Law and reality in publishing (seldom the same thing) from the author's side of the slush pile, with occasional forays into military affairs, censorship and the First Amendment, legal theory, and anything else that strikes me as interesting.
Just a couple of items today, then back to the paper mines.
One note about the Google Book Search settlement, beyond my imprecation yesterday to actually make a decision, guys: Nobody is really talking about the elephant in the room. I won't analyze it in public before the opt-out deadline Friday... except by pointing at it. Note that said elephant creates an inherent, unresolvable conflict between the Author Sub-Class and the Publisher Sub-Class.
Will Tony Stark try to take Cinderella on a date (perhaps going seven for seven with Disney princesses?) now that Disney is absorbing Marvel? Or, perhaps, will the history of shoddy recordkeeping at Marvel — not to mention an intervening bankruptcy, let alone the dubious constitutionality of work-for-hire ownership of characters as practiced in the comic segment of the publishing industry, particularly under the 1976 Act — mean that the real winners here will be the lawyers?
... is this Friday, 04 September 2009, unless again extended by the Court (a distinct possibility, but will depend upon the results of the fairness hearing in October, so don't count on it).
If you want to opt out, you need to do so one of two ways:
Do the form once for books and once for "inserts" (independent works printed in another book)
Use the conformed Library of Congress catalog entry for the author name wherever possible (and if you have a common name/pseudonym, include a link to the LoC search result, preferably as a tinyurl)
Contrary to the implications on the opt-out form, you need not (and probably should not) list specific items by title, unless you have taken appropriate legal counsel and, after considering that counsel and your particular circumstances, are opting out for some items but remaining in for others
Also contrary to the mealymouthed language on the form, you should not check the block at the bottom requesting that Google contact you, but do check the block second from the bottom requesting that Google not digitize your books/works-included-in-books
Not wait until the last moment — the system does not appear very robust
Send a signed, paper opt-out request — preferably certified, return-receipt-requested or tracked Priority Mail — to the settlement administrator
Google Book Search Settlement Administrator c/o Rust Consulting PO Box 9364 Minneapolis, MN 55440-9364
that is postmarked on or before 04 September 2009; states whether you're a member of the "author sub-class" or the "publisher sub-class"; unambiguously identifies the author/publisher being opted out (see above); and is signed by a person specifically authorized to do so.
No one may charge you a fee for merely providing the opt-out service unless that person/business entity is a regular representative (e.g., your literary agent, your lawyer).
If you do not understand the ramifications of the settlement for your works, you should seek counsel now. If you cannot get counsel by the deadline, you should make a conscious decision to either opt out or stay in the settlement based on what you do know; letting this just pass by is not in your economic interest.
This is not legal advice for any particular person or situation. I think this settlement makes almost no economic sense for anyone, so on a "bad deal" basis I believe that authors should opt out... but that's an individual decision. I think this settlement makes even less legal sense, but it's quite technical (and, as noted, not legal advice, but legal commentary).
PW shock horror: an editorial criticizing the publishing industry that almost makes sense. With all due respect to Mr Rushkoff — and he's due some respect for having the balls to say what he said in the first place — he has missed a more fundamental problem: Counterfactual management theory driven by the relentless quarterly report.
One of the main challenges for all nonmanufacturing businesses is that they still must comply with the requirements of the Securities Act and Securities Exchange Act, whether because they're required to do so because they issue securities or because that's what the finance and insurance industries require of them as a one-step-removed imperative. It's trivial, though, to demonstrate that a quarterly report is inappropriate for nonmanufacturing businesses... and downright misleading for a business that inherently has noncomparable products every quarter, let alone year-over-year. Somehow, though, the noncomparability of the numbers generated in modern accounting has escaped notice, probably because they're numbers; it's quite similar to arguments not over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but over the relative values of pins A and B based on their respective angel populations at the end of the third quarter.1
Modern physics and chemistry have offered two lessons about reality that have been explicitly rejected by management theory. The first — Heisenberg's principle — is definitely more difficult to evade: That measuring an event at the quantum (individual particle) level affects the measurable quantities that one is attempting to measure. In physics, this means that measuring the velocity ("speed" and "direction", although it's a bit more complicated than that) of, say, an electron, will affect the actual location of that electron — and vice versa.2 This comes from the interaction between the measuring device/method and the particle being examined. It's not quite the same thing as an editor adjusting his/her choices of what to publish on an individual book basis because he/she knows that it's not his/her entire list's performance over three years that will be scrutinized by management, but each individual decision every quarter... but it's close.
