Captain Blood's B00ty: what if magic could be torrented?

John sez, "Shimmer Magazine just released The Pirate Issue, which was guest-edited by me, John Joseph Adams. In addition to all the bloodthirsty pirate action you would expect to find in an issue labeled "The Pirate Issue," the issue also features a story that should be of particular interest to Boing Boing readers: "Captain Blood's B00ty," a story in which magic is real but every spell has been copyrighted by an RIAA-like organization. In the story, there is a pirate website that lets you download stuff anyway (like The Pirate Bay, but for magic)." Link to site for story, Link to story download page (Thanks, John!)

[#1 posted by The Spine Knows! , October 30, 2007 6:20 AM]

On a similar note a comic I read goofed on the patent/copyright issue using magic as the metaphor (this was related to a certain mouse fronted company and their desire for perpetual copyright).

[#2 posted by knodi , October 30, 2007 7:42 AM]

hey guys: I find the kind of page layout used for this story to be annoying, so if your preferences run like mine, paste this into your address bar, all on one line:

javascript:document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].innerHTML = document.getElementById('pagetext').innerHTML

[#3 posted by David , October 30, 2007 9:13 AM]

There's already precedent in theatre for the copyright of choreography, and music is copyrightable in written form. Copyright for magic could just be a question of an accepted notation (for all I know there already is a magic notation).

[#4 posted by Brian Carnell , October 30, 2007 11:31 AM]

Maybe I'm the only one, but I'd never heard of Shimmer Magazine. Link here:

http://www.shimmerzine.com/

TOC for the pirate issue is here:

http://www.shimmerzine.com/pirate-2007-contents/

[#5 posted by geoscott , October 30, 2007 11:51 AM]

One of my favorite books is by Robert Heinlein, "Waldo and Magic Inc."

The two stories are linked, in that magic is discovered in the first story, and mass-marketed in the second.

An RIAA-type body (Mafia) tries to create a monopoly on magic, and of course, the can-do motley crew battles and wins in the "Other World".

[#6 posted by Gilbert Wham , October 30, 2007 3:12 PM]

Fuck, that's awful. Sorry, I love the idea, mad props for it, but that is not good writing. I tried twice to read it...

[#7 posted by Anonymous , October 30, 2007 9:31 PM]

Sorry, don't want to log in.
Story was great; I found the tome torrent site it was presented on to really add to the flavor of the story.
Would make a better Novella than short story.
[e-mail]

[#8 posted by help i cant comfirm my username themelonbread , October 31, 2007 1:12 AM]

Parts of it seemed a bit juvenile, but it was still a very engrossing read. Why do you think The DaVinci code was a bestseller?

I liked the world-building done here too. This particular almost-real-life-but-not-quite setting was very well done.