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| Hearsay: |
The new proposed copyright law has whole range of folks mildly apoplectic. Some moreso than others. BoingBoing says it makes criminals out of ordinary Canadians, moreso even than the comparative US act. Book people, however, seem to have mixed feelings.
In the aftermath of last week’s introduction of Bill C-61, Ottawa’s proposed reform of Canada’s copyright laws, analysis focused squarely on the implications for the music industry’s high-profile battle against illegal downloads.
That wasn’t the case at this year’s Book Expo Canada, the annual, four-day publishing industry trade fair that wrapped up yesterday at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The event began Friday with a panel discussion on copyright as it pertains to publishing. And the topic was never far from the surface, even threatening to eclipse the never-ending debate about book pricing.
“It is the issue in the publishing world right now,” McClelland & Stewart’s Douglas Pepper said of copyright. “While there are concerns, I don’t think there’s panic.”
The concerns largely relate to a potential loss of control over content as the industry increasingly becomes digitized. No one predicts anything as dire as the havoc that unauthorized downloads have played on the music industry, but the introduction of the Sony e-reader into the Canadian market last month has helped focus the conversation.
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June 19th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Unauthorized use of work should be a concern to all writers. I recently had one of my short stories from The Truth Is entered (by hand, it would appear) on someone’s website which both flattered and alarmed me. She didn’t claim it as her own, and obviously she liked it or she wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble to put it uup. But she didn’t seem to understand at first that she shouldn’t do it without my permission.
After some back and forth–in which she said she’d bought the book when she was 14, read it then, but only now understood what the stories were about–she gave me a copyright credit in her blog plus info about the book. So I’ll just let it stand as that. Maybe it will sell a book or two, maybe not. But if I didn’t have a Google Alert out for my name I’d never know it happened. Egosurfing has it advantages, perhaps.
Cheers
Mary
June 19th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Hi Mary,
I can understand why you might be concerned if someone made a film of your work for public distribution and a consequent attempt at profit, but why are you alarmed at this Web site “violation”? As you yourself say, she didn’t claim authorship, and she’s not attempting to profit from it, so how is it anything but a lovely instance of your work connecting with your readership? I ask because I’ve had some of my own work (non-fiction) reproduced on other sites without my permission, and it didn’t bother me at all. It seems to me to be the spirit of the enterprise, if you know what I mean. I can understand wanting that click-through to Amazon, but does the little copyright symbol really make you feel more protected?
June 19th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I can’t answer for Mary, but here’s my opinion.
As a creator, I have an intimate relationship with my work. I feel it’s mine. It’s great if someone else likes it enough to try to tell friends about it, but when they make it available to millions without compensating me for my work, they’ve stolen my labour and undermined my earning potential. This isn’t just a commercial issue, although that should be enough. It sends a message to me that, in fact, I’m not valued. Also, since the work is mine, I expect to be asked permission when someone else wants to use it.
I have been trying to explain the concept of someone else’s property to my four year old, who wants to bring home toys from the playground. It amazes me that I have to explain the same concept over and over again on the internet. perhaps I’m the one who’s wrong. Maybe, if I feel like driving a nice new car, I should just find one unlocked on the street and enjoy.
I have been ripped off on the internet not just by ignorant bloggers, but by other writers and publishers – who are supposed to know better. Many times they plead ignorance, many times they claim they’re doing me a favor, and many, many times they tell me they simply don’t agree with copyright law and feel no shame in breaking it.
hard to swallow.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I agree with you, Michel. People should ask permission. Gorch, how would you feel if someone made your novel available for free online? Is this in the spirit of the thing? Which thing? The internet thing? Literary writers make such very little money generally speaking for their art. If a writer wishes to test the waters with his/her own work to see if this online availability generates further sales, then that is another matter; if someone simply assumes they can print a story or make available a pdf of another person’s work, I call that theft, however unintentional.
June 19th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Michel: “undermined my earning potential”? We’re talking about a short story here. What earning potential? Let’s not talk theoretically, let’s talk practically. Will the posting of short story on a blog or Web site really affect your earning potential, and, if so, by how much?
Kathryn: “the spirit of the enterprise” that I was talking about is the spirit of blogging, where a person broadcasts their enthusiasms via their Web log — a great thing, in my opinion; more largely, it’s the open-source ethos of the Internet and the computer-hobbyist clubs that started the whole personal computing revolution. It’s about sharing intellectual property in the hopes of gaining something greater than personal profit. Whether we like it or not, digital distribution is a fact, and it’s unstoppable, so why not consider other business models? Google did, and it seems to be working for them. And anyway, authors and publishers have it better than other arts manufacturers, because, in the end, no one is ever going to consistently print out 200+ sheets of paper, and no one is ever going to read 200+ pages on screen.