This comparison implies the second lesson that management theory rejects: That a system's overall behavior cannot be predicted by examining individual particles in that system and summing their individual behaviors. The crucial lesson that the study of chemical equilibrium (primarily extensions of classical thermodynamics, so the math really isn't all that hairy)3 offers is that a reaction in a non-isolated, non-closed system — which publishing certainly is, and arguably every nonmanufacturing business is — depends at least as much on the overall reaction environment as it does on the characteristics of the reactants and products... especially when considering unwanted side reactions, activated complexes, and a variety of other aspects; and most especially when considering that no reaction occurs in 100% of reactants in a given time t that is shorter than the heat-death of the universe.
Mr Rushkoff's description of how conglomerates work, and the way they are driven by the imperative of (in his terms) "servic[ing] their shareholders by servicing debt more rapidly than they accrue it," should remind those with any real knowledge of thermodynamics, or even of the history of science during the mid-Industrial Age, of a bit of hypothetical daemonology:4Maxwell's Daemon. Leaving aside that one instance of Maxwell's Daemon would contradict the Second Law of Thermodynamics — which is both inherently counterintuitive and nonobserved! — one must remember that a conglomerate does not operate in a vacuum: That is, every conglomerate (or perhaps every bean-counter at a given conglomerate) is, itself, an instance of the Daemon. In turn, this means that an excessive spawning of Daemons in a system (whether or not closed or isolated) is both inherently inefficient and self-defeating. All of which leads right back to Mr Rushkoff's initial point: That the presence of the Daemons/accounting models in a nonmanufacturing system — his examples are recorded music and publishing, but (to quote too many math, physics, and chemistry professors) extending it to other systems is trivial and left as an exercise for the student — is actually inimical to the system itself over sufficiently large t. And the irony that a system based on comparisons over slices of time fails precisely when one gets enough different slices of t to have statistical validity is both typical of human endeavor and deliciously ironic.
I am not saying that quarterly reports are therefore evil; they are probably a necessary evil, because the alternative (nondisclosure, and/or nonuniform accounting methods described without sufficient detail only in the footnotes of reports and in response to IRS inquiries) is at least as bad. I am only saying that the mandated-disclosure system has its costs, too, and not just in the armies of accountants required to implement it — and that those costs are disproportionate in nonmanufacturing businesses.
More disturbingly, a sufficiently energetic probe can, at least in theory, influence whether it is an electron at all by changing spin, forcing rearrangement of other particles, causing collision with another particle (resulting, potentially, in fission or fusion), etc. This does occur in business, too: Look what happens to productivity and morale when a business is responding to discovery requests in a securities-fraud lawsuit.
The implications of the publishing/classical thermodynamics relationship for the rise of steampunk are left as an exercise for the student. Cf., e.g., Ken Wharton, "Boltzmann's Ghost."
"Daemon," not "demon," because it's actually a mere process; the anthropomorphism implied in Maxwell's paper incorrectly implies the necessity of a conscious choice.
Nay weep not [...] for thy Brother's crimes;
O gen'rous Boy, thou shar'st but half his blood,
Yet lov'st beyond the kindness of a Brother.
But I'll reward thy Vertue. Follow me.
