Amazon.com
Young Jeremy Jacob is plucked from obscurity while innocently constructing a sand castle and is thrust into a brand-new life as a pirate. Captain Braid Beard and his crew recognize Jeremy as an exceptionally talented digger and they happen to be in desperate need of a digger to help them bury a treasure chest. Jeremy thinks a pirate life sounds like fun, as long as he's back the next day in time for soccer practice, and so he goes along with the ragtag group of seafaring thugs (with hearts of gold, naturally). And while Jeremy adores the pirates' lack of table manners and opposition to vegetables, he comes to realize that a life away from his parents lacks some of the niceties to which he's become accustomed. Nobody tucks him in at night, for instance, and the only book available to read is a treasure map. Melinda Long's story, narrated with a sense of boastful exaggeration by Jeremy, is full of a sense of high adventure that's lovingly evocative of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tales. David Shannon's illustrations, full of a goofy vibrancy, are a perfect accompaniment to the story. (Ages 4 to 8) --John Moe
Book Description
When Braid Beard's pirate crew invites Jeremy Jacob to join their voyage, he jumps right on board. Buried treasure, sea chanteys, pirate talk--who wouldn't go along? Soon Jeremy Jacob knows all about being a pirate. He throws his food across the table and his manners to the wind. He hollers like thunder and laughs off bedtime. It's the heave-ho, blow-the-man-down, very best time of his life. Until he finds out what pirates don't do--no reading bedtime stories, no tucking kids in. . . . Maybe being a pirate isn't so great after all.
Caldecott Honor-winning illustrator David Shannon teams up with witty storyteller Melinda Long for a hilarious look at the finer points of pirate life.
Customer Reviews:
Great illustrations and totally entertaining story.......2007-09-27
I bought this for my 3 1/2 year old grandson and he loved it. Whenever Grammy comes to visit I try to have scoured Amazon.com for what look like the best children's books and as he had loved David Shannon's books I bought this one as I knew the illustrations would be colorful. It is a fun story but the best part, it lends itself so well to playing imaginatively. Immediately after reading it, we went outside and I played cartographer helping my grandson draw our own treasure map with instructions how to get to the tree in his backyard where we buried a seashell. He was so excited to show his Mommy and his baby brother how well the map worked and where our treasure was buried. Great little story and we read it several times over the next few days...always noticing something else in the pictures we hadn't seen before and then making up our own stories about what we saw. So I bought "Pirates Don't Change Diapers" also and pirate tattoos to continue the saga. Lots of scope for the imagination here!
Great Pirate Book.......2007-09-19
My boys have two books from this collection and LOVE them both! Great photos and funny story.
great fun.......2007-07-16
Jeremy, probably feeling a little neglected on the beach, goes off with a band of pirates. He feels his parents won't mind as as long as he is back in time for soccer practice the next day. Initially, he finds this adventure to be exciting, liberating and great fun. Soon he realizes a pirate's life is not exactly ideal. There's no tucking in, no books, and no goodnight kisses! Of course, a storm must swoop down on the ship and the treasure is in peril. Jeremy has the ideal solution, which you'll love. This is a truly fun book for children ages 4-9. My students really enjoy this as a read aloud and then being able to revisit it on their own.
Away My Hearties to a great read.......2007-07-07
This is a great adventure book for younger kids. Our family has really enjoyed all the Pirate books and look forward to more.
great book.......2007-06-13
My son (4 yr) likes this book. It is illustrated well and entertaining.
Book Description
At the dawn of a new century, a newly elected U.S. president was forced to confront an escalating series of unprovoked attacks on Americans by Muslim terrorists sworn to carry out jihad against all Western powers. As timely and familiar as these events may seem, they occurred more than two centuries ago. The president was Thomas Jefferson, and the terrorists were the Barbary pirates. Victory in Tripoli recounts the untold story of one of the defining challenges overcome by the young U.S. republic. This fast-moving and dramatic tale examines the events that gave birth to the Navy and the Marines and re-creates the startling political, diplomatic, and military battles that were central to the conflict. This highly interesting and informative history offers deep insight into issues that remain fundamental to U.S. foreign policy decisions to this day.
