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Cory Doctorow
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Pirate Cinema Paperback – 14 Jun. 2013

by Cory Doctorow (Author)
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When Trent McCauley's obsession for making movies by reassembling footage from popular films causes his home s internet to be cut off, it nearly destroys his family. Shamed, Trent runs away to London. A new bill threatens to criminalize even harmless internet creativity. Things look bad, but the powers-that-be haven't entirely reckoned with the power of a gripping movie to change people's minds...
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  1. Print length
    384 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Titan Books
  4. Publication date
    14 Jun. 2013
  5. Dimensions
    13 x 2.6 x 19.6 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    178116746X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1781167465
  8. See all details
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Product description

Review

"his most cogent, energizing call-to-arms to date, an old-fashioned (but forward-thinking) counterculture rabble rouser that will have dissidents of all ages dying to stick it to the Man..." --Publishers Weekly

Cory Doctorow has a unique way of capturing the technological challenges of current times that speaks volumes, provocative and blended perfectly into an entertaining, rewarding story. --SF Books

About the Author

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction novelist, blogger and technology activist. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boing, and contributor to The Guardian, the New York Times, Wired, and many others. He has won the Locus and Sunburst Awards, and been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and British Science Fiction Awards. New York Times bestseller Little Brother was published in 2008.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Titan Books (14 Jun. 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 178116746X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1781167465
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13 x 2.6 x 19.6 cm
  • Customer reviews:

About the author

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Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

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Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently RADICALIZED and WALKAWAY, science fiction for adults; CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM, nonfiction about monopoly and creative labor markets; IN REAL LIFE, a graphic novel; and the picture book POESY THE MONSTER SLAYER. His latest novel is ATTACK SURFACE, a standalone adult sequel to LITTLE BROTHER. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
172 global ratings

Top reviews from United Kingdom

MARTIN P
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 January 2016
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Excellent read. Well written, quirky and unfortunately closer to fact than fiction
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Labowski
4.0 out of 5 stars sharing is caring
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 July 2013
I picked this up in water-stones as a holiday read, and am totally loving it, its a great read, plus some of the techie stuff such as Trusted Computing is a technology that I wasn't really that aware of!! I am now thx Cory I am impressed, great stuff.
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Clive Meadows
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 January 2015
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Entertaining easy read
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic look at copyright law
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 December 2013
This was my first Cory Doctorow book, and it just captured me. It is fiction, but it hits on so many real life situations and really does make you think "What the hell is going on with copyright law and anti-piracy stuff".

An extremely fun read that really riles up the activist inside you
2 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
2.0 out of 5 stars Two Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 April 2016
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Disappointing after previous fantastic novels.
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Sam Tyler
3.0 out of 5 stars Steal this Review
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 October 2012
Warning Teen Fiction! This is what should be written on any book aimed at children between the ages of 12-15. Not for the kids themselves, but for any adult (and especially parent) who may pick up the item themselves. `Pirate Cinema' is a story that follows 16 year old Trent as he runs away from home in an alternative near future. His incessant illegal downloading of film footage means that his family's internet privileges have been voided and with them his father's job. The next year sees Trent and a crew called the Jammie Dodgers taking on the massive corporations that own the media by splicing together illegal videos. So far so teen friendly, but the book also contains drug use and enough sex to make a grown man blush. Warning Teen Fiction!

`Pirate Cinema' is brought to you by Cory Doctorow, the author of the fantastic `Little Brother', itself a political tour de force. Whilst `Brother' was naïve, it felt like a great introduction to intelligent youngsters about politics and freedom of speech. `Pirate' takes the same level of naivety and throws in some adult curveballs that just don't sit well. `Pirate' is a book that nods towards `Oliver Twist' as a bunch of young ragamuffins get up to no good, but I do not recall the Artful Dodger getting high or getting naughty. The writing is obviously aimed at a mid-teen audience; simple sentence structure and slightly patronising discussions on political tropes that most adults would know already. If the book is aimed at a 13 year old though, why the drug use? Perhaps I myself am naïve, but I don't think this age group as a main are out doing the things seen in this book.

With the tone of the book flitting from children's novel to adult, `Pirate Cinema' never settles down in way that `Little Brother' managed. This tale of media piracy is well balanced and does discuss both sides of the argument. Intelligent younger readers will gain from this book, but their parents may feel a little uncomfortable about the content. Doctorow needs to either stick to writing for a younger teen audience, or go the whole hog and just write an adult book that any interested kid will pick up anyway.
7 people found this helpful
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GOTTON
2.0 out of 5 stars A poorly written novel that is preachy and manipulative
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 October 2016
There is most definitely a line between using your novel to explore a subject and using your novel as a way to push your own views of that subject on your audience. Sadly, this book falls into the second category.