We’re never going to see eye to eye on this, I realize, and I really do respect your position, but I don’t share it anymore.
June 19th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
my position is that my legal property is not available for your taking. If you dismiss this, you in fact do not respect my position. If you break the law, well, then, you’re a criminal.
I can’t argue the specifics of how many dollars are involved, because it’s complex and clearly a sidetrack. Theft of a nickel is still theft.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Believe me, Michel, I have no intention of taking your legal property. I’m thinking about this more from an author’s point of view than a consumer’s. And I think you’re crazy to bring down the hammer on someone who appreciates your work, because you run the risk of alienating the very folks who make your career possible. Look what happened to Metallica. Moreover, maybe a bit of online distribution, sanctioned or unsanctioned, might bring more people to your work and make you even more money.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
appreciating my work is one thing. Stealing it is another. You keep sidestepping this. The copyright holder is the legal owner.
My career is not made possible by people who steal my work, it is undermined. Maybe it would lead to sales, but isn’t that for me to decide? I don’t beleive the internet will benefity literary culture the way you do. I beleive the internet will appropriate content without compensation. This, so far, is what is has proven.
If you want to give your work away, go ahead. But don’t insist I have to.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I guess I just don’t understand how posting a short story on a Web site, with credit, is stealing. Because that’s what I originally posted about: a fan of Mary’s posted Mary’s short story online. An equivalent product is not available for purchase. Sure, the collection that contains Mary’s story is available, but the party in question didn’t post the collection. So how is this anything other than an incredible (though admittedly unsanctioned) endorsement for Mary’s work? How is it taking money from her pocket or otherwise diminishing her ability to make a living? Will a reader, having read the story online, say “Well, that’s that then. Now I don’t have to go out and buy Mary’s collection”? I doubt it. More likely, they’ll say “Boy oh boy, that was a fantastic story. This Mary is one fine writer and I’ll have to put her book on my birthday wish-list.”
June 19th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
There seems to be a determined effort to create a gray area in this issue where none exists.
That, “admittedly unsanctioned,” really says all that needs to be said.
The slippery slope we’re on here is dangerous and sad (not to mention just plain rude).
June 19th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
If a blogger wishes to post an entire story online, one that does not belong to the blogger, I fail to see how this is good. Why wouldn’t the blogger instead simply quote a favourite paragraph and endorse the book? Or, if the blogger felt it necessary to post in entirety someone else’s work, why not find the author and ask permission first? Is this so very difficult to do?
I am reminded, too, of a conversation I had once with a Christian missionary in Pakistan who told me that the hospital had been forced to start charging for medicine, though the missionaries were loathe to do so. Why? Because the clients did not believe a freebie would have any effect on their ailments, and so they did not bother taking the medicines, at all.
At least if a person shills for a book, they are invested in reading it through.
I review for the Globe as well as other places. It is not legal to quote at great length from a novel without permission in these venues (or anywhere else). It is copyright infringement. And I strongly believe that it is no great endorsement to have one’s work reprinted online without one’s permission. I have had this experience with non-fiction online and I strongly oppose that, as well. As well as infringing on my copyright, the blogger may be infringing on other previous arrangements with other venues (ie. contracts). It isn’t difficult to ask first, and not asking suggests either ignorance (which is inexcusable) or willful intent to steal, since the blogger clearly thinks the answer might possibly be ‘no thanks’ (and this is clearly inexcusable, as well). There may be other scenarios I am missing, though I can’t imagine what these might be.
June 19th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
I guess we just disagree then. For me, in my opinion, and without attempting to portray the opinions of anyone else, the Internet represents a potentially vast readership that we, as writers, should be trying to court, not to sue or to threaten. For me, it’s an opportunity, not a malefactor. I myself have benefited from the open-source ethos in the form of my anti-virus software, my text editor, some wise and thought-provoking writing, and some excellent music, among many other things. I don’t think it’s so bad, personally.
June 19th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I must be deluded or romantic or crazy, but I just can’t quite internalize the idea that art=commerce, period. Full stop. No grey area.
Technology creates copyright, technology takes it away. We have to deal with that and stay focused on what it is we actually do and why.
