length about the wonderful music the mainstream media has brought us. Along the way, he heavily references bands like Pink Floyd and the Beatles, and blaming the Internet for making it more difficult for such albums to be created today. However, much like Kronkite, these bands were from the sixties and seventies, an era that died long before the Internet.

Still, to Keen, the Internet is almost solely to blame for this downfall in our culture. He says so flatly when he states, “Thanks to the rampant digital piracy spawned by file-sharing technology, sales of recorded music dropped over 20 percent between 2000 and 2006″.

However, much of this decline music, movies and journalism, especially with newspapers, can be attributed to other factors and, in almost all cases, began well before the Internet, especially broadband Internet, became widespread.

Though Keen may not be one to romanticize the past, he certainly comes across as such in this book. However, his greatest error is not his rosy view of decades long gone, but rather, his mistakes about the present and the future.

Errata

The book, even to a casual reader, is filled with errors. Many of the errors have been addressed by professor Lawrence Lessig, a frequent target in the book, on his Wiki and others are being brought up one at a time elsewhere.

A few of the errors I noted reading through the book:

1. Wildly inflated piracy statistics, many times higher than even what the RIAA predicts.
2. Accusing, at least on the sly, Professor Lessig and Creative Commons of trying to do away with copyright and supporting the communal ownership of intellectual property.
3. Exaggerating privacy concerns saying, for example, that one might be able to hack a site like PostSecret and obtain names and addresses for submitters, though, on Post Secret, the secrets are mailed anonymously on postcards (hence the name).
4. Attacking Google as a “parasite” while acknowledging that Google makes it possible to find the information we are looking for.
5. Accusing sites such as Digg and Reddit of “limiting” our access to “fair and balanced information” without noting that mainstream media does the same thing through its traditional editors.

However, the greatest crime Keen commits is not being inaccurate, but being hypocritical. Throughout the book he accuses the Web, with its absence of editors and professional journalists, of being biased an inaccurate. Yet, his book, published through the mainstream media he cherishes, is both.

This has led professor Lessig to proclaim that “Keen is our generation’s greatest self-parodist,” and that “Keen’s obvious point is to show those with a blind faith in the traditional system that it can be just as bad as the worst of the Internet.”

Indeed, there is an argument to be made for that, but it is at least possible that Keen’s rebuke of the mainstream media was entirely accidental. That he gave in to his own bias and that his publisher, Doubleday, did not catch his errors.

Still, Keen’s book raises some difficult questions, ones that are not easily answered and do not go away simply because the book has problems with it.

Tough Questions

Throughout Keen’s book, there are several questions that are valid and remain as such even after the last page is turned.

Keen asks how are we to trust any information from this new amateur media? How are we to determine truth from lies and/or promotion? And how will this new media do the job of the old media should it take its place fully?

These are tough questions without easy answers. They are valid and deserve to be addressed. However, they would be better served by a balanced, academic review of the subject rather than a one-sided polemic that, in places, plays loose with the truth.

Keen’s book raises the tough questions but, outside of pointing to a handful of sites he feels are working on meshing the new media with the old and the expert with the amateur, he does little to move the debate forward. Instead, nearly all of the book is dedicated to pointing out the worst that can happen, scaring the Web 2.0 crowd with horror stories and attacking the “cult of amateur” with an almost blind rage.

In the end, it feels as if nothing is accomplished.

Conclusions

At $23, the book feels expensive, at 200 breezy pages, it is a quick read and the rapid-fire nature of much of the book makes it even more so. A slow reader myself, I got through the book in under ten hours.

However, what makes the book feel like a bad buy is that it doesn’t have as much meat as one would think. The book is virulent attack, that much is certain, and there are many statistics and anecdotes, but Keen’s analysis, something he says is missing from the new Web, is lacking.

But even with that in mind, the book is almost required reading. Though I found its peek into online plagiarism wholly unsatisfying, barely touching on spam blogs and focusing more on academic plagiarism than content theft, it still raises issues every blogger, journalist, Web 2.0 lover, artist and Internet user need to be aware of.

Though it is an unbalanced attack to say the least, by dealing with the attacks and questions, we can make the new Web better and by acknowledging the points he does have, such as the shifting attitudes regarding plagiarism, we can refine our efforts and improve ourselves.

Despite its flaws, Keen’s book should give users of the new Web a reason to pause and think. Sadly, this kind of critical analysis is something that has not been done very much in Web 2.0.

We all need to take a moment from time to time to pause and ask ourselves the tough questions. This kind of self-evaluation is critical, especially whenever we are working toward what we see as a revolution. Keen does that for us, albeit with a very angry tone.

My hope is that, following this book, more serious and more balanced debate about these questions will come about. Fortunately, that seems to already be happening.

It will be interesting to see where the debate this book creates takes us and how it will improve the Web.