I've seen the pilot, and it's pretty good, but definitely aimed at a children's audience, even more so than Doctor Who, and the opposite of Torchwood, which is clearing aimed at adults with it's "Hot Alien Lesbian Sex". :-)
ttyl
Farrell
Wow...The world needs more companies like Linden!
ttyl
Farrell
Well, this is an amusing idea...esp since I hold both Canadian and American citizenship by birth.
Canada wouldn't invade the US, mainly because of the fact that they don't want all the problems the US has with racism, debt, and American "culture". After all, the US has to import Canadians all the time to prop up their entertainment industry...look at some of best know "American" actors, like Michael J. Fox, or musicians like Neil Young, or comedians like Jim Carey. The creator of Saturday Night Live is Canadian!
ttyl
Farrell
re: Charlie Stross
I hope it doesn't! But many times I have looked for books by authors I've read a book by, and would like to read more of, but I can't find anything else in any store by them. Going on the net, I find they may have many books published, but few in print. Many classics are hard to find new, and it seems like it takes the death of the author to bring them back out. :-(
I know a fair bit about the publishing industry, but I know a lot more about the music industry...but they pretty much do the same thing, selling works of art for profit to the masses.
A best seller, or hit record are, as you said, winning hte lottery. But the problem with the record industry today is that they are *only* trying to win the lottery, rather than have a steady source of income.
Up until the late 1980s, an artist could be considered successful even if they never hit on the Billboard chart, as one example of a measure of having a "hit record". What they needed was back catalog sales...that is, their albums continued to sell years after they were released. They thus provided a steady stream of income to both the record company, and the artist. If they had a hit album, that was a bonus, and it would also drive the sales of their back catalog up, so there was always an incentive to aim for hit albums.
But starting in the late 80s, as record companies were snarfed up by larger and larger multinational corporations, the quarterly balance sheet became more and more important, with the stock prices being driven by the quarterly reports. Slow, steady streams of income did not give the same percentage "return on investment" that hit albums did, so the push came to concentrate on hit albums, and the concept of a back catalog slowly began to disappear.
I know a number of record store managers, and others who have worked in record stores, and they tell me that compared to back then, the number of unique titles carried in a store is a fraction of what it used to be. More and more shelf space is given to the latest hits, but if you want to explore the back catalog of some artist that just had a hit, you end up having to go on-line to find it...if it is still being pressed.
Of course, never mind how hard it is to find good music today, it is even worse for the artist. Read this article on how the music industry treats them from Salon magazine (you don't need a Salon subscription to read it, either), it every enlightening, in a shocking way.
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/
My fear is that the publishing industry is going to go the same way...and I feel sorry for readers like myself, and writers.
Derivative works are the foundation of today's art and science! Not being able to create things based existing works would stifle creativity and research.
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