The One Ring Wedding bands. All I can say is,
"It Hurts us! Hurtsss us! It burns!"
Good lord. If Colin sprang that on me...That's the one valid excuse I can think of for standing in the church, saying the vows, looking down at the ring on its cushion, and going, "Bugger this."
And I've always destested the Hollywood love for ending engagements by someone being left at the altar (And yes, Hell's Bells most certainly counts, more because it's also o-o-c), and swore I'd never leave a guy that way*.
*Or, now it's legal up here, a girl...
yaaargh! I just got about 3 more shiny new books, and borrowed two more off mom (well, okay, KIM isn't exactly shiny and new), and have another stack about ten tall specifically marked to read, plus at least as many that I put on the shelves so i would know if there was room for them. Plus a whole lot of F&SFs and a handful of Asimov's of which I've read only one or two stories.
By the time May comes around - all of the above will still be true, it'll just be a slightly different set of books.
Why do people keep insisting on mentioning books I'm going to want? Whimper.
Patrick: no, I don't know worldnetdaily form a hole in the ground. (Although the hole in the ground looks more appealing, speaking as a non-American). And as someone remarked above, it seems an odd choice of site to choose to link if one does not support it. I think the reason it startled and disturbed me to see the anti-UN ad was that I was coming to the site via you and, presumably, BoingBoing.
Did anyone else notice the "Daily special offer" at the end of the Worldnet Daily article? Is it just me, or is that also disturbing?
(Can't comment on the video. My computer has little video viewing capacity, and is utterly sound-free. That will ahve to wait for tomorrow.)
I'd like to apologize now for the sheer number of typos I left in today's messages....
Which doesn't actually address the central point:
"most authors see the whole of their career as a single extended process that never ends, that is worked on every day (or near enough) like every other career."
Is it a valid way to look at a creative effort? I know that so far, while I've had very little published at all, the publication dates have been more minor peaks in an ongoing process, rather than distinct and discrete events (Good lord - without hunting out my old saved to CD-R files of my e-mail from a prior computer, I couldn't even tell you when Dagger and Key was released).
This makes it harder for me to look at the process of giving each work a separate copyright date from the others as anything but an excess of bureaucracy and a headache. It's thus easier for me to think in terms of my whole lifetime and my whole career.
As for the rest:
The rest is me tossing out scattershot ideas, because they seem like possibilities or at least alternates, and I want to see if anyone else can or will run with them. I'm not attached to any of them. I want something noticeably LESS than life plus seventy. I think Life plus fifty is still oddly long. I want something more than the fourteen - renewable to 28 someone mentioned above. I prefer the idea of something "lifetime-plus" based, and strongly dislike the "lifetime and not a day past" version (Life plus twenty, flat, no renewal, sounds good) but I would shrug and accept almost every non-extreme version if it was put into play.
Some of the suggestions seem arbitrary,m though, and that's part of what makes me challenge them. If you must have a set time per work rather than per author, why not fifty years instead of this rather arbitrary 40? Why not 36? You say it seems like long enough for a work to go through various incarnations -- yet is there documentation for this, or is it just a gut feeling? And why the focus on movie rights rather than ongoing royalites?
Also, I *can* really understand the arguments against heirs earning off the work of their predecessors. However, if the author is Still alive when it comes around, why should they not benefit from a 50th anniversary edition of a book that managed to stay in print 50 years? That's pretty much a miracle achievement (I'm *sure* it will never happen to anything of mine), and anyone so lucky should probably get some reward for it besides seeing a beautiful, illustrated, embossed, leatherbound (and expensive) edition of their hard work go out and earn the publisher a good bit, but the author not a penny.
(I'm NOT saying every book sold which doesn't bring in royalties is bad... review copies and used books are both good things!)
Actually, the point was to touch on something in your modfel that also makes me uncomfortable: Your bounty hunter comparison assumes all work is done the moment the book is turned in.
My point is, most authors see the whole of their career as a single extended process that never ends, that is worked on every day (or near enough) like every other career.
Thus the argument for copyright of all an author's works to last a length of time based on their lifetime, not a finite time per work. So long as they are doing the work of promoting their whole oeuvre (or paying someone to do the suitable work for them) they are still putting effort into the work, and should reap the benefits.
This posits back to a version of Charlie Stross's theory - life plus ten, renewable by the heirs.
But with one difference: the heirs can renew *only* if they can prove not only interest in the copyright but effort involved in maintaining it - the preparation and editing of posthumous works, personal creation of derivative work (Fiction or non) that actually sells* -- something above and beyond merely selling the rights for a re-release, or a film, or whatnot. **
Not that there's anything wrong with salesman savvy, either (for the original author, rather than the heirs, I'd consider it essential), but that condition puts paid to Disney's sales cycles being used to indicate continued effort.
* Derivative work that gets left in a drawer does not count. I'd be tempted to say proof of publishers' rejections would count for one ten-year renewal and no more, but that might be getting too bureaucratic.
** And Yes, I see the complication you get after two generations of writers have been working in the same universe in order to maintain copyright if a third heir tries...
Greg:
The fact that you have to come up with a story for your frame that makes the bounty hunter the good guy just proves it doesn't work as a frame. It's just like the way the book you quote says Democrats have to use long explanations to get their points across - because there's no short-cut frame in place.
All the prior times you've posited frames, you yourself have emphasized they should be one word, one sentence, and rejected as unsuitable all attempts to make a frame that required more explanation. Bounty hunter requires a long explanation to work. It is a logical description. But not an intuitive one.
Enough. Let's try another metaphor:
A man in his twenties develops the perfect widget. This attracts an investor - the young man goes into business.