My Lord, you wait the King who comes resolv'd
To quit the Toils of Empire, and divide
His Realms amongst his Daughters, Heaven succeed it,
But much I fear the Change.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet; and political nepotism remains mere fertilizer, the odious product and end of the mastication of the land's bounty.
* * *
Yup. We revolutionary Murikans have sure done away with the trappings of nobility and the abuses of English government. No sign of that over here. My disgust for the perversion of process outweighs my respect from my general agreement with the substance of Senator Kennedy's stated positions.
Substitute "Springfield" for "Washington" and that's about right.
What screen resolution makes sense for your webpage or blawg/blog? A Seattle company provides some data of dubious applicability (snurched from RightReading) that can be reanalyzed. The main problem is that the data leaves out a key variable: What browser is being used at the different screen sizes. For example, were I to repurpose this blawg for the lowest screen resolution covered, I'd want to know whether those users were using a fully CSS-compliant browser (that is, almost anything except Internet Exploder and Safari).
What this really points to, though, is the problem with "standards" for electronic devices. Anyone who has done extensive overseas travel can commiserate — problems ranging from cellphone signals to the power outlets are just the beginning; the less said about character sets (and yes, I'm talking to you, Monster of Cupertino), the better. Isolated US-based users need not apply to any committee responsible for setting workable standards, though...
Are CDs on the way out? The Toronto Globe & Mail has jumped the shark bandwagon and claimed so, at least for classical music. Perhaps this is the time that there really is a wolf, but I doubt it for a very simple reason: The comparative (perceived) fragility of nonphysical media, which is a particular issue for classical music fans (who still rely on vinyl for many "definitive" recordings). Meanwhile, nobody is paying all that much attention to the output devices... which largely haven't advanced in a decade or more. Yeah, one can get "more channels", but they're still being played through crappy little speakers in rooms with random acoustics.
As if anyone needs further proof that there is no monolithic "publishing industry," consider this breathless piece from the New York Observer touting "jacketless hardbacks" as the next new thing. Maybe it's new to trade fiction... but it's standard now in educational publishing, and has been for three decades. Even when I was in college, self-covers on casebound books (note the difference in terminology?) were not just common, but virtually universal; I remember all the bitching as the LSD-inspired cover of the new edition of the multivariate calculus textbook (which, BTW, was largely considered by everyone except its author — who, naturally enough, was chair of the math department — as a piece of garbage) made it impossible for students to save money by buying used textbooks. On the other hand, maybe my own struggles with the class (bonus: I had a fresh-out-of-grad-school instructor who didn't learn how to teach until about ten weeks into the semester) make the memory more irritating; the other two expensive textbooks that memorable freshman year — new editions for organic chemistry and physics — were also self-covers, although not in as eye-straining a way.
In any event, the bonus is this: The publisher of that calculus textbook was the same conglomerate as that of one of the three novels mentioned in the lede of the Observer story. So calling any of this "new" is more than a bit of a stretch.
In a truly astounding display of hubris and bad logic, Robert Wright opines that religious doctrine and science should just all get along because they don't really conflict. Leaving aside the unanswerable question — unanswerable if only because the language used to state it presupposes a definitive result — of "why" v. "how" as the foundation for understanding the universe, the "pro-religion" point of view depends upon an unsound premise: That an acceptable framework for understanding "the universe" accounts for unknown data, mechanisms, etc. ab initio, and does not itself evolve. (The less said about how to choose among various religious doctrines, the better.)
Late-breaking news bulletin: Hollywood is abandoning "adult" fare for kid-oriented visual extravaganzas. Leaving aside that this has been going on for at least thirty years, it ignores the converse trend in the opposite direction. Quickly: Is a Pixar film or another warmed-over Disney animation more likely to be a box-office success? <SARCASM> Maybe it's just that kids read more than do Hollywood executives (Harry Potter being a pretty substantial tip of the iceberg), so they can "tolerate" more story in their audiovisual entertainment. Or, perhaps, it's just more union-busting... since the union status of special-effects geeks is far less of an issue than is that for the writers, however pathetic the WGA is as a "union." <SARCASM>
As this video excerpt demonstrates, it's important to know your audience. In this instance, the dining-room table accused a speaker of supporting a "Nazi policy" while forgetting that the speaker in question is both Jewish and an acknowledged — hell, avowed and proud of it — homosexual.
