This was the preachiest book I've read in a long time, and really took away from a decent story. There was no subtlety whatsoever in any of the impassioned speeches the main characters make about copyright policiesI like Doctorow, and agree with some of his philosophical and political beliefs about technology, capitalism, and the world in general.Perhaps it's because I already know and agree with his stances that this book seems like little more than an excuse to thinly wrap a plot around politi...

This is every bit as much a polemic as anything Ayn Rand ever wrote. The saving grace, though, is that Doctorow's characters are sympathetic people and Doctorow himself has an actual sense of humor. While I don't agree with all of Cory Doctorow's positions, I do lean sympathetic to them. His personal hobbyhorse is the mess that is our current IP system. Here, he sets up a strawman of an entertainment industry with even more sweeping powers than it currently has, and then sets up his plucky prota...

Topical: A discussion about fair use and how it relates to art. How fanfiction, remixes, commentary, satire feeds into the culture that gave it life, and how the Internet speeds up the whole process. Also topical: How far can piracy really be classed as theft, is it worth prosecuting, and does protecting copyright give corporations too much power over a network that does not belong to them, and what about otherwise unavailable/very rare/abandoned media, etc.These are all dense, complex discussio...

I really dig Cory Doctorow. He is fighting the good fight on behalf of us all. He is one of the few individuals in the world who has the clout to appear in mainstream media in order to talk about copyright issues, a task which would otherwise be left completely in the hands of bigcorp mouthpieces. This is why I support his work in every way possible and also why I think this book is a must read if you care about these issues (and if you don't, you must be living under a rock).However, his writin...

I liken Pirate Cinema to Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand: Atlas was my favorite book during my childhood because Rand crafted an interesting story whose characters I enjoyed following, however I did not buy into her philosophy and in fact found that the clunky repetition hampered an otherwise interesting tale.Pirate Cinema is the same: a good story (albeit quite unbelievable - man, I want to be a teen who runs away and somehow ends up in a squat without fear of being evicted, surrounded by other home...

This is just the latest in the chain of Doctorow's FOSS-proselytizing works, with a pinch of teenage angst and a tick-all-the-checkboxes attitude to writing fiction.I only read this book because I had it from the Humble Ebook Bundle and needed something to read on the tube. That said, it's repetitive, goes into preaching mode way too often and overall is highly (and I mean HIGHLY) predictable. No twist, no real character development (or characterization at all for that matter), and sitcom-like c...

Cory Doctorow knocks another one out of the park in Pirate Cinema. Here he mixes existing (and already frightening) laws in England punishing those who download copyrighted music or videos by cutting off the family's Internet access with some that haven't yet come to pass but certainly could. I hope this book becomes a wake up call — we all have to remember to stand up for what's right and not just complacently go along with new laws because the rich and powerful say so. Well done, Doctorow.

Description: Trent McCauley is sixteen, brilliant, and obsessed with one thing: making movies on his computer by reassembling footage from popular films he downloads from the net. In the dystopian near-future Britain where Trent is growing up, this is more illegal than ever; the punishment for being caught three times is that your entire household’s access to the internet is cut off for a year, with no appeal.Trent's too clever for that too happen. Except it does, and it nearly destroys his fami...

Cory Doctorow is good at:- Extrapolating current trends and creating plausible near futures from them.- Writing about technical problems in a clear and mostly accurate way.- Creating page turning stories.He is terrible at:- Being nuanced.- Being credible about non-tech story elements.- Avoiding sounding preachy.Typically, with Cory you fight your way through the terrible stuff and the good stuff makes for, if not great literature, a fun read. This book, is an exception. From page 1 his preachy-n...

I have to admit, I sometimes read books by Cory Doctorow and wonder why he is not in jail all the time. That said, this book details yet another very good reason to consider going to jail – it’s a discussion of copyright and piracy, coming down (obviously) very much on the side of the user, rather than the big companies. I have lots of love for all the characters of this book, who are delightful and charming in their existence of modeling themselves after Oliver Twist (as possibly all British te...