The person who posted Mary’s story did it without permission, which is rude for sure, but the idea that this person was thus the equivalent of some shady back-alley pirate is just laughable.
Actually, what’s laughable is that idea that, right now, when our biggest problem is getting anyone to read our books, you all think the threat is coming from the people who actually do.
Why are you all not storming used bookstores and pulling the books from the shelves?
Or is it better to be read than to be right?
June 19th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
“the Internet represents a potentially vast readership that we, as writers, should be trying to court”
We just have to decide for ourselves what we want to offer up to this vast readership. “Admittedly unsanctioned.” That’s the only issue here. If we give up the right to at least be asked there’s no turning back.
I understand what you’re saying, Nathan, but it actually is important to be right.
June 19th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
The “admittedly unsanctioned” use of Mary’s story was a mistake, I don’t argue that.
But that doesn’t make it less flattering and valuable – in the sense of being proud as an artist that someone connected with your work enough, if not in the sense of being properly remunerated.
She clearly didn’t post the story to make a quick buck off a writer’s back, she did it because she really liked it and wanted to share it.
She should have asked, yes. Is it unforgiveable? No.
If you start seeing slippery slopes where there are only stairs, then we really will be doing the ‘Jesus in the temple’ routine with used booksellers before long.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
No, I don’t think so. I have my issues with Amazon being out of stock of my book and processing the transactions to sell a used copy from another dealer, but that’s a different issue.
In this particular case the story was reproduced exactly by a fan – it’s flattering, sure, it may help sell copies of the book. But skipping the step of asking really does open the door to the story being copied incorrectly or partially or with so many other problems.
Sure, it’s forgivable, but it’s part of the problem where far too many people just don’t accept the idea that you own your work, that you have any say over what happens to it once it’s published. It needs to be put squarely in the category of, “that’s just not done.”
Slippery slope, stairs, whatever, I just spent two days on Degen’s blog finding out there are a lot of people who think public domain should start the minute you finish writing your book. I think people have aquired a real taste for free content. We’ll see where it goes.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Geeze, I didn’t realize I’d started such a long thread until I checked back this morning.
Two further comments:
Short stories are often used in high school and college literature courses, to illustrate some point or another. AccessCopyright and Copibec have mechanisms for this use when it involves photocopying, but so far there is no mechanism that I know of for licensing this use. In this case, I don’t know if the story would be suitable for this use, but some of the other stories in the collection (which takes place mostly in the Mile End district of Montreal) would be eminently useful as an illustration, say, of how you can use your own surroundings as background for something you’re writing. So I wonder a little whether having this story so available for cut and paste wouldn’t indeed cut down on future revenue (no matter how small.)
Secondly, copyright grabs for electronic use are nothing new. I’ve been involved in the Electronic Rights Defence Committee’s class action against the Montreal Gazette and others for more than 10 years about just such illegal copying to a data base without permission or compensation. Why has it taken ten years? Well, in part because of delaying tactics on the part of the publishers involved. They thought we’d go away, because they have the deep pockets to pay for hours and hours of legal time. The ERDC doesn’t, but so far we’ve been lucky to have a committed lawyer and some seed money from a Quebec government agency which funds class actions. The little guy in most of these copyright cases is not the consumer but the creator and don’t you forget it.
Mary
June 21st, 2008 at 8:45 am
I believe that it is crucial to educate the public about intellectual rights. To bring in the money issue muddies the waters–we’ll all get sidetracked discussing whether or not there is any likelihood of profit, etctera, when that isn’t the point at all.
I was shocked to discover some early academic articles of mine FOR SALE on an essay service website. When I sent an angry letter demanding that they remove them at once, I was told that it was legal because they had purchased rights to all the old journals from Gage and therefore were the legal owners of the contents, not me!For them, it was completely a money issue–of course, anyone selling essays has no concept of intellectual property in the first place, but we have to use different language if we are to make our point.
June 24th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Copyright infringement and stealing are two separate things. The sooner Michel realizes this, the sooner we’ll take him seriously.
June 24th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
On this subject people seem to have missed the idea that value is accrued to something by the acquiring.
It’s not in the offering, or the giving, or the copying that something has value, it’s in the acquiring. People want to acquire something without paying for it and making some claim that the thing has no value is simply false.
You may not want to call it stealing, but acquiring something that is offered for sale without paying certainly isn’t right.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Joe is fixated in rhetoric. The rest of us are focused on real issues. Joe should consider catching up.