Is Russia haunted by Stalin's ghost? Is it something in the "Russian character" (if it exists); something in the "human character" (if it exists); or something else entirely, such as a cultural return to the only method of governance they've known for ten centuries in the face of uncertainty?
It'll take a lot more than hocking the jewelry of the new rulers to fund an expedition to Mars... but this article implies that going to Mars is the same sort of thing.
So, then, how much is that brand worth, anyway? How typical of accounting rules to create a cost for everything ("goodwill") in a bit of circular reasoning (the real "value" of a company must always equal — never exceed or fall short of — its capitalization).
Last, and far from least, there's the identity of gamers. Now, I may be a coffee-swilling civil procedure geek from the Pacific Northwet who could certainly stand to lose a few pounds, but I'm not a video gamer. For one thing, I'm much too old to be covered by this flawed study; for another, my gaming has seldom involved videos (or computers/AIs, most of which lack the tactical and strategic sophistication of the average houseplant). If [insert deity here] had meant us to play video games, It wouldn't have decreed combat results tables, polyhedral dice, or character sheets!
Besides, Felicia Day is a gamer.
Disclosure: As a policy matter in my capacity as a nonvoting member, but not as legal advice (since I'm not the designated counsel), I made recommendations to SFWA almost as soon as the settlement was proposed making these very points.
An academic study on the whys, wherefores, hows — and flaws — of alternate and secret histories is just mindbogglingly reflexive in its own implications for a secret history of books reviews. And that's only part of the fun!
This points out the dubious theoretical position of the "derivative works" doctrine in copyright law. In many — arguably most — respects, protection of elements of a literary1 works, such as a character (e.g., "Rusty" Sabich) or setting (e.g., Scott Turow's alternate/secret history construct of Kindle County) ends up "looking" a lot more like trademark law than it does copyright law. This is probably as it should be, as what we're really considering is the validity of the referent — in overly legalistic terms, the propriety of designation of origin — and not the actual expression copied. On the other hand, the elements of characters, and to a slightly lesser extent setting, are both themselves substantially more dependent on the quality, manner, and nature of expression in the underlying work for their potential value to a copier in the first place, meaning that more of the language (expression) will implicitly get copied, even if it's just rhythm and sentence structure. The less said about who really owns these marks, the happier the industrial interests will be.
From a more literary-theory perspective, though, there's another problem: The difference between honoring (and learning from) and emulating. I enjoyed reading Jane Austen's novels (I am, after all, someone who reads Göthe, Schiller, Pynchon, and Gaddis for fun). My picture is in a leading dictionary next to "obsessive reader".2 I wouldn't even dream of emulating Austen; we've learned an awful lot about how prose works (and doesn't), and how storytelling works (and doesn't), since her time. Austen is worthy of respect, and writers should learn from her. She is not an appropriate model for emulation, however; and there's a lot of explanation of why in some of the better-written literary theory that is available in book form.
While it may be a universal truth that an author with a blank sheet in front of her is always in pursuit of a manuscript, that does not mean that she must of necessity marry her efforts to the first gentlememe that crosses her path. Many of those most attractive gentlememes will prove to be impecunious, or vainglorious, or worst of all already being courted — even married, perhaps, or for some other reason not truly eligible. Young Mister Caulfield, for example, has a notoriously overbearing father who will not give permission for authors to do more than dance a bit with him, not to mention that he has a truly vile and callow personality and far less money than society ascribes to him.
