Goodbye, Sivacracy

The discouraging run of copyfighting bloggers leaving the field of battle continues.  First Larry Lessig stepped back from the copyright wars.  Then William Patry - no copyfighter himself, but rather the singularly most thoughtful blogger on copyright matters - stepped away from his blog.  The original Copyfight blog is a pale shadow of what it once was. 

Now Siva Vaidhyanathan has announced that he is shutting down sivacracy.net in order to focus on his blog associated with his new book, The Googlization of Everything. 

You could tell that things have been troubled at sivacracy.net.  The last post I can see on the home page is from 11 August, though his co-authors apparently were posting as late as 18 August.  And Sivacracy's early heavy emphasis on copyright issues has somewhat waned over the years as Siva's interests shifted more into contemporary cultural criticism and he added more co-authors generally interested in the interplay of politics and culture. 

Nevertheless, ever since its start in February, 2003, Sivacracy has been required blog reading for thousands of people.  It is going to be sorely missed. Thanks, Siva (and Ann) for a wonderful run.

The bigger question is whether the departure of so many leading figures from the copyright blogosphere is part of the natural evolution of blog spaces or a sign that the efforts to remake copyright laws for a digital age are over. 

Comments

[Mary]

I second Peter's post, but must note that contributing author Peter Hirtle wrote it. And Siva, anytime you want to return, you know you have a big audience waiting for you.

[Siva Vaidhyanathan]

Thanks so much for the nice words, Mary. One thing that Larry Lessig and I have agreed on in our moves to other issues is that there are now so many energetic and smart people writing about copyright that our contributions are no longer that important. At the beginning of this decade there were too few people articulating copyright madness to the public. Now we have a great movement. I don't think the world needs Sivacracy that badly. And as long as there is Library Law, this community will be well informed and engaged.

Siva