Gorch and Nathan want to convince the rest of us to give away our work online. They argue that doing so would be to our benefit. Fine. But choosing to give it away online is quite different than removing that choice altogether.
Maybe Gorch and Nathan should simply publish their work online for free. Then, rather than trying to convince us that we should follow suit, they could show us why it worked for them. No law prevents anyone from choosing to give their work away — only from acting against those who reproduce and distribute the work of those of us who haven’t so chosen.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:22 am
you don’t have to take me seriously, but you have to decide for yourself whether or not to take the law seriously.
copyfighters are a serious threat, but their arguments are as selfish and greedy as any corporate laywer’s. You people have adopted an inflexible mindset that simply rejects consideration of opposing ideas, putting you squarely in the same camp as any fundamentalist. “I don’t care how my actions affect anyone else, I want it this way!” Serious? Childish.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I’ve argued in and around these issues as a full time job for the last five years. Obviously, I’m very sympathetic to the idea of experimenting with all sorts of digital business models, including giving away your work for free. I’m doing it right now — results still undetermined (lots of downloads, basically no donations, and zero comment on the book itself. Right now I’m thinking I’d have done just as well flushing some of my books — go ahead, I can take it).
But I think that kind of free will experimentation is very different from rampant piracy and the kind of robotic copyfighting rhetoric that is passing for serious argument these days. I have zero sympathy for the “it’s flattering that you lifted my work wholesale” kind of thinking — sorry Nathan, I know we usually agree on things. I’m flattered when someone respects my work and rights, and I really don’t think the longstanding agreed upon basics of copyright are that hard to follow. It’s just become incredibly easy not to have to follow them, and that situation needs some of this kind of public engagement.
Please, really please, do me a favour and visit my blog now and then (link in my name above) where I discuss copyright way more than is good for my sanity. I’d appreciate more commenters like McFetridge here to counter the endless stream of copyleft talking points that follow every posting.
June 26th, 2008 at 10:22 am
I’ve been having an argument with my Dad (god love him) for years, and it always begins when he offers me a pirated copy of a movie he’s downloaded from a filesharing site. I always refuse it, with varying degrees of explanation. I find it an odd place to be in relationship to him, who I’ve always regarded as a man of integrity and a strong work ethic.
I have tried, in various ways, to convince him that just because he can take it from the internet doesn’t mean it’s right, even asking him (who was a finance guy for meat packing company for years) if it would be OK for someone to take a package of sausages from the back of an open truck. But so far I’ve failed to convince him that something that can be downloaded from the internet is a product with value.
And there’s the rub. I’ve been a freelance journalist long enough to remember when Thompson Group started putting the Globe online without asking for permission or paying its contributors. The freelancers won the class-action suit they brought against Thompson but the victory was Pyrrhic, as anyone who writes for any media today knows. Thompson and others just wrote new contracts. There’s no value in what’s online, goes the argument.
I’m heartened to see the number of people reading books on public transit. This is something we still want, as a society, and while I’m not crazy about the draconian lockdown measures being proposed, artists need to be paid. As long as there are people like my dad who think that if it’s on the internet it’s OK to take it, we’re gonna have to impose limits that assign value to these ephemeral digits.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Yes. We have to find some way to continue the centuries old tradition of applying value to things on the acquisition end. Somehow we’ve lost this with the online economy.
People created something with the intent of offering it for sale. People acquired it because they value it in some way.
I want to start a movement, “Steal the iPod – buy the art!”
You know, if we’re all anti-multinationals and pro-art and all.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
John, I love your movement idea. I’d be happy to steal an iPod from that brainwashing coporate cult, but every place where they stock them has people and cameras watching to stop me from putting one in my pocket and walking out. This is a clear violation of my consumer rights, I’m sure all you copyfighters will agree.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I guess we’ve come a long way from the Berne convention or is it still in effect? I was familiar with that one. America is on the long march to meet Mao somewhere in the desert of humanity, but copyright was acceptable to me the way it was, I’m not familiar with the music applications of it. For writing, it belonged to the artist (unless it was otherwise signed away) for a bunch of years long after the artists’ death, going to his estate. I think Warhol created a corporation and an estate within that to protect his heirs. I think of it somewhat differently then passing on a diamond ring, real estate or savings bonds to the next generation. There’s been a tradition, more than just a fashion or a trend to pass on ideas and print unfettered. Even patent ideas on inventions eventually expire. A story is chemically and physically different than a tractor with a license of ownership. That same story can be presented in so many different forms. That tractor will remain the same tractor until it rusts or is dismantled to no memory. Don’t let the accountants turn us away from our true selves as arrogant and conceited enough to want to last forever as opposed to expiring like worthless shares. I guess it ranks because it seems so socialistic or communistic to say, “Hey, you’ve had that property long enough you Dickens. You don’t own it anymore.” We don’t do that with too much other property I don’t think.