Customer Reviews:
A good history of how little has changed in 200 years.......2007-08-25
Josh London has written a pretty good book about the challenges that the newly formed United States of America faced when it decided to move out from the wing of its mother country and strike out on its own. One of those challenges being the band of criminals who essentially controlled access to the Mediterranean Sea along the Barbary Coast.
While he is not a writer who knows how to turn a very interesting piece of history into a page-turner as Wright does with his book The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage) it is fine when compared to many other rather dull writers of history. At least he seems to get his facts straight and does not have some political agenda get in the way of an interesting story.
The most interesting part of the book is actually not something in it, but the fact that little has changed in two hundred years. Pirates still threaten the seas all over the world, politicians debate and deflect about serious issues concerning national security and national interests, and the consequences of being on the wrong side of history are soon forgotten as a new generation of voters and politicians who are ignorant of history get a chance to relive it again at great expense.
Neo-Con Rubbish.......2007-07-29
I actually enjoyed the history portion of the book. Unfortunately, London's conclusion -- Arabs are greedy, untrustworthy and only understand force so America was right to invade Iraq and we must stay the course -- is horse poop.
According to London -- who's written articles on his book's relevance to Iraq at the National Review and the Heritage Foundation -- Jefferson (the father of the Democratic Party) was a vacillating appeaser and was wrong to end the war with Tripoli without toppling the Pasha and grinding the city beneath the heels of American military might.
This ignores, of course, the fact that America had no subsequent serious problems with Tripoli.
London conflates James Madison's war against Algeria -- a decade later -- with the war against Tripoli and credits the "strong and resolute" Madison (a conservative, of course) with leading the charge against the North African Muslim evil-doers which culminated in France and Italy's colonial occupation and subjugation of the region. Mission accomplished. Hah!
It's easy to convince yourself that the simple-minded direct action and occupation of annoying nations that London advocates in this book is the best course of action in any situation -- diplomacy and negotiation really is hard and complex -- until you remember that France was brutally forced out of Algiers and our own occupation in Iraq has left America worse off in the region than before.
This book is nothing but a shameless plug for the neo-conservative notion that America must use its military might to reshape the world in our own image. We now see how far that got us.
Great read.......2007-07-03
Compared to other books on the subject of the Tripolitan War published around the same time Victory in Tripoli is a superior read. The author strikes a great balance between providing penetrating detail and keeping the story moving along. In other words, it's engaging, insightful, and detailed but, not boring.
Fascinating story marred by amateurish writing.......2007-06-12
While the history of a young America's naval adventures in the Mediterranean is clearly a fascinating one (and largely unknown, at least to me) it is done a terrible disservice by author Joshua E. London.
As much respect as I have for what appears to be his painstaking research in pulling together the events and happenings of those days, and placing them in the proper historical context, the telling of the tale suffers from his pedestrian, high-school text book writing style of the sort in which "this happened, then this happened, then this happened."
You need look no further for an example of the decline of the once-valued craft of book editing.
Poorly written and, overall, very disappointing.......2007-05-29
I'd been waiting to read this book for a long time, ever since I'd read London's brief piece "America's Earliest Terrorists: Lessons from America's first war against Islamic terror" -- obviously drawn from this book -- at National Review Online. (Google on "Joshua London" and "National Review Online" and you'll find it.) While I highly recommend that brief National Review Online article, anyone with the same motive as mine is probably going to be disappointed with the book.
Instead of fleshing out the points about the heritage of Islamic terror (how it's part of mainstream Islam and far antedates American involvement in the mideast and the existence of Israel), the book says hardly more on this subject than the brief article I cite.
Plus, reading the book was like having a stick poked in my eye, because the writing is so bad. (I'm not sure what book these other commenters reviewed!) Best to give some examples (and please remember, I **wanted** to like the book):
* On pages 16 and 17, Bernard Lewis is introduced **twice** (as "the historian Bernard Lewis")
* On page 41, the USS Chesapeake is introduced in one sentence as a "forty-four-gun frigate" and in the next sentence as a "thirty-six-gun frigate."
* Prominent character James Leander Cathcart is introduced on page 54, quasi-introduced again on page 56, and effectively introduced **again** (including his middle name) on page 109.