The two preceding items, in their own ways, concern mythmaking in modern society. To see mythmaking in action, look no farther than advice on nutrition... or, in this wonderfully titled piece dripping with multiple levels of irony, e-book evangelism.
The American conservative movement rejects Rawls's preconditions for justice. It really is that simple.
This is not to say that Rawls is some kind of gospel that cannot be criticized; for one thing, his hypothesis ignores some biological imperatives toward giving one's offspring advantages. However, what the conservative movement forgets is that the original position and its corollary, the veil of ignorance, must always be considered in developing an appropriate system. They are not, themselves, determinative, though — and that is the problem the conservative movement has, because it is unable to distinguish between "consider" and "determine."
In the context of the healthcare debate, the conservative movement's position is that the original position of its members reflects not just the ideal to which we must aspire, but the original position of society. A tour of any Third World major city would quickly disabuse them of that notion, with the endemic communicable disease. The obvious rejoinder — that's them, not the great and good U S of A — could be refuted with a trip through Appalachia or the east side of Houston, but that's not going to do much good, either... because, ultimately, the conservative position is not fact-based, but doctrine-based. It may be a pathetic, internally inconsistent doctrine, but it's what they've got.
This is not to say that nonliterary forms of copyright don't matter; it is only to say that their nature makes it a lot harder to succinctly state the theoretical argument. Since this is not a law review article (yet) — for one thing, there should already be at least ten footnotes preceding this one — I won't make this any harder than it needs to be. Especially on a Monday morning.
Or it should be. In some secret, or alternate, history, it certainly is.
The video on the right is also — unintentionally — a window into the fair use problem. Does Spinal Tap itself count as a parody, or is it a satire? If it is, in fact (or at least in law, since in fact it clearly is), a parody, how many levels of parody count as fair use? How about the dubious idea of "transformativeness"? Where does self-parody enter into this? Most important of all, how many law review articles can I get out of this?
By staying in, an author allows Google to display the book. Forever. For $50 (or less for an "insert" — chapter or short story). This will also set the price if anyone else comes along wanting to do the same thing. And, arguably, if there are any trademark rights tied up in this (such as a unique character or setting), it will bar enforcement of the mark.
By opting out, an author prohibits Google from displaying the book. The author may then sue for a minimum of $750 in statutory damages — probably trebled for willful infringement — plus attorney's fees... and Google has admitted to the infringements. Google might try to claim "fair use," but copying an entire work almost never constitutes fair use (particularly without transformation of the content).
Meanwhile, in Europe the deal is getting more and more scrutiny, with less and less approval (and that's just the publishers!).
Of course, the Authors['] Guild is claiming that William Morris's concerns are bogus. I'd say that the AG's rejoinder is bogus... but it isn't that good, as it reflects considerable ignorance of copyright (and trademark) law, of civil procedure, of international law, and of publishing industry practices. Some "authoritative voice"!
Here's a thought on the whole health-care reform issue:
Health-care reform is the first step toward real tort reform.
Why? Because we already pay for the health problems of the uninsured: In increased costs for the insured, in taxes for government programs, in lower productivity from the sick, in public health problems. Assuming that "tort reform" isn't just code for "somebody else should pay, and I deserve to be a free rider" — that's a big assumption, admittedly, but I'll pretend to ascribe honorable intentions to the proponents of health reform; there are, after all, serious abuses in the tort system (just not always the ones the tort reformers point to) — aren't we all better off with knowing what the bill actually is? We can then engage in the cost-benefit analysis so fondly worshipped by accountants everywhere... the same style of cost-benefit analysis that brought us the Ford Pinto gas tank.
Despite the sarcastic tone of the preceding paragraph, I'm perfectly serious. In economic terms, it's called "internalizing a negative externality." However, the whole point of modern management philosophy is to keep everything negative externalized, so it doesn't exactly fit what MBAs, securities analysts, and accountants propose. Nor does it fit the cartoon at the top of this entry.
