Futurist and Thought-Leader Gerd Leonhard (www.mediafuturist.com) shares his thoughts on the Future of Content, Media and Business. 'Friction is Fiction' presents a constantly updated compilation of Gerd's best essays, writings and most popular blog posts. The central meme is that the Internet has completely disrupted the traditional notion of generating higher income by simply taking advantage of possible friction points and hurdles within transactions or business processes, i.e. by controlling the 'people formerly known as consumers'. The Future is all about winning the trust, and turning attention into revenues.This is the low-cost, black & white version of the book - if you want the full-color version please go to http://gerd.fm/cmrfB1

Wry, dark humor burnishes visionary SF in these often prophetic, sometimes troubling, but always fascinating tales that combine and masterfully conflate the disparate worlds of corporate tech and literary art. “After the Thaw” is a hi-tech take on an ancient idea: immortality. “Terrible Trudy on the Lam” based on actual events, is a modern fable about a zoo escape, a private eye, a vaudeville act and keeping your mouth shut. “Night Shift at NanoGobblers,” written for a NASA website, is about asteroid-altering AIs and their world-weary earthbound handlers. “Transitions” deals with jet lag when your flight is decades late. Gunn’s long-awaited third collection is rounded out by incisive and affectionate portraits of her SF colleagues, mentors, and friends, beginning with Ursula Le Guin. All illuminated of course by our artfully intimate interview.

As long as there have been fans, there has been fan fiction. There seems to be a fundamental human need to tell additional stories about the characters after the book, series, play or movie is over. But developments in information technology and copyright law have put these fan stories at risk of collision with the content owners’ intellectual property rights. Fan fiction has long been a nearly invisible form of outsider art, but over the past decade it has grown exponentially in volume and in legal importance. Because of its nature, authorship, and underground status, fan fiction stands at an intersection of key issues regarding property, sexuality, and gender. In Fan Fiction and Copyright, author Aaron Schwabach examines various types of fan-created content and asks whether and to what extent they are protected from liability for copyright infringement. Professor Schwabach discusses examples of original and fan works from a wide range of media, genres, and cultures. From Sherlock Holmes to Harry Potter, fictional characters, their authors, and their fans are sympathetically yet realistically assessed. Fan Fiction and Copyright looks closely at examples of three categories of disputes between authors and their fans: Disputes over the fans’ use of copyrighted characters, disputes over online publication of fiction resembling copyright work, and in the case of J.K. Rowling and a fansite webmaster, a dispute over the compiling of a reference work detailing an author's fictional universe. Offering more thorough coverage of many such controversies than has ever been available elsewhere, and discussing fan works from the United States, Brazil, China, India, Russia, and elsewhere, Fan Fiction and Copyright advances the understanding of fan fiction as transformative use and points the way toward a safe harbor for fan fiction.