* On page 108, whle detailing the lineage of one of Jefferson's naval appointments, Captain Richard Valentine Morris, author London mentions one of Morris's uncles, "Governor Morris." He means, of course, **Gouverneur** Morris.
* Another howler is this passage from page 117: " ... but stormy whether forced them to the Bay of Tunis. They arrived on February 22, 1803. Their arrival had little affect on the Tunisians ..." [precise transcription]
There's lots more where those came from. But maybe those seem too picayune for you to agree that the quality of thought that went into writing the book leaves something to be desired? There's bigger stuff, too.
For example, after awhile, I was dying to see a map that would give the relative placement of Tangiers, Algiers, Tripoli, Tunis, Malta, and Syracuse, among other ports of call. Then I discovered there **is** a map among the clutch of illustrations near the center of the book, but labels on it smaller than "Mediterranean" are too blurry to read.
The welter of individuals' names really calls for a "dramatis personae" at the start of the book, so one has a hope of keeping track of the characters. Go fish!
And the description of all the comings and goings of various ships and people doesn't add up to anything useful. It's similar to reading an airline's schedules for entertainment.
In short, the book reads like a first draft, or perhaps even a zeroth draft. The author acknowledges two editors at Wiley, but it's hard to believe either had more than a nodding acquaintance with the book. At least a couple hundred hours of [additional?] editing would be needed to whip this mess into shape.
So I give it two stars because it **does** contain interesting material that could be the basis for a vastly better book (and one star would suggest I have an axe to grind on the subject of the book) . Very disappointing.
Customer Reviews:
How to be a Pirate.......2007-03-06
How to be a Pirate
How to be a Pirate is one book you have to read sometime in your life! This book from Cressida Cowell is about pirates dragons and thieves! I recommend this book to people the like adventure and dangerous books. A boy named Hiccup his dad is the chief of the Harry Hooligans Hiccup must become the heir. He must go to the island of the scullions and get the treasure of Grimbeard the Ghastly. But there are a few problems they come acrossed a guy named Alvin the Treacherous. He wants in on the treasure so he says he is "Alvin the poor but honest farmer". They sail to the island of the skullions on the Lucky 13. Alvin stays in the boat Snout Lout finds the fake treasure but Grimbeard booby-trapped it. They almost get killed. Will Hiccup find the treasure first and become the heir? Find out in the book How to be a Pirate.
Viking Adventure.......2007-01-19
How to be a Pirate
By Cressida Cowel
Have you ever been with Vikings? Now you can. This book is very funny and imaginative, recommended for all ages.
The book's point of view is from Hiccup, the main character. The action begins on a pirate ship named the Lucky Thirteen where Hiccup and the Hairy Hooligans are practicing to be pirates. Each boy has a dragon for a pet. They find a coffin floating in the water. They open it and out pops a character named Alvin, the poor but honest farmer. This is an example of this wild, wonderful, heartwarming fiction. Toothless is the name of Hiccups dragon. Although Toothless is very lazy he is also very funny. An example of a funny quote is "He leapt forward and bit that wobbling rear end as hard as he could".
I liked this book because its funny and adventurous. The characters have hilarious names, like Dogs Breath the Duh Brain, Snotlout, Baggy Bum. Hiccup and his best friend, Fish legs are both wimps. This book will show that even wimps can save the day. Don't read this book without reading How to Train Your Dragon, the first book in the series of three. You will find yourself going on an adventure and laughing hysterically.
Great Book!.......2007-01-04
My 9 year old read all three of these books within a few days and giggled his whole way through. Highly recommend!
It was super, duper great!!! (Kid Review).......2006-11-11
My Name is Jack and I'm 8 years old and I love to read. I read this book in three days because I just couldn't stop reading. I loved it because it was funny, surprising, and one of the best books I've read. My favorite part was when the boat sinks and Hiccup ends up in an underwater cave and finds the treasure of Grimbeard the Gastly. It's all about Pirates, Vikings and Dragons which I love. Now I am gong to find the other books in the series too!
Kids Enjoy This Book!.......2006-02-28
I read this book and "How to Train Your Dragon" to my fifth grade class. When I finished they begged me to go on Amazon and look up the next book - which we discovered will be published in May. I ordered it right then and they have circled the anticipated delivery date. The characters are amusing, the writing is fresh, the vocabulary (especially the character's names) is right up an adolescent's alley - and they loved having a grown up having to pronounce names like Snotlout and Baggybum. Practically every one of the kids (average to above average readers) have read both of the books on their own, also.