As a result this book very much reads like a long political statement and propaganda. As with Little Brother and Homeland, two novels that I very much enjoyed, Cory Doctorow has taken the very current subject of privacy in regards to technology as well as modern copyright laws to an extreme in order to create a theme for his novel. However, unlike with those other two novels where I felt the story came first and the message second, this book seemed to be the other way around.

This meant that reading this book felt very much like I was being preached at. Whether it's listening to politicians, getting the sales pitch at a car dealership, or reading novels, as soon as I feel like someone is trying to push and manipulate me into feeling and thinking a certain way, I very quickly want to get the hell out of there.

Now, this point of view is coming from someone who has very similar opinions on these subjects as Mr Doctorow. I have read his non-fiction work, somewhere where this kind of message should be found as it isn't hidden and manipulative, and I enjoyed those books thoroughly. However, those were the books for that kind of message, not this novel aimed at young adults. This just felt subversive and manipulative which is why I can't bring myself to give this more than two stars.

Though that is my main gripe with the story, it was not the last. The protagonist is a bit unsympathetic and the story takes its sweet time getting to any kind of point. I stopped reading this novel at the 50% mark and so far the concept of a Pirate Cinema had barely been touched on. It certainly didn't seem like some kind of central issue. I got the impression that the story didn't know what it wanted to be.

So overall I can't recommend this book. It doesn't read well as a story and it is incredibly subversive, so it is just 2 stars this time round.
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Kieser
5.0 out of 5 stars Cool
Reviewed in Germany on 18 December 2014
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Wie bei vielen Büchern von C. Doctorows: Brandaktuell von der Thematik und spannend geschrieben. Eine unbedingte Empfehlung! Wer's kann sollte es in Englisch lesen.
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Xper Dunn
5.0 out of 5 stars Another great speculation on our times and where we are headed.
Reviewed in the United States on 1 June 2013
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Saturday, June 01, 2013 3:33 PM.

I've been enjoying the works of Cory Doctorow since "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom". I always have to remind myself that he's British--he seems to know the voice of Americans as well as his own. I have very recently read his "Rapture of the Nerds", which is wild and crazy in the way only well-rendered `mad-cap' sci-fi can be. I unreservedly encourage anyone who reads sci-fi to add his name to your shopping list.

Okay, so, I'm reading Cory Doctorow's "Pirate Cinema"--part near-future social sci-fi tale and part remonstrance against one particular bit of Corporate Inhumanity--the copyright laws that target anyone using downloads of Big Studio movies, music, and graphics to create something new, a `smash-up', if you will, which is a creative process, itself, as much or more than it is a criminal plagiarism.

I see where he's going; he makes a great (call that `iron-clad') case for his argument--but I've always been a `big picture' guy--the copyright infringement legislation that Mr. Doctorow is so bothered by is shameful, but it is also just one, single symptom in Corporate Inhumanity's attack upon the humanities, individual rights, and even our safety.

Monsanto is leading the fight to take control of the agricultural industry and trade concern with voters for concern with one corporation's bottom line. Financial institutions have carried on in the same way, unchanged since they threw the working-people-of-the-world into bankruptcies, repossessions, declining wages, less entitlements, bankrupt state and local governments, blasted education budgets and zero job opportunities--back in 2007. We are still digging ourselves out--but the big bankers and robber-barons are hard at work, trying to create the next big punch-in-the-face for the hoi-polloi. Big Pharma is using us as guinea pigs, doing their beta-tests across drug-store counters--and over-charging us for the privilege. The firearms industry is ruining our lives in their own special way--as are the rest of the military industry, insurance, advertising, publishing, automotive (and let's not forget petroleum, the king of corporate bastardy).
The multi-billion-dollar entities run full-time lobby groups--people who go to work in Washington D.C. every day with the aim of changing our federal laws to benefit their industries' profits.

We have no one going to work each morning on our behalf, because we, as individuals, haven't the means or the organization to match their efforts. We are left with protests and petitions, `occupations' and calls to our state's representatives and senators--millions of pea-shooters against heavy artillery. The legislation is being written by the fat-cats' lawyers, the elected officials are all bought and paid for, the heads of the corporations switch seats with their industry's government-regulatory body like a game of musical chairs.
In short, we have lost our government. It has been suborned by money. Money is the only government left--and its disregard for right and wrong is part of its very nature.

