Scrivener's Error

null
Scrivener's Error	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.

29 June 2010

link to: 12:37 [GMT-6]

Preoccupied Sausages

Lots of remora and personal duty today — so much that there won't even be a World Cup update later (I'm writing this in a waiting room, and missing major portions of both matches).

Arrests of an alleged ~~Soviet~~ Russian spy ring are leading to entirely predictable results, whether we're actually concerned with the Soviets, the Russians, or indeed anybody else. The Russian foreign ministry is denying knowledge of the ring, claiming that the criminal complaint reflect continued animus by some elements of the US government against better relations between the US and Russia. That such animus exists (and has some, if insufficient, justification) can't really be refuted. There is sufficient detail in the complaints themselves, though, to indicate that whether such "dark forces" originated the counterespionage effort or not, they found something. It's highly probable that the intelligence services did their devious best to give (and maintain) plausible deniability for the diplomats, so one should not assume that the diplomats protesting against the indictment are being any more disingenuous than diplomats routinely tend to be. Even in this day of signals intelligence, tradecraft matters... if only to focus one's signals intelligence efforts (and verify/validate what one obtains that way).
Notorious "author-stealing" agent Andrew Wylie is attempting to defy the new "industry standard" of demanding e-book rights from authors as a condition of print publication by stopping all negotiations involving e-rights with print publishers. What this really reflects is a curious artifact of antitrust law in the US:

Authors are not employees, and therefore may not collectively bargain, without running afoul of the Sherman and Clayton antitrust acts. Conversely, due to the evisceration of enforcement concepts based on size and market position starting with the Reagan administration, the publishers (effectively) can, because "conscious parallelism" among a limited monopsony market no longer (effectively) violates antitrust law.

Thus, in the long run, I expect that the industry is going to deal with Wylie (and his clients) by calling his bluff; and, sadly, it is only a bluff, based on contemporary accounting memes as they apply to the publishing activities of publicly held media conglomerates. Wylie represents a number of prominent authors that publishers would love to keep their grubby little mitts on, but there are more where they came from... and, in the crazy world of publishing accounting, it's starting to make more sense to cut off authors than to negotiate with them.
Orwell's diary of seventy years ago today includes a wonderful explanation of what is wrong with the Western press:

[T]he “freedom” of the press really means that it depends on vested interests and largely (through its advertisements) on the luxury trades. Newspapers which would resist direct treachery can’t take a strong line about cutting down luxuries when they live by advertising chocolates and silk stockings.

That this is a better situation than overt government and/or religious censorship, or direct capture by vested interests (usually those who own the luxury trades!), does not make it good enough.

Labels: censorship, civil rights, politics, publishing

Ritual disclaimer: This blog contains legal commentary, but it is only general commentary. It does not constitute legal advice for your situation. It does not create an attorney-client relationship or any other expectation of confidentiality, nor is it an offer of representation.

All material © 2003–12 except where otherwise indicated. All rights reserved. This blawg does not use the Creative Commons License, although I'm usually pretty good-natured about permissions for attributed reuse.

Site Feed

I approve of no advertising appearing on or through syndication for anything other than the syndication itself; any such advertising violates the limited reuse license implied by voluntarily including syndication code on this blawg, and I do not approve aggregators and syndicators whose page design reflects only an intent to use the reference(s) to this blawg without actually providing the content from this blawg.

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.

Archives

Warped Weft

Now live at the new site. I have arranged some of the more infamous threads that have appeared here by unravelling them from the blawg tapestry (and hopefully eliminating some of the sillier typos). Sometimes, the threads have been slightly reordered for clarity.

Links of Interest

Links open in a new window.

Writer Beware and the Writer Beware Blog provide essential knowledge for writers who don't want to be ripped off
Writing-World.com published by the former managing editor of the now-defunct Inklings
Agent Research & Evaluation provides both free and paid analyses of literary agents
US Copyright Office, including both registration forms and records and quite a bit of other helpful information
Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) allows searches of granted, pending, and some rejected trademark registrations
US Supreme Court Opinions from the current and past couple of terms
Law Library of Congress includes statutes for free
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?)
- Music.Download.com (long-awaited successor to MP3.com)
- Janis Ian (artist)
- John McCutcheon (artist)

Other Blawgs, Blogs, and Journals

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:
- Professor Anthony Arend (Georgetown Law)
- Professor Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA Law) (aka "The Perfesser")
- Professor Jack Balkin (Yale Law)
- Professor Dennis Crouch (Missouri Law) (better known as Patently-O)
- Professor Michael Froomkin (University of Miami Law)
- Professor Eric Goldman (Santa Clara University Law)
- Professor Rick Hasen (Loyola-LA Law)
- Professor Brian Leiter (U of Chicago Law/Philosophy)
- Professor Lawrence Lessig (Stanford Law)
- Professor Michael Madison (Pitt Law)
- Professor Rebecca Tushnet (Georgetown Law)
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.

Searches

Optimized for at 1024x768.