Customer Reviews:
Awesome Book!!!Two Thubs WAY UP!!!!!!!!.......2007-02-17
I liked How to Speak Dragonese for several reasons. It had lots of humor, with that little side of fantasy(both my favorite genres!)I didn't really dislike anything in this book, it was SO GOOD! I think this because whenever there was a "The End," or "And they lived happily ever after," another challenge popped up for the main characters within the next few pages. This creates lots of suspense!
The setting in this book is in the past. They travel by non-motor boat and balloon, not by cars, planes, and steam boats. Once you start reading this, though, you can easily tell that it takes place in the past. It takes mostly takes place in the Barbaric Archipelago, but it also takes place a little in the Sea like a Woden's Bathtub, and the Isle of Berk.
Here's the basic outline of the plot: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third has his dragon, Toothless, stolen by the Roman Empire! He tries to send a search party for Toothless, but before he can, the Romans take him and Fishlegs(Hiccup's best friend)to the Roman Empire,too! They both have to get out of the Empire without getting eaten by dragons!
The main characters in thsi book are:
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third: Hiccup never wants to give up; he is always trying his best in life. He is also somewhat funny.
Fishlegs: Fishlegs is Hiccup's best friend, but he is VERY clumsy, not very good at things, allergic to practically anything, and very scared.
Camicazi: Camicazi thinks she is always better then boys(she is a Bog Buglar, and all Bog Burglars are girls,) an aggressive sword fighter, nad sometimes odd.
Toothless the Dragon: Toothless is a VERY funny and unique dragon. this is becaouse he is so samll, and he has no fangs(that is why he is called Toothless.) He is Hiccup's dragon.
I would recommend How to Speak Dragonese to anyone who likes fantasy and/or adventure. If you like those genres, and you start this book, you wont be able to put it down!(At least I wasn't!)
HAPPY READING!!!!
:);)
Quick, funny read........2007-01-04
My 9 year old loved this book and the other two by Hiccup. He couldn't put them down and finished them in no time.
How to speak dragonese.......2006-09-27
My 9yr. old loved this book. He says it has lots of adventure, not a dull moment and you will love the ending. Any book that can keep a child reading on there own is top notch with me.
How to Speak Dragonese (Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III).......2006-08-24
It's always hard to find a book that will keep my 8yrs interested. But from the first chapter to the last he enjoyed the story. The characters and their antics he said where great. He asked me to order the other books in the group even before he finished this one.
Enjoyment ONLY if.................2006-06-25
This latest outing is only enjoyable if you have read the two previous ones. The continuity factor was great, but it felt a little light in content.
Book Description
Set sail for high-seas hijinks and nautical nonsense with those paragons of Pirattitude who invented the famous International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Whether readers are old hands at pirating or hopeless landlubbers, the Pirate Guys will have them pirate-savvy in no time with sure-fire pirate pickup lines for any occasion, tips on how to make their pirate party a buccaneer ball that even Martha Stewart would be proud of, and help determining their true pirate monicker
Download Description
Set sail for high-seas hijinks and nautical nonsense with the Pirate Guys-Cap'n Slappy and Ol' Chumbucket, those paragons of Pirattitude who invented the famous International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Readers will join revelers worldwide in talking, plundering, and swashing their buckles in fine form!
Customer Reviews:
Terrific fun matey.......2007-10-10
Great for "Talk Like a Pirate Day" or any day you just want to smile, this book is jam-packed with ideas and vocabulary for a modern buccaneer.
Arrgh!! Matey.......2007-07-08
This would be the quintessential tome on how to be a pirate, if pirates could read and used word like "quinessential" and "tome". Just say it be a roarin' good chart for those who are wantin' to be a pirate
Pirattical!.......2007-06-15
I thought this was a kitschy book, and pirates ARE gaining popularity again, so it was a good read. I had a bunch of real laugh out louds, which is always great. And it was very informative. I'm glad they didn't make me think up my own pirate name! And I really wish I knew someone whose last name ends with a 'q'.
