Scrivener's Error

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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.

25 April 2011

link to: 13:30 [GMT-6]

Link Sausages Feeling Especially Elderly Today

I only wish this was fictional:

Non Sequitur, 25 Apr 2011

On to the suspicious link sausages of dubious origin indeed!

Whitewashing isn't restricted just to YA book covers: It's pervasive in H'wood. Of course, Mr Morris misses the common point of reference: It's not the whiteness of the audience, or the whiteness of the creators; it's the upper-middle-class whiteness (and maleness, and Protestantness) of the 1970s/1980s MBAs who are in charge of the corporate media entities involved... and/or the securities analysts who have such overt interest on those corporate media entities. Even the women who are involved in that chain tend to be either relegated to "womanly" niches or bigger dickheads than most men from having to act like they had penises to get into positions with power and authority in a male-dominated world in the first place.

<SARCASM> Whether the antiintellectualism fostered by American "business education" has anything to do with the constant dumbing-down of entertainment and creative products is left as an exercise for the student. </SARCASM> It certainly appears to have blinded Mr Morris to the source of the point he was trying to make.
The talented and lovely Sarah Weinman points out that we've had the "e-books will cannibalize the publishing industry to death" debate before. Santayana was an optimist: Before one can understand history (and thereby avoid repeating it), one must not only know some history — one must care about it.
Ho hum. In Borders bankruptcy non-news — as I predicted — Judge Glenn approved an outrageous executive bonus plan... as a reduction from one that was exhorbitant.
Meanwhile, another publishing bankruptcy looms: Dorchester. The unofficial committee of unsecured creditors — which almost completely ignores authors interests, as the stated value of their claims is so low (thanks in part to dubious accounting and thanks in greater part to Dorchester's managerial incompetence) — said:

[T]he Unofficial Committee made a decision to disband and has advised Dorchester of this decision. The Unofficial Committee has taken this step because it has determined that Dorchester will be unable to propose any meaningful repayment plan to unsecured creditors in the foreseeable future. Thus, the forbearance period that commenced in August 2010 is no longer in effect and creditors of Dorchester are free to take any action or inaction they determine to be appropriate.

Translating from Lawyer to English, that means:

Congratulations, authors: In technical terms, you're f*cked. Your claims are so piddly and indistinct that you don't have a realistic voice in the impending dissolution — and you won't have any say in what happens to whatever rights of yours Dorchester either continues to hold or is exploiting without permission, either. Have a nice day.

Just another day in paradise, eh?
On a brighter note, congratulations to the Hugo and Campbell nominees, to the BSFA winners, and to the Philip K. Dick Award winner.

Labels: arts, culture, intellectual property, mass media, publishing

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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.

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

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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.

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