So there you have it: I'm giving these books away to sell more books, to find out more about the market and to increase my profile so that I can land speaking and columnist gigs. Not because I'm some patchouli-scented, fuzzy-headed, "information wants to be free" info-hippie. I'm at it because I want to fill my bathtub with money and rub my hands and laugh and laugh and laugh. # Developing nations A large chunk of "ebook piracy" (downloading unauthorized ebooks from the net) is undertaken by people in the developing world, where the per-capita GDP can be less than a dollar a day. These people don't represent any kind of commercial market for my books. No one in Burundi is going to pay a month's wages for a copy of this book. A Ukrainian film of this book isn't going to compete with box-office receipts in the Ukraine for a Hollywood version, if one emerges. No one imports commercial editions of my books into most developing nations, and if they did. they'd be priced out of the local market. So I've applied a new, and very cool kind of Creative Commons license to this book: the _Creative Commons Developing Nations License_ (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/devnations/2.0/). What that means is that if you live in a country that's not on the World Bank's list of High-Income Countries (http://rru.worldbank.org/DoingBusiness/ExploreEconomies/EconomyCharacteristics.aspx) , you get to do practically anything you want with this book. While residents of the rich world are limited to making noncommercial copies of this book, residents of the developing world can do much more. Want to make a commercial edition of this book? Be my guest. A film? Sure thing. A translation into the local language? But of course. The sole restriction is that you *may not export your work with my book beyond the developing world*. Your Ukrainian film, Guyanese print edition, or Ghanian translation can be freely exported within the developing world, but can't be sent back to the rich world, where my paying customers are. It's an honor to have the opportunity to help people who are living under circumstances that make mine seem like the lap of luxury. I'm especially hopeful that this will, in some small way, help developing nations bootstrap themselves into a better economic situation. # DRM The worst technology idea since the electrified nipple-clamp is "Digital Rights Management," a suite of voodoo products that are supposed to control what you do with information after you lawfully acquire it. When you buy a DVD abroad and can't watch it at home because it's from the wrong "region," that's DRM. When you buy a CD and it won't rip on your computer, that's DRM. When you buy an iTune and you can't loan it to a friend, that's DRM.