d by
the Internet. I can look at it with enough distance to recognize the mistakes I
made with it and to warn about its misuse, while avoiding veteran's fatigue and
burn-out.

= How do you see the future?

The important thing about the Internet is the human value that's added to it.
The Internet can never be shrewd about a situation, take a risk or replace the
intelligence of the heart. The Internet simply speeds up the decision-making
process and reduces uncertainty by providing information. We still have to leave
time to time, let ideas mature and bring an essential touch of humanity to a
relationship. For me, the aim of the Internet is meeting people, not increasing
the number of electronic exchanges.

= What do you think of the debate about copyright on the Web?

I regard the Web today as a public domain. That means in practice the notion of
copyright on it disappears: everyone can copy everyone else. Anything original
risks being copied at once if copyrights are not formally registered or if works
are available without payment facilities. A solution is to make people pay for
information, but this is no watertight guarantee against it being copied.
Anyway, with novels, I prefer them in paper form.

= How do you see the growth of a multilingual Web?

Different languages will still be used for a long time to come and this is
healthy for the right to be different. The risk is of course an invasion of one
language to the detriment of others, and with it the risk of cultural
standardization. I think online services will gradually emerge to get around
this problem. First, translators will be able to translate and comment on texts
by request, but mainly sites with a large audience will provide different
language versions, just as the audiovisual industry does now.

= What is your best experience with the Internet?

After my second novel, Sanguine sur toile, was published, I got a message from a
friend I'd lost touch with more than 20 years ago. He recognized himself as one
of the book's characters. We saw each other again recently over a good bottle of
wine and swapped memories and discussed our plans.

= And your worst experience?

Viruses, "happiness" chain letters, business soliciting, extreme right-wing
sites and unverified information are spreading very quickly these days. I'm
seriously asking myself: "What kind of baby did I help to bring into the world?"

TYLER CHAMBERS (Boston, Massachusetts)

#Crea