... but not the symptom, this weekend of Anticipation (2009's World Science Fiction Convention) in Montreal.
Fallout from the ghostwritten science articles I noted: A medical professor demonstrates — using social networking theory — that the review article requires further review for its scientific value. This would be bad enough if it was limited to science — more than bad enough — but it's not. "Yellowcake," anyone? Or how about corporations as "persons"... which is based entirely on a remark in the syllabus of a 140-year-old Supreme Court case (a nonofficial part of the opinion prepared by the Reporter of Decisions)?
You say tomato, and I say this is an interesting demonstration of the value of biological diversity... combined with the converse of the invasive species problem. It's perhaps a cautionary tale for interstellar colonists, too.
Congratulations to the Reno bid for the 2011 World Science Fiction Convention. Although it helps to win an election if you're the only candidate that followed the rules to get on the ballot, it wouldn't be the first time that the SMOFs had decided otherwise... so I guess I start thinking about Nevada in a couple of years.
Here are my simultaneously grouchy and sincere congratulations to all of the Hugo Award finalists. They're grouchy because, in the final analysis, Roberts was right, Scalzi and cohorts were wrong, and a popular vote doesn't select the "best" of anything — particularly for an Australian ballot, which is designed to produce the least objectionable result from among those possible. They're sincere because it's an accomplishment indeed making enough fen love your work enough to get onto the ballot. In any event, this year's winners include (my idiosyncratic choice of which categories to list; fuller list available shortly at the official site):
Although officially "not a Hugo," the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer went to David Anthony Durham — he'll look absolutely fabulous in the official tiara.
The Hugo for Long-Form Editor went to David G. Hartwell of Tor, who is also Editor Guest of Honor at Anticipation.
The Hugo for Short-Form Editor went to Ellen Datlow, currently of SyFy, but mostly a freelance anthologist.
And then it's time to watch a really bad network science fiction show. The two hours last week of Defying Gravity were excruciating... but I'll give it one more chance, if only to watch all the cop-show alumni (and alumnae) struggle with the idea of a closed environment.
Congratulations to Justice-designate Sonia Sotomayór, who in the past few minutes was confirmed 68–31 by the Senate (Senator Kennedy didn't vote "on account of illness").
On one tentacle, this is good news because the Court is back to full strength in time for the new Justice to fully participate in the rehearing of Citizens United before the new Term starts in October. On another tentacle, this is not-so-good news because Justice-designate Sotomayór has shown at best indifference, and frequently disdain, for the rights of the actual creators of intellectual property; here's hoping that she can be educated. On yet another tentacle, this is bad news because there still isn't a scientist or engineer on the Court, despite the increasingly technological context of the cases that appear in front of it.
What I'm waiting for is the first wingnut post claiming that this is a sign of the forthcoming apocalypse because she was confirmed on the sixty-fourth anniversary of Hiroshima. Somebody, somewhere, will make that claim; this is, after all, the internet age.
Before jumping into the sausage grinder, a little historical note:
Remember the so-called plot patent (what the applicant called a "storyline patent")? The examiner rejected the application1 on August 28, 2008 because it did not consist of patentable subject matter — one of the two objections I noted. The applicant has appealed, of course, and that appeal is in process. If the appeal is granted, though, we'll be back to the question of prior art... and there, I think, the applicant has little chance, given that the examiner has yet to consider prior art, and my little note above (which the applicant refused to cite to the PTO) cites prior art against the proposal. Remember, patents have to be new ("novel") discoveries or processes... and the existence of the awful Total Recall demonstrates that the particular process embodied in the '844 application is not new (as patent law understands that term). There is a huge difference between process and product in patent law. More when this becomes even more final yet... in about six more months, give or take.