In summation, yes, the entertainment industry's tightening of questionable copyright protections, particularly its online, digital aspect, is shameful. But I doubt we can take the fight to the big-money-people by doing things one issue at a time--we have to go after the legislation that allows lobbying and PACs and television campaign ads. We have to return, legislatively, to a time when we thought our government to be above business concerns. We must get laws that force politicians to avoid any contact with industry beyond a regulatory oversight. We must outlaw corporate lobbies. We must reverse the law permitting PACs to claim legitimacy. We have to fight money--quixotic? Yes. Necessary? Even more so.

Having said that, Mr. Doctorow's "Pirate Cinema" is exciting, engrossing, enlightening and imaginative--a great read--what they call a `page-turner'. Go ahead and buy it--you'll like it. He also has some wonderful stuff at craphound.com.
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Kevin Ryan
4.0 out of 5 stars Little Brother goes to the movies in London
Reviewed in the United States on 7 January 2013
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Well written, quick moving story with lots of culture references to London. Good YA novel, even though I am a grown-up (college English prof), I found it an entertaining way to address issues of copyright in society today. Eagerly awaiting his next.
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Tim Deagan
5.0 out of 5 stars A Topic We Should All Be Talking About
Reviewed in the United States on 24 November 2012
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Pirate Cinema is a important political manifesto masquerading as a great young adult novel. Critical issues that will determine how this century plays out are wrapped in a story that feels intimate and personal. While not Doctorow's most powerful prose, Pirate Cinema is a great exploration of a topic that has tremendous implications for the near future we will all live in.

In the Information Society we're creating, copyright is way more than a symbol in a circle, it's the key to who has control over our lives. The consequences of this control are explored through the lead character, Cecil B. DeVil (aka Trent McCauley,) a teenage Briton with an obsessive talent for remixing video of his favorite movie star Scot Colford.

After his family loses Internet access due to Trent's downloads of Scot Colford footage, the reality of how critical net access is strikes home. His father can no longer get contract phone bank work, his mother can no longer file for her disability, his sister can't maintain her studies at school. Trent runs away to London and manages one lucky break after another, becoming Cecil B. Devil, making movies and growing up fast in an underground culture of squatters, activists and artists.

This could have been a trite coming of age novel filled with edgy bits of trademark Doctorow future shock, instead, the bohemian setting serves as an richly embroidered backdrop to a serious exploration of what's at stake with international copyright legislation. A subject that might induce yawns in the readers of other authors becomes a topic of dramatic interest for readers of Pirate Cinema.

Fans of Little Brother and For The Win will definitely enjoy this novel. While all three are 'Young Adult' novels, that only means that they're written to include younger readers, not exclude older ones. All of these books explore topics that will dominate the lives of everyone for the next twenty years. Doctorow's enthusiasm for empowering younger readers with a vision of how they can change the world is equally engaging for adults.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Mash-up Mania - Internet Creativity vs Creative Property Law
Reviewed in the United States on 1 February 2015
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Great dive into current/future issues concerning internet privacy, creative property rights and the overreach of corporations into our lives, not unlike Little Brother set in near future London, with major Hollywood studios cast in the role of Dick Cheney.

Having been in Leicester Square for the debut of the Harry Potter film The Half-Blood Prince, I can tell you that Doctorow's description of the spectacle there is good, though I don't think he's really brought home the glitzy insanity that is the studios whoring their products by enticing young teens to squeal for the cameras and the explosive decompression as a downpour dispersed them to the nearest tube station.

Once again, Doctorow has given us sexually active teens, which prevents Hollywood from developing this as a film project, due to America's, puritan prudery, which still hasn't grasped that their high moral codes can't stop young teens from experimenting. Not that Hollywood would want to produce a film that calls them to task for their efforts to manacle the creative spirit of the mash-up artists.

Just saw an article about a fellow who's faithfully remastered Star Wars into better digital definition than the copyright holders have ever offered for sale and because he wasn't authorized to make this labor of love, downloading it is illegal. This is exactly, thought not specifically, what Doctorow is writing about. Hollywood is incapable of understanding the fan universe and its desire to create content that keeps their love for their favorite stars, films, music and programs alive. In their headlong pursuit of stockholder profit increases via civil and criminal litigation, studios are shooting the messenger.
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