Hilarious! That's all, just hilarious.......2006-07-07
If you want to learn to not only talk like a pirate, but swagger, swear, cook, pickup women, tell the future, throw a party and lots more like a pirate, these guys have a book for you! The guys who invented "International Talk Like a Pirate Day" have written the funniest book about men (and some women) who stole and killed for a living I've ever read. There's lots of quizzes and tests - but nothing that you need to take seriously. It's all in fun, and these guys seem to have fun in bunches.
Learn how to find your inner pirate. It'll change your life! And with Cap'n Slappy and Ol' Chumbucket as your guides, you'll laugh a lot too.
Arrrr, Avast Matey!.......2006-06-30
Piratitude. You may be thinking to yourself, "What is that?" Or you may be smart enough to have figured it out by yourself first. In any case, I'm going to explain it to you in the best way I can. Piratitude, simply put (There is a far better definition in the book than I could ever think up) is to be a Pirate and to know it.
When you are a Pirate you will experience many life altering side effects. You will hold yourself in the highest esteem, you will do things you never thought you could do before, you will have so much fun that sometimes, it hurts. But it's all worth it in the end. Being a Pirate is one of those pleasures in life that everyone should experience but not everyone can...
...Until now! "Piratitude! So You Wanna Be A Pirate? Here's How!" The book states, luring you into the world that John "Ol' Chumbucket" Baur and Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summers have created. A wonderful world full of intrigue, adventure, and more than a fair share of booty! If you are one of the many who want to become a Pirate in the best sense of the word, then you need to pick up this book. You'll be partying like a rock star (A rock star Pirate, imagine that) before you can say "Hoist the belaying pins!" Why you would have to say that in the first place, I'm unsure. But I am sure of one thing. If you want to be a Pirate, you need to pick up this book.
Book Description
Ahoy, ye landlubbers! Captain Kid has lots of advice for would-be pirates, from pirate names to what to wear to how to run a tight ship and manage a crew of bloodthirsty buccaneers! This simple seven-day plan helps the reader become a real pirate and then celebrate by throwing a fantastic pirate party. Step-by-step craft projects, such as making a treasure chest, cutlass, and a porthole sign for a bedroom door, are easy for budding pirates to follow and use only ordinary household materials. Best of all, this irresistible book comes with a pocket packed full of must-have accessories, including a pirate hat, an eye patch, a pirate poster, and pirate stickers. This is the perfect present for any little pirate who dreams of life on the high seas.
Customer Reviews:
A Great Book.......2007-08-16
I bought this to help with ideas for my sons fifth birthday. It had lots of great crafts, decoration ideas, food, games, etc. It even came with a little paper hat, a paper gold earring, a paper eyepatch, and paper pieces for a game that was included in the back. The only thing I wasn't happy with was the food and the only thing I've made the kids was the Grog. The rest of the stuff was sugar filled junk that the kids would adore but would make the parents shudder. All in all, a great little book that I was proud to add to my library.
pirate craft book.......2007-07-07
This book is featured at the Royal Yacht Britannia gift shop in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is well written and humorous. And has lots of crafts with a pirate theme. Recommended for pirates over 6.
How to be a Pirate.......2007-01-09
Bought this book as a gift for a six year old boy and it has been a HUGE hit with him. Lots of activities to do and includes a mask.
Product Description
Klutz's How to Build Pirate Ships comes with a deck of 64 beautifully illustrated laminated leaves that break into 226 separate cards, cleverly shaped and notched to fit securely with every other card. Follow the book's guidelines to assemble them into a sturdy ship in full sail. Innovative design makes it easy to construct hulls, railings and sails that curve and billow in convincingly nautical fashion - all from completely flat pieces. Since pirates are known non-conformists, the possible ship variations are limitless. There are literally billions of different combinations in every pack of building cards, so you can make anything from a dinky dinghy to a super sailing vessel For ages 10 and up.
Customer Reviews:
Building cards.......2007-01-06
All the building cards sets are amazing. Fun to use with children to build all types of ships.
Download Description
"Digital piracy. It's a global war. It touches you every day, even if you've never downloaded an MP3. And it's just begun.