One good argument for healthcare reform: BigPharma pays ghostwriters to create "scientific literature" supporting its products. OK, that doesn't sound so bad by itself, does it? Really: Leaving aside their handwriting, most physicians are crappy writers. It makes some sense to have "good writers" turn the research into decent — or at least readable — prose, doesn't it? Well... not exactly.
The ghostwritten papers were typically review articles, in which an author weighs a large body of medical research and offers a bottom-line judgment about how to treat a particular ailment. The articles appeared in 18 medical journals, including The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and The International Journal of Cardiology.
The articles did not disclose Wyeth’s role in initiating and paying for the work. Elsevier, the publisher of some of the journals, said it was disturbed by the allegations of ghostwriting and would investigate....
A spokesman for Wyeth said that the articles were scientifically accurate and that pharmaceutical companies routinely hired medical writing companies to assist authors in drafting manuscripts.
The court documents provide a detailed paper trail showing how Wyeth contracted with a medical communications company to outline articles, draft them and then solicit top physicians to sign their names, even though many of the doctors contributed little or no writing. The documents suggest the practice went well beyond the case of Wyeth and hormone therapy, involving numerous drugs from other pharmaceutical companies.
(typography corrected; hyperlinks removed; fake paragraphing removed for clarity)
This is also at least somewhat relevant — if, admittedly, much less important — to a common publishing-industry practice: The undisclosed ghostwriter for a celebrity memoir. At least in those instances, though, the publicly stated author (the celebrity) knows what's going on, usually from the start, and has more involvement than putting his/her name on the final manuscript... and, frankly, the subject matter doesn't concern medical treatment. In an abstract sense, it echoes "false statement of origin" in trademark law — a theory seldom, if ever, applied anywhere in the entertainment industry (except, perhaps, to Milli Vanilli).
News that the EU is trying to force the US to adopt EU quasicopyright law by threatening to sue over performance rights isn't exactly news — this has been coming for a long time. The real problem is that later payment for "performance" of a copyrighted work is not actually copyright, nor is it required by the Berne Convention. It is a coordinate right, true enough. (And, of course, a "victory" will not actually put one damned dollar/Euro in the pockets of the actual artists... excepting a few Uncle Tom-ish collaborators with the industry structures.)
As further proof that bankruptcy attorney's don't know squat about intellectual property, a number of them are claiming that photographer Annie Liebovitz may have better luck in bankruptcy than in fighting a lawsuit regarding late mortgage payments. Those schmucks have obviously never tried to determine proper ownership of the rights to a work that may (or may not) have been through a bankruptcy proceeding...
The Observer — looking for something to overhype on a slow news day in the publishing industry — is claiming that publishers intend to enforce deadlines. Yeah, right. Here's a tiny little hint for you: The contract language in the typical publishing contract doesn't support it; neither, for that matter, does the commercial custom of the relevant industry (which is, as a matter of New York law, part of the contract); and, most importantly, the publishers' own inadherence to deadlines and other time requirements equitably estops them from claiming that the deadline really matters. I'd love to litigate the right case... especially in the instance of true force majeure.
Over the years, I've noticed that the field of literature has a great deal of difficulty distinguishing "process" from "product"... and this is just another example. The obvious rejoinder is that this isn't about literature, but about fan awards; that rejoinder, however, just makes my point for me, and circles back around to comments on the "plot patent" at the top of this post.
Unfortunately, the PTO system includes a Captcha botscreen, so I can't give a link — only instructions. The relevant documents can be reached by going first to the Patent Application Information Retrieval search page (via the Captcha), then selecting "publication number" and entering "20050244804" (without the quotation marks) in the box. Once you're at the screen, select the "image file wrapper" tab, and it will list documents available for download as PDF files — but not direct viewing on screen — in most-recent date order.
PW is on the block — again. This can't help being a good thing; it will keep the staff nervous, and perhaps looking a little bit harder at those press releases they so blithely reprint, even if the sale doesn't go through. Then there's the principle problem with Reed: It's a monopolist that refuses to allow serious discussion of the "m" word in any of its "covering the trade" publications, regardless of the trade. Finally, and perhaps most important, a new owner just might mean an affordable per-issue cost for the people who actually need the information (potentially) contained in the magazine!
