My friend Nick Ruest, book enthusist, librarian, and Canadian immigrant, sent me an excellent interview this week and I thought it would be a great thing to share with you. The interview is with Hugh McGuire, done by Nora Young of CBC Radio’s program Spark. If you’re unfamiliar with Spark, it is a radio show and podcast about technology and culture. From the Spark site:

Hugh has a long history at the crossroads of book culture and technology. He founded Librivox, a volunteer-based service, which takes public domain books and turns them into audiobooks. He’s also co-founder of Book Oven, a new start-up that aims to be a collaborative space for making books. He’s also one of the people behind BookCamp, an unconference held in Toronto on June 6th. Hugh came into CBC’s Montreal studios to talk about the future of publishing, and the buzz at BookCamp.

McGuire has some interesting things to say about digital copyright, about how media will be distributed in the future, and what the publishing industry has to do to keep up with technology. I say his views are interesting because I agree with them. Ultimately, the line that copyright rides is very tenuous and we’re currently in a transitional state that pits getting paid over technological distribution. Writers should be paid for their work, undoubtedly, but if the music industry is any model at all, we know now that the opportunities technology offers for distribution are something that need to be harnessed rather than fought.

The interview is called “Hugh McGuire on the Future of Books” and is available to stream or download. Check it out!

Photo “courtesy” of CBC Radio.