Aaarrr, matey!

So, I just got back from Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (judgement: fun, nowhere near as good as the first), and I check my email and some of the blogs I read regularly. And what does BoingBoing point out to my attention? Another wonderful form of piracy, and an extrordinarily healthy attitude towards it!

It seems that John Battelle, who recently has published a book entitled The Search, about Google and search engines and whatnot. I haven't read it, but plan to. Apparently, he got an e-mail from a friend in India, letting him know that he's seeing pirated hardcopies of the book all over the streets of Mumbai. Battelle's reaction?

Second, how cool is it that The Search is a street bestseller in Mumbai?! Do I care about the piracy? No. No, no no. I care that someone in Mumbai cared enough to rip it off, and that someone there might be reading my stuff. That is just cool. Commercial markets always follow the free, or, well, the pirates in this case. Always.

Amen to that. I respect that sense of perspective so very much.