There is a sad literati mythology of "authorial style" that neglects a critical part of the publishing process: editing. That this sort of tale might be impossible today because editors don't get enough time or resources to actually edit creates some interesting questions... extending even into copyright law and droit d' auteur, because it just might make an editor as pervasively intrusive as Mr Lish a joint author, with all of the legal complications that would create.
Robert Pinsky on the American small-town mythology. Of course, none of the people involved are actually stuck living in/near a small town...
Slumming in category fiction doesn't have to be shameful. Of course, there's something deliciously oxymoronic and infuriatingly ignorant about that sentence, as John Banville demonstrates.
Be careful when negotiating South African rights agreements — you may never see your money. Of course, as Mark Knopfler noted at Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday party (held at Wembley during apartheid), you can always direct donation of your royalties to a South African charity or other organization... and Dire Straits donated theirs to the African National Congress, which had only just been legalized.
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Sausages?
Internet link sausages, as frequently appear here, are gathered from uninspected
meaty internet products and byproducts via processes you really, really don't want to observe; spiced with my own
secret, snarky, sarcastic blend; quite possibly extended with sawdust or other indigestibles; and stuffed
into your monitor (instead of either real or artificial casings). They're sort of like "link salad" or
"pot pourri" or "miscellaneous musings" (or, for that matter, "making law"), but far more disturbing.
I am not responsible for any changes to your lipid counts or blood pressure from consuming
these sausages... nor for your monitor if you insist on covering them with mash or sauce.
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of the sillier typos). Sometimes, the threads have been slightly reordered for clarity.
The Public Library of Law can help you
find the law... but not use it in court, as many of its resources are not in proper form and do not provide
all of the citation information needed in court papers
Legal, free e-books are available through
Online Books (University of Pennsylvania)
and Shakespeare (MIT)
Legal, free music is available through
ClassicCat.net
(what kind of music do you think you'll find here?)
These may be of interest; I do not necessarily agree
with opinions expressed in them, although the reasoning and writing are almost always first-rate (and
represent a standard seldom, if ever, achieved in "mainstream" journalism). I'm picky, and have
eclectic tastes, so don't expect a comprehensive listing.
A blawg is sort of like a blog on legal issues, but
usually has a lot more links to outside resources (other than other blogs) than does a typical blog.
Scrivener's Error is a blawg, not just a blog. You can find other blawgs at <?law blogs#>.
How Appealing
is aimed at appellate lawyers and legal
news in general. If you care about the state of the law, start here — Howard's commentary is far
better balanced, better informed, and better considered than any of the media outlets. To
concentrate on the Supreme Court, don't forget
SCOTUSBlog.
Some academics' blawgs with a variety of political (and doctrinal) viewpoints:
BoingBoing, by speculative fiction writer
(and 'net
activist) Cory Doctorow, is quite hostile to copyright enforcement efforts, particularly
regarding file-sharing
The main European IP blawg of interest remains the UK-based IPKat, on a variety of intellectual property issues, with some overlap (with a
less Eurocentric view) at IPFinance
Cyberlaw (Stanford) has its agenda
grounded firmly in the so-called "digital commons," which might make a bit more sense if any of the
advocates of that viewpoint understood diddly-squat about population ecology
The American Constitution Society blawg
is a purportedly "liberal" counterweight to the so-called
"Federalist Society" (which, despite
its claims, should be called "Tory Society") that has yet to establish much coherence... but maybe
that's all to the good.
![[self-portrait]](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aph-FWKPAtw/Sb7dbBwgg0I/AAAAAAAAAAU/xefH94KcXQA/S220/LawShark5204a.jpg)
Scrivener's Error
at 1024x768.