Happy Public Domain Day 2026!: The best way to cut through the hellishly complex thicket and bring our culture back to life.

mamot.fr/@pluralistic/11573599…

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Cory Doctorow

2025-12-17 17:05:19

In 1998, Congress committed an act of mass cultural erasure, extending copyright by 20 years, including for existing works (including ones that were already in the public domain), and for 20 years, virtually *nothing* entered the US public domain.

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/12/17/boo…

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Pluralistic: Happy Public Domain Day 2026! (17 Dec 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Pluralistic: Happy Public Domain Day 2026! (17 Dec 2025)

^{Cory Doctorow (Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow)}

Hey look at this

* NVIDIA Isn't Enron - So What Is It? wheresyoured.at/nvidia-isnt-en…

* How Google Maps quietly allocates survival across London’s restaurants - and how I built a dashboard to see through it laurenleek.substack.com/p/how-…

* Who do they think you are? hidden-selves.wove.co/

* Datacenters in space are a terrible, horrible, no good idea. taranis.ie/datacenters-in-spac… (h/t DSHR)

* Mobile Voting Project’s vote-by-smartphone has real security gaps blog.citp.princeton.edu/2025/1…

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#20yrago Sony DRM Debacle Roundup Part V memex.craphound.com/2005/12/16…

#15yrsago Weird D&D advice-column questions comicsalliance.com/weird-dd-qu…

#10yrsago America’s permanent, ubiquitous tent-cities placesjournal.org/article/tent…

#10yrsago The changing world of webcomics business models web.archive.org/web/2015121813…

#10yrsago Cop who demanded photo of sexting-accused teen’s penis commits suicide arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…

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#10yrsago Saudi millionaire acquitted of raping teen in London, says he tripped and accidentally penetrated her telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/cr…

#10yrsago Someone snuck skimmers into Safeway stores krebsonsecurity.com/2015/12/sk…

#10yrsago Philips promises new firmware to permit third-party lightbulbs web.archive.org/web/2015121618…

#5yrsago Jan 1 is Public Domain Day for 1925 pluralistic.net/2020/12/16/fra…

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#5yrsago Landmark US financial transparency law pluralistic.net/2020/12/16/fra…

#5yrsago Chaos Communications Congress pluralistic.net/2020/12/16/fra…

#5yrsago Email sabbaticals pluralistic.net/2020/12/16/fra…

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Yesterday's threads: America's collapsing consumption is the world's disenshittification opportunity; and more!

mamot.fr/@pluralistic/11573100…

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Cory Doctorow

2025-12-16 19:57:42

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: America's collapsing consumption is the world's disenshittification opportunity; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2025/12/16/k-s…

#Pluralistic

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Pluralistic: America’s collapsing consumption is the world’s disenshittification opportunity (16 Dec 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Pluralistic: America's collapsing consumption is the world's disenshittification opportunity (16 Dec 2025)

^{Cory Doctorow (Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow)}

My latest novel is "Picks and Shovels," a historical technothriller set in the Weird Era of the PC, about Ponzi schemes, techbros, and the dawn of enshittification:

us.macmillan.com/books/9781250…

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My latest nonfiction book is the internationally bestselling "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux:

us.macmillan.com/books/9780374…

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Picks and Shovels

New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow returns to the world of Red Team Blues to bring us the origin story of Martin Hench and the most powerful new...

^{SupaduDev (Macmillan Publishers)}

My ebooks and audiobooks (from FSGxMCD, Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."

craphound.com/shop/

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Upcoming appearances:

* #Hamburg: Chaos Communications Congress, Dec 27-30
events.ccc.de/congress/2025/in…

* #Denver: Enshittification at Tattered Cover Colfax, Jan 22
eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow…

* #ColoradoSprings: Guest of Honor at COSine, Jan 23-25
firstfridayfandom.org/cosine/

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Recent appearances:

* (Digital) Elbows Up (OCADU)
vimeo.com/1146281673

* How to Stop “Ensh*ttification” Before It Kills the Internet (Capitalisn't)
youtube.com/watch?v=34gkIvYiHx…

* Enshittification on The Daily Show
youtube.com/watch?v=d2e-c9SF5n…

* Enshittification with Four Ways to Change the World (Channel 4)
youtube.com/watch?v=tZQaEeuuI3…

* The Plan is to Make the Internet Worse. Forever. (Novarra Media)
youtube.com/watch?v=7wE8G-d7Sn…

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I'm at the end of my tour for my new book, the international bestseller *Enshittification*!

My last two events are CCC in #Hamburg, Dec 27-30:
events.ccc.de/congress/2025/in…

and the Tattered Cover in #Denver, Jan 22:
eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow…

I hope you can make it!

eof/