“Interviewing Cory Doctorow is easy. You just flip the on switch by asking the first question, and he emits a constant stream of brilliant, insightful stuff.”
- R.U. Sirius

America became an industrial power by being a pirate nation. After the American revolution, America didn’t honor the copyrights or patents of anyone except Americans. If you were a European or British inventor, your stuff could be widely pirated in America. That’s how they got rich. Only after America became a net exporter of copyrighted goods did it start to enter into treaties with other countries whereby American inventors and authors would be protected abroad in exchange for those foreign authors being protected in America.

- Cory Doctorow (interviewed by R.U. Sirius) @ 10 Zen Monkeys: link.