The AuthorViews Tour has finished its first leg. On July 7, I rolled into Bellingham, Washington, home of cameraman and tech guru, Jesse Vohs a.k.a. The MacMaster. I'll be working and playing in Bellingham for the next three weeks before the AuthorViews Tour resumes with a West Coast swing. As online communicators, you might want to learn a little about Jesse Vohs; he may be your worst nightmare. You see, Jesse Vohs is a hacker.

I found my longtime collaborator, Jesse Vohs, through a mentorship program when he was 16 years old and struggling in school. Ten years later, he's still struggling in school, trying to get through college in Bellingham. Jesse has learned that in the work world your degree is often more important than your talent. So he is wasting my time getting a degree I doubt he'll ever use or need. That's what hackers do; they're intransigent when told they shouldn't do something.

Jesse worked for me at Internet Publicity Services, Inc., until I sold the company and moved to New Orleans. In the seven years I've been in New Orleans, I've tried five certified Macintosh technicians -- all with college degrees -- none with a fraction of the ability of MacMaster Jesse Vohs. So I've taken to flying Jesse down whenever school is out while I wait for him to get his degree.

Jesse Vohs is a hacker in the finest sense of the word. He is relentlessly curious, unable to give up on a computer problem until he has found a solution. He is absolutely fearless in the face of technology. I've never seen him happier than in a room full of computers, simultaneously backing up, optimizing, installing software, debugging -- working on four or more machines at the same time.

During the AuthorViews Tour, we've been driving from city to city in a van tricked out by Jesse into a film production studio. Using the van's extra battery, we have two Apple PowerBook G4 laptops hooked up to a LaCie 500 gig hard drive. We're able to capture and edit video while we drive. Jesse has numerous programs on his laptop for sniffing out open WiFi hotspots; we drive around until we hear "the submarine sound," then we stop and upload and download and surf.

Whenever Jesse finds an open network, he looks for tunes. He might download someone's entire music library. He has used file sharing services since they were invented. It's clear to me, from watching Jesse in action, that the RIAA and the MPAA and other trade groups and private companies trying to put an end to file sharing are fighting a losing battle. In the future, people will be paid to create, not to duplicate. People will pay for packaging; content will be free. If it's digitized, it's public property. No lawsuits against college kids will stop the sharing. In practical terms, they don't even slow it down.

As a book publishing professional, I'm in a profession that believes its existence is dependent upon copyright enforcement. Yet personally I am opposed to the whole idea of copyright. To publish literally means "to make public." You give it away when you publish it. I believe my clients -- book publishing companies -- get paid for packaging, marketing and distribution -- not for content. One of the reasons book publishing has been spared the fate of CDs and DVDs is that packaging is an inseparable part of the user experience. People still like to hold books. The design of those books is a major component of their message -- a role that has been underappreciated until now.

In a world where ideas are free, expression is free, content is free, how do creators get paid? We continue to be paid by those who value something besides a two-dimensional reproduction that can be shunted from computer to computer. We are paid by those who want to watch creation happen, in the moment, or by those who add value to content with design and packaging and marketing. And we get paid by advertisers who need to find new ways of reaching an audience.

As my friend and colleague Jesse Vohs drives me around Bellingham, we hack. We look for ways to navigate the street grid of this town, just as we look for new ways to compress and expand video files and new ways to give away our content online. Jesse reminds me that Thomas Edison was a hacker, and Christopher Columbus. Anyone compelled to create value without consideration for compensation is a hacker. We all have some hacker in us -- thank goodness.