Don't like fiction? I understand.

But you still need your summer reading. The season is upon us.

So might I offer you the latest from my new friend J.D. Lasica, Darknet

I've been covering the Copyright Wars for nearly a decade, and wish I had looked up from the day-to-day to try something like this book. Its subtitle is Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation, and it covers a ton of ground.

If you're not familiar with the digital underground, or what digital editing is capable of, then Lasica's book will be a revelation to you. Even for old hands like me it's good sometimes to get it all down so you can ponder it as a whole.

In addition to the Darknet itself, which is several steps below Grokster on the secrecy and copyright violation scale, Lasica also covers such topics as digital editing, ripping DVDs, a host of great stuff.

The weakness, and it's totally not his fault, is that events can overtake the work while it's at the printer. Besides the Grokster case, decided on behalf of the industry just a week ago, there's a section about "movie censor" tools that were specifically legalized recently by Congress. As you can see the law can cut both ways. Censors can pre-edit movies using the same digital tools that can't be used to download the originals.

No book, by its nature, can keep up with the news, but Lasica has tried, turning his Darknet.Com book promotion site into a blog, where he discusses issues just like these.

After finishing this book my mind was a maelstrom of ideas, and yours will be too. For instance, how might we "subscribe" to books like this in the future, getting not only the paper copy, but a discount on regular updates, say via a PDF file e-mailed to us with highlights from an ongoing blog, and perhaps some regular IM interviews with the author thrown in.

It's all possible. Digital technology means everything is on the table. So enjoy Darknet, will you? Then let's keep the discussion going right here.