The internet has turned out to be a fairly simple thing to police. If they want to prevent music downloads or fine people for doing so, they will. The net I suppose is as significant to communication as the rotary press. As an aside, I’m still not convinced that the sound quality of an eight track tape is better than a CD. I think the originators’ estate should have ownership for the first fifty years after the artists’ death maybe longer but limited. The author borrowed enough ideas, emotions and drama from the humanity around him and there comes a time to give it back so as not to be indecent.
Were public domain to start at inception then it would put a whole different slant on slander and libel perhaps. Maybe that would belong to everyone too and not the originator. I think the way it was also kept the originator responsible for their actions. When it comes to accurate reporting of facts where they have impact on peoples’ lives it’s nice if you can go back on the creator and demand justice if it was wrong. If it’s in the public domain and doesn’t belong to the artist/originator anymore and has been printed all over the place how can you rationally bring the originator to account? There’s my two cents worth, copyright Spanner McNeil. June 26, 2008 (laughter)
June 26th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I can get behind a good conspiracy theory, too, I just think those guys at Appropriation Art with their 51st State comic book have the wrong future fear.
There’s a struggle for control of the content going on, for sure, but it’s not between some evil American companies that control copyrighted material (that they bought from the creators) and some little guy freedom fighters out to make sure if you buy that CD you can damned well copy it to however many iPods you want.
This fight is between the traditinal holders of copyright and the new delivery system of the material. Some people have been duped.
It would just be so much easier for companies that deliver content online to be able to deliver it all without worrying where it comes from or who owns it. Pretending it has no value is silly after you’ve paid a fee to access it. So, wouldn’t it be great if that once a month fee got you everything? Wow, people would sure sign up for that!
The content is never free, we just pay a different source. All artists want is for that source to cut us in for a tiny, tiny bit.
July 4th, 2008 at 5:37 am
In related news, I’ve been wondering when somebody would blow the whistle on YouTube content. A judge ruled yesterday against Google (YouTube) in a suit begun in 2006 (click the link on my name), but it’s far from over.
Of course whether any of this trickles down to the creator is another story.
July 8th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Alright, I read the bill 61 and its amendments. As far as I can tell it burns the musician after 50 years…so did that just kick the shit out of the value of the Beatles’ catalog? This is all still part of the Berne convention with amends. If anything it reinforces the law against bootlegging and piracy. So long as your site says that you don’t give up ownership of the material it’s still yours to control and profit from exclusively. You still own the book rights fifty years after death. After that you are part of history and the collective consciousness. It’s clear by this Bill, as far as I can see, that the written creation is totally yours and yours to pass on and control. It’s clear if someone legitimately buys a copy of your book and wants to transcribe it to a disc to read on his computer he can but he can not legally dump it on the internet and both he and the server would be clearly libel to this copyright infringement. If someone uploads a book it’s not for their own sole use anymore and the author no longer has control over its presentation. That’s illegal and those people will get busted the same as university profs did once a year at Concordia and McGill when the RCMP hung around the photocopy places to reinforce copyright. Many profs get busted photocopying chapters without permission. The law may be weak in its enforcement but the way I read the Bill it’s intention is to allow the creator to have control and revenue. People giving it away online are not only infringing on the creators moral right but also a potential legitimate revenue base. The Crown has a strong interest in being able to tax a legitimate revenue, I think this Bill reflects that. What is happening is that creators have not been spending five hundred dollars to make a statement of claim and filing civil charges regarding the new electronic medium. Ripping off within the electronic press will become as rare as ripping off in the paper print medium. Unless I read the Bill wrong it protects writers the same as before and screws musicians big time. Warner Brothers stands as much to gain or lose regarding the paper press as some kid with a photocopy machine and a heartbeat. I think it spells out no more free downloads of musicians songs in Canada at least not legally. No? Am I reading it wrong? Blogs thrive on ripping off artists. If a few got nailed for it perhaps it would strengthen the ground for magazines and periodicals. Got five hundred bucks?
