Bird’s Eye: This week a poll reported that over 70% of the people found it acceptable to download illicit material from the internet. (We’re guessing the other 30% just doesn’t know how.) But increasingly the creators are supporting such downloads: we look at Monty Python, Neil Gaiman, Francis Ford Coppola and their takes on “stealing art”… and then offer you 96 free SF books to download for your e-reader, or computer. With the authors’ blessings, of course.

* Free Monty Python Videos on Youtube Lead to 23,000% DVD Sale Increase /film

Mashable is now reporting on a staggering increase of Monty Python DVDs sold on Amazon soon after the Python crew made some of their their more popular material free on Youtube. And by staggering, I mean 23,000% worth. Mashable notes that Monty Python’s DVDs climbed to the #2 spot on Amazon’s Movie’s and TV Bestseller List, and you don’t have to be a genius to follow that the sales were probably influenced by the Amazon links found on all of theirYoutube  clips.

* Gaiman on Copyright Piracy and the Web youtube, 4 minutes

Neil Gaiman talks to the Open Rights Group about how the internet affects the books and publishing industry

* Francis Ford Coppola On Art, Copying And File Sharing Techdirt

“I once found a little excerpt from Balzac. He speaks about a young writer who stole some of his prose. The thing that almost made me weep, he said, ‘I was so happy when this young person took from me.’ Because that’s what we want. We want you to take from us. We want you, at first, to steal from us, because you can’t steal. You will take what we give you and you will put it in your own voice and that’s how you will find your voice.

And that’s how you begin. And then one day someone will steal from you. And Balzac said that in his book: It makes me so happy because it makes me immortal because I know that 200 years from now there will be people doing things that somehow I am part of. So the answer to your question is: Don’t worry about whether it’s appropriate to borrow or to take or do something like someone you admire because that’s only the first step and you have to take the first step.”

* Creative Commons Science-Fiction

Many science-fiction writers are releasing part of their works under a Creative Commons license. If you’d like to discover new writers, and you’re interested in modern sci-fi, you’ll find the right content in this list. 96 books available