It's a war between media conglomerates and teenagers. A battle to the death between billion-dollar tech companies and billion-dollar content providers. It's artists battling artists, nations battling nations.
This book covers it all. Every side. All the implications. The economics. The law. The ethics. The players. And above all, the realities¿including the extraordinary findings of a new 57-country digital piracy research project and fresh survey and focus group research conducted specifically for this book.
The media universe is shaking to its very foundations. One book helps you make sense of what's happened and what's next: Pirates of the Digital Millennium.
The war over digital piracy and intellectual property is being fought everywhere on earth. It's the world's #1 technology story. It just might be today's #1 culture and entertainment story, too.
Now, best-selling authors John Gantz and Jack Rochester take on the subject from every side: culture, ethics, law, business, even geopolitics.
They start with facts, not uninformed opinion: facts drawn from IDC's unprecedented 57-country survey of digital piracy and its impact, as well as fresh focus group and survey research conducted specifically for this book. You'll travel from the streets of Bangkok to the halls of Congress, secret duplicating factories in Paraguay to America's suburban bedrooms. You'll discover what ""fair use"" really means, then sort through the morality of digital copying.
You'll hear every side of the debate. You'll also hear something unprecedented in debates about piracy: some real, fair solutions.
Will big media survive?
Can you sue your customers into submission?
The cultural impact of strict copyright law
Does strict copyright law protect creativity¿or shackle it?
Are we killing our #1 export market?
If we can't export creative content, what can we export?
DMCA: The secret history
Making political sausage: How the Digital Millennium Copyright Act made it through Congress
Eliot Ness or the Keystone Kops?
Law enforcement versus piracy: shoveling against the tide
Through the fog: The future of intellectual property
Sensible ""grand compromises"" that just might work"
Customer Reviews:
Good Read, Though Somewhat Misses the Forest For the Trees.......2007-01-08
Interesting; well written, and a good read. However, I feel they miss one point: they seem to have negative opinions of technology aimed at preventing digital media piracy, suggesting that it is indirect conflict with the doctrine of fair use.
What they fail to understand, or choose to ignore, is the fact that digital media should really be considered a non-rival good (meaning, I can make a copy of it, give it away or put it up on a filesharing program, at no cost to myself). The idea of fair use is to allow the user to use purchased property in whatever manner they choose; however, this doctrine doesn't take into consideration that most digital media, once purchased, really allows for an infinite number of replicas to be made. Therefore, the fair use doctrine has to apply differently in the case of intellectual property and digital media; it simply must be understood that the rights one is granted when purchasing digital media are different then those granted with other types of property.
Anyways, good read, recommended.
A Pirates Life For Me.......2005-05-27
This book is a description of controlling a barrel of monkeys. The authors tackle the complex and almost untamable world of intellectual property piracy. To their credit this is a very accessible book, they left the detailed legal opinions on the cutting room floor. They also cover the subject in a rather even handed way. At first they were falling onto the side I fall onto, that any of this downloading etc is stealing plain and simple. They end up with a far more mellowed view and they almost convinced me along the way.
They give the reader a nice overview of what constitutes the new world of digital piracy. They cover everything from a teenager downloading a new song to Asian mafia types counterfeiting Microsoft code. It is very enlightening to say the least. They go on to cover topics such as how is software created, the current laws, and who and where is the major counterfeiting taking place. I really liked the chapter on the current ineffective and almost nonexistent law enforcement efforts. Arresting ten high school kids for downloading songs while millions of versions of counterfeit software packages come into the country each year highlights the joke of the law enforcement effort.
While I might not have come to completely agree with the authors suggested middle road approach, I did find the book very enjoyable. The book is easy to read and moves along at a nice pace. You learn a good deal from it also. If you are interested in the topic then this is a book that is well worth your time. Just make sure you get an authentic copy.
A Complex Problem Indeed.......2005-04-25
In Pirates of the Digital Millennium, co-authors Rochester and Gantz tackle a subject with many far-reaching facets, and artfully illuminate the players, their motives, and their means.
The book starts with an excellent primer on intellectual property and copyright laws, which is vital for helping the lay reader understand the chapters ahead, and spells out some key underlying points (e.g. copyright laws have always been there to protect the publisher fat cats, not the artists, and most of the world's population lives without intellectual property laws!).
