Park ranger threatens to arrest Eldred for handing out free Waldens

Cory Doctorow 4:23 pm Fri Jul 9, 2004

Eric Eldred, an Internet Bookmobile driver and poster child for the public domain, was threatened with arrest for handing out free copies of Walden at Walden Pond:

Yesterday (July 8, 2004) I took the Internet Bookmobile to Walden Pond in

Concord, Mass. It was the 150th anniversary of H. D. Thoreau's book

"Walden." The Thoreau Society had a dawn to dusk reading.

After an hour of having readers print and take away free copies of "Walden,"

I was asked by the Walden Pond Reservation police to pack up and leave

and threatened with arrest. I left.

The park supervisor (Denise Morrissey, 978-369-3254) told me I could

not pass out free literature without a permit. And she would not give me

a permit because, as she explained, the state park gets money from a

concession by the Thoreau Society, which operates a store that sells

"Walden"–and I was competing with them by giving away free copies.

There is no place to park at Walden Pond except in the state parking

lot, for which I paid $5.

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