I admire Cory Doctorow, but this isn't a novel. This is a thin veil over the issues and interests near and dear to his heart - freedom to access and use information, creativity not being limited by copyright law, and being aware of limiting legislation.If it is a novel, it is a fantasy novel, not really near-future dystopia. In a dystopia, the characters would experience a real struggle, and life would suck a little bit. In Pirate Cinema, the main character "Cecil" downloads enough illegal stuff...

I don’t really know how to start this review, because this is a very important topic for me. It should be an important topic for anyone who loves books. Although Pirate Cinema concerns not-so-exaggerated attempts to stop people from copying and remixing movies, much of the same rhetoric around copyright has been applied to books. Libraries pay insanely inflated prices for ebooks because publishers are freaked out that electronic files exist and can be shared. (And let’s not even get started on D...

I'm a long term Cory Doctorow fan, having loved Makers, Little Brother, For the Win, and Eastern Standard Tribes.Set in the near-term future, Pirate Cinema is essentially about the struggle against oppressive copyright laws.In Pirate Cinema, like Little Brother, we have another young adult protagonist and his super-smart female love interest and their tribe, who become outraged at government and corporate interests and take action to improve the world.As in other Doctorow novels, we get great, r...

Trent McCauley loves to create movies on his computer using the old footage from old movies which he downloads from the net illegally. He was caught doing this three times and his whole family was punished by cutting off their internet access. In the near-future Britain (or was it present world; I cannot really tell as nearly everything Cory Doctorow wrote about in this book came into reality already) it is impossible to live without internet access. His father lost his job for which he had to u...

Trent McCauley is a teen addicted to illegal downloading and splicing cinema to create ‘remixes’ of his favourite actors’ performances into a single short film send-up. However, the government doesn’t get the humour, and suspend his access to the internet which not only causes Trent grief but also proves disastrous for his family. Author Cory Doctorow instils the classic David verses Goliath battle of the underdog against ‘the man’ as Trent leads the charge from a squat in London against the Gov...

I'm a little on the fence about Pirate Cinema. On one hand, it's an entertaining, solid read with some fun (if not terribly complex) characters and a political stance on copyright I agree with completely. On the other, there are moments where the novel veneer grows a bit thin and you can almost see the characters turning to the reader to deliver their Important Message. The number of lengthy and eloquent speeches about copyright spike near the end, and the big media corporations have no voice or...

http://www.rantingdragon.com/review-o...Cory Doctorow is almost as well known for his blog and internet activism as he is for his speculative fiction. So it’s no surprise that he combines the two in his latest release for youth audiences, Pirate Cinema.Sixteen-year-old Trent McCauley loves creating illegal films by editing together clips from other people’s work. Unfortunately for him, in his near-future Great Britain the penalties for illegal downloading are harsh. When his entire family is cut...

I was very surprised by the ending. Actually, I am not sure that my Kindle is not malfunctioning.Just to be sure, I just double-checked before writing this review (I finished reading yesterday). Yes. Again, there it is:"All rights reserved."So Doctorow writes a whole book about the evil Hollywood fat cats buying draconian copyright laws from Parliament. And then he reserves all his rights. What's next? Auctioning off the movie rights? Might make for a fun opening night, if they really have suita...

Trent McCauley is a talented teenager: his main hobby, more an obsession really, is creating movie clips by downloading, remixing and reassembling footage of his favorite actor. Problem is, those movies tend to be copyrighted, which means Trent’s innocuous pastime involves breaking the law on an ongoing basis. All of this goes well, until it suddenly doesn’t: there’s a knock on the door, and a policeman informs the McCauley family that, because of repeated copyright infringements, their internet...

Sheesh, I meant to write a review of this ages ago and completely forgot....OK, here goes.Pirate Cinema is a coming-of-age story within a not-too-distant-future dystopia in which corporations have succeeded in controlling technology and the media. Trent McCauley is a young teen who is obsessed with creating his own films. He uses illegal content scoured from various pirate sites to patch together his own little films. When the law catches up with him, he and his family are banned from the intern...