02 March 2020

In Like a Liar

… because it's election season.

Duck season.

Wabbit season.

Election season. No license, no limits, no truthiness.

  • The next contemporary-setting film or book that I'm associated with that includes computers, cellphones, or portable music players will breach a manufacturer's "requirements": It will show a supervillain using Wormyfruit products. <SARCASM> If, that is, said supervillain is stupid enough to believe that battery life will hold up throughout both the scheme for world domination and the day's filming. Which is the real reason that supervillains don't use Wormyfruit products. </SARCASM>
  • Speaking of villainy, consider one cost of playing one. Especially one who is in the film industry; or you could just ask Margaret Hamilton.
  • Continuing with villainy, Lightning Source is introducing content integrity guidelines that blindly accept longstanding commercial publishing as a sufficient indicator of "reliability."

    Asked whether, under criteria #1, study guides such as Cliff Notes may be removed from the catalog, Gallagher said: "Long standing publishers with a reputation for quality and commercial success will certainly be in a position to succeed through the catalog."

    (typography corrected) If that's the example of "quality and commercial success" sufficient for reliability among "Summaries, workbooks, abbreviations, insights, or similar types of content without permission from the original author," there are some serious problems. As anyone who both has a degree in literature and has read the entire underlying works knows, Cliff Notes are… not a bastion of quality. Commercial success I'll grant (especially if you've ever seen the contracts imposed on "authors" of "notes," which are inconsistent with multiple requirements in the Copyright Act).

    Misleading books with "inaccurate descriptions and cover art" (criteria #4)? I know at least half-a-dozen bestselling authors who would point to the marketing-dork pressures from those "commercially successful" commercial publishers as causing the inaccurate and misleading covers. Like, say, Justine Larbalestier. Or maybe we should just call for some Smart Bitch Cover Snark. Or, more to the point, we could inquire into other all-too-common cover problems, like permissions (and that's just one that has become public… and doesn't consider the derivative work problem). But nobody is going to even think about misleading superlatives and blurbs.