Indie News Beat: Lashings of Irony

Yesterday, the Evil Mastermind told me there was a problem with the reactor core in this Death Star of a blog. Yesterday, I went to have a look, armed with my trusty elastic bands and bits of dried chewing gum. But he didn’t tell me he keeps a very small (but quite friendly) black hole down there. I go down there for one night and return this morning to find months have gone by up here. Damn.

Time to catch up with what’s been going on, and irony has to be the theme of this month’s column. We begin with Phillip Pullman and his ill-advised rant against copyright pirates, whose activity he described as “moral squalor”. In a powerfully written, but ultimately misguided piece, Pullman says that, “The principle is simple, and unaltered by technology, science or magic: if we want to enjoy the work that someone does, we should pay for it.” Continue reading “Indie News Beat: Lashings of Irony”