As the chapters go on we're taught about how companies lose money to pirating, who is doing the pirating (organized pirating rings, mostly in developing countries, are doing most of the damage), and what's being done to minimize it. The authors intelligently criticize the methods the music industry has used, like suing 12-year-olds, as well as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. They offer alternative strategies such as being one step ahead of the downloaders and creating pay-downloading sites that are better than the ones currently available for free.
The case is made that pirating really is ethically wrong, but it's also acknowledged that most people don't think it's wrong enough to keep them from doing it.
Since the data on digital piracy are sparse, the authors have commissioned some studies of their own, and used interviews with students, friends, and relatives to fill in the rest.
My one criticism of the book is that the authors seem to have a reverence for the software industry that they don't feel for its movie and music counterparts. An entire chapter is devoted to what goes into making a software package at Microsoft, and I got the feeling that the authors were really tickled to be there documenting the process. While it's repeatedly noted that CDs are overpriced at $20, there's no mention of the bloated price of software (how about $600 for Photoshop?).
In sum, the book educates the reader on the issues and leaves it up to him to decide whether or not to pirate media, and to do something about the silly laws that have been enacted to stop piracy (and that restrict our personal freedoms). The reader is left educated and empowered.
Well written, balanced perspective.......2005-01-06
The digital rights management problem is complex. Consumers have a right to own what they buy, and fairly use it. And commercial companies and artists have a right to make money on products that consumers are willing to pay for. Finding the right balance is complex, and that's what this book sets out to do.
It's a relatively quick read at about three hundred pages. If you read just the first portion of the book you would believe that the author is firmly in league with the companies. He lays out in grim detail the cost of piracy at an economic level. In the later chapters he does a good job representing the consumer perspective and advocating for our rights.
He finishes up with a well reasoned proposal for striking a balance between these two warring factions. Companies want to make money. People want to own stuff. Cant' we all just get a long?
Great book. Comprehensive & Illuminating.......2004-12-06
While most of us have probably engaged in some form of digital piracy - be it mp3 downloading or CD burning/sharing - I think few of us actually understand the legal or moral ramifications surrounding these activities. In 'Pirates of the Digital Millenium', Gantz and Rochester offer a balanced and revealing perspective on all of these issues and encourage a rethinking of the problems surrounding digital piracy and copyright.
'Pirates of the Digital Millenium' starts off by discussing the history of piracy (of written media) and copyright law. It then proceeds to analyze the recent explosion of digital piracy from the multiple perspectives, including those of the music industry, the artists, and the consumers themselves. I was surprised to learn about the striking similarities between instances of piracy in the 1800s and in the current day - how divides exist between artists/authors, publishers and consumers, and how copyright laws cater only to the economic needs of the industry.
While highlighting historical similarities, Gantz and Rochester emphasize that digital piracy is a new phenomenon that will require radically new mechanisms of control; as demonstrated by the recent actions of the RIAA against music downloaders, existing methods of law-enforcement do not work against digital piracy. At the same time, Gantz and Rochester calls on the digital media industry to stop demonizing consumers - college students in particular - and start finding new ways to distribute their media in a way that addresses people's needs.
This book is a great read. It is well written, rich with interesting information and persuasive in its arguments for better solutions to the problems at hand.
Book Description
Two phenomena keep people from reaching their creative potential: black holes — unconscious patterns, expectations, and beliefs — and energy pirates — the maneuvering and dodging required to disguise these patterns and beliefs. Together, black holes and energy pirates imprison and deplete creative energy. Using her personal story as a starting point, the author explains how to reverse the process of undermining one's inner resources. Recognizing and understanding human energy fields — and how people are sometimes drained by them — is the key to achieving personal and professional fulfillment.
Customer Reviews:
Energy Dynamics.......2001-08-13
Simple yet engaging presentation of psychological energy dynamics. Focuses on author's life experiences. Timeless principles updated for today's understanding. A fun, insightful, empowering read.
Insightful and sensitive..........2001-07-20
A very powerful book that causes the reader to examine behavior patterns that drain energy. I could identify with this author's "energy pirate" patterns more than the ones identified in the Celestine Prophecy. The author has an engaging and simple style - a fast read, and a book that I will continue to read again.
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