If someone uploads a book it’s not for their own sole use anymore and the author no longer has control over its presentation.That’s illegal and those people will get busted the same as university profs did once a year at Concordia and McGill when the RCMP hung around the photocopy places to reinforce copyright. Many profs get busted photocopying chapters without permission. The law may be weak in its enforcement but the way I read the Bill it’s intention is to allow the creator to have control and revenue. People giving it away online are not only infringing on the creators moral right but also a potential legitimate revenue base. The Crown has a strong interest in being able to tax a legitimate revenue, I think this Bill reflects that. What is happening is that creators have not been spening five hundred dollars to make a statement of claim and filing civil charges in the new electronic medium. Ripping off within the electronic press will become as rare as ripping off in the paper print medium. Unless I read the Bill wrong it protects writers the same as before and screws musicians.
July 8th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
only a true crank would read the legislation before arguing about it. My hat is off to you, sir.
Here’s my take: writers don’t have much to fear from this. Writers have more to fear from illiteracy, which the internet promotes. I don’t think idiots who want to read novels on screen are likely to buy them even if they’re easily available. Paper is the medium of literature, and that’s not going to change (things around it might change, like the expense, distribtion and general availability, but that’s off-topic).
Piracy is pretty much the domain of those who thrill to get something for nothing. They’re not part of the market. The real world is worried about something else. There are a range of choices.
July 8th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
You’re wrong, Michel – papyrus is the medium of literature. You simply can’t replace the tactile pleasures of a scroll. Folios and binding are a passing fad, part of our mania for new technology that works and is useful.
And literature is the only form of writing that exists, and certainly the only texts people are pirating. Which is why Bittorrent sites are filled with the latest Roths and Atwoods.
Here’s a question though: what do you call people who resell books without the approval of their authors, and who pocket 100% of the profits?
Used booksellers.
Another one: what do you call people who decide a book is worthless after a certain (often cruelly short) period of time and sell it off to wholesalers as a remaindered title so that it may be sold at a massive discount with no further royalties flowing to the author?
Publishers.
But you are right about one thing in your comment on a popular book blog that often links to the work of others so that it may be read free of charge: only the illiterate read things online. And irony is dead.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
USED BOOKSELLERS – I know I speak for every literate human when I say all authors approve of used booksellers reselling their books for 100% profit. It’s the authors’ positive one time big deal massive sabre rattling cosmic belch galaxy smashing electric purple overwhelming rainbow wet dream in life, their whole reason for being, their calling, the reason for all those bottles and hastily stuffed suitcases, crappy credit ratings and those fantastic Ernest scars gained from running big fish and bulls that their book should be sold second hand and that two complete strangers should touch the cover and maybe maybe speak two words about it. That was probably their first reason to lick a stamp. I know I speak for all with no exceptions. There isn’t one author that could disagree with this. It sure as snowshoes can’t be the cash. Maybe I’m wrong but then that would be the first time. I love you.
July 8th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
That’s pretty funny stuff nathan, except the part where I didn’t get it. Seriously, I chuckled amiably and then got lost. I couldn’t tell if you’d stopped insulting me or not.
I don’t know, people seem to get uspet when I post stuff that I routinely say in my personal life. Maybe everyone I know is a crank, or everybody’s just putting up with me. But all the Ninjas seem to think I’m insulting them personally. Don’t worry, I’ll save that for the reviews.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Michel: I wasn’t insulting you, I was poking fun of your argument. I do that all the time in my personal life, too. Even cranks gotta laugh. If you no laugh, you cry, as an ethnic stereotype I once worked with told me.
I’m pointing out that all the lines drawn in the sand, and all the cries of “I will not submit!” when it comes to internet piracy of books is just silly because A) it’s not our books they want – would that it were, but it’s not, so this is all Piracy Envy, and B) if you really can’t stand the idea of someone making your stuff available without your being properly compensated, then talk to your publisher. And the used bookstore down the street. Most of the new scenarios for file sharing and whatnot involve no money changing hands. Doesn’t mean it’s all okay, but it complicates the matter. Otherwise, turn yourself in for all those mix tapes you made and gave to friends in high school.
Used sales and remaindered sales, on the other hand, involve actual cash transactions, and none of that cash goes back to you. I can live with that, and if you can, too, then all the rest is bluster.
Spanner: uh, what?
July 9th, 2008 at 6:31 am
oh. but that _was_ my argument. (A)