He then spends the next 55 years (He's self-employed, and chooses not to retire) maintining his business - doing the day to day work of the office, paying people to do what he cannot do himself, such as marketing and contract negotiations, the physical assembly of the product. Periodically he releases a new item to promote so that his whole business is not dependant on one widget. Most succeed - some flop. But overall, the business and his effort pay off. He doesn't make a fortune, but he makes enough to keep his family.
Then he passes away. Maybe the business passes to his son/daughter who's been learning the job with him. Maybe it passes to a trusted VP. Maybe this person sells it off.
But the whole business is still based upon the original perfect widget, and its follow-up inventions.
Question: how long does the business stay with his heirs? How long do they benefit?
Now, let's make a sentence by sentence comparison:
A man in his twenties develops the perfect widget. This attracts an investor - the young man goes into business.
A man in his twenties develops a very good book. This atracts a publisher - the book is released and the young man starts making royalties.
He then spends the next 55 years (He's self-employed, and chooses not to retire) maintining his business - doing the day to day work of the office, paying people to do what he cannot do himself, such as marketing and contract negotiations, the physical assembly of the product.
He then spends the next 55 years doing book tours and signings, and writing a little every day, while his publisher does the marketing and the physical assembly of his mauscripts into books, and his agent negotiates better contracts for him.
Periodically he releases a new item to promote so that his whole business is not dependant on one widget. Most succeed - some flop. But overall, the business and his effort pay off. He doesn't make a fortune, but he makes enough to keep his family.
Periodically, his constant daily grind of pages produces another finished book - as the standard writing advice goes, the way to keep a book in print is to write the next one (Thus, the writing of one book is not just the promotion of that book but also the maintenance of the old ones - thus the old book is not actually done with at the point of being published). They're not all perfect, but he has a fan base, and his family eats.
Then he passes away. Maybe the business passes to his son/daughter who's been learning the job with him. Maybe it passes to a trusted VP. Maybe this person sells it off.
Be they family or trusted writing associate or other, most heirs who make a *significant* amount off the work of their predecessor do one of three things (Let's not debate quality currently - monetary success only):
A) They finish the packaging up of the last few finished works (In the case of a handful of especially popular writers, the unfinished work, as well), do editing and finalizing of the manuscripts according to the wishes of their predecessor. (Please don't try to tell me editing and assembling sundry not-necessarily ordered papers isn't work worth some reward).
B) They write their own books, sometimes in the shared universe of their predecessor. Not only does this boost their own career, it keeps those older books from going out of print (The "New book brings sales of the old books up" does seem to hold up -- if the setting or main character is the product more than the author's name -- and thus actually validates this as an excuse for getting some royalties from the old ones.)
C) They're a children's hospital and the "good works" they do by dint of what they are causes fewer people to question their right to make money off a children's book. ;)
But the whole business is still based upon the original perfect widget, and its follow-up inventions.
I agree that any heir not willing to put effort in should not benefit for long (No longer, say, than it would take for a non-business savvy son to sell his dad's widget-making business - and probably with less monetary reward).
However: A few odd things about public domain:
I keep hearing about people saying "Anyone could do anything to ***my*** story!! They could take my anme off it."
-HAve we really forgotten who wrote pride and Prejudice just because it's public domain?
- While people have written books based on Sherlock Holmes and other characters - some decidedly not what the original author would have meant. These are usually rather obvious if so (does anyone really think Arthur Conan Doyle would have approved of his characters' part in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? And further, does this prevent you from liking what's done with it - or *add* to the fun?).
However, these new stories still usually credit Arthur Conan Doyle for his part (or the annotators do -- one way or another, the readers will know or find out. But the only ways the actual original books have Usually been altered is occasionally to abridge them for young audiences or adult learning (Things done with non public domain books as well), or to create a new edition that is less costly, or more prettily packaged.** The Hound of the Baskervilles is still Arthur Conan Doyle's story, as he wrote it.
** The big exception is when there are changes, usually editorial corrections and sometimes done by the author, between different publishers' editions. And this happened with Tolkien, who is not public domain, even between authorized versions. I'm sure there ahve been occasional butcher jobs, but my point is they are the vast exception, not the rule.
Greg,
I think just about everyone who's discussed your frame with you so far has expressed a lizard-brain level reaction of distaste to being compared with a bounty hunter. The reasons being: Greed and cold-bloodedness. Bounty Hunters were seen as murderers as much as saviours, and were not people you wanted in your social circle. The guyn who brought in Bad Bart, if not a member of the acutal police force or sheriff's office, was a vigilante whose motives you could not trust.
However accurately the frame fits the logical facts of the copyright debate or the interaction with the public, in the visceral, intuitive level, people are seeing themselves being called greedy and cold-blooded for going out and writing books and music. And they see themselves being painted as outsiders, not belonging to a social life.
Logically, intellectually, the frame seems reasonable.
But a frame is supposed to get past the intellectual and into the intuitive. A good frame paints the people you're trying to convince in a positive light - to do otherwise is to talk about redneck backwater red-staters while persuading conservative voters.
This one is a failure.
Maybe I watched a different movie from the rest, but one thing that stands out for me in (the first) Dirty Harry was that his actions in torturing his victim were what prevented the due course of law/government from doing their part.
A noteable lesson...
The assumption I see to the inheritance arguments (Pro and con), is that the inheritors are necessarily themselves grown up and able to make their own way without the inheritance. House-wives/husbands or three year old children, however, have a harder time if there's no insurance, or income, or fallback.
Now, I think any writer who's making enough money to support their spouse and children failing to have some kind of insurance or provision in those circumstances would be crazed -- but the occasional supplementary income to make things easier is always a bonus, and one anyone whose heir is a small child would want.
I also see in comments like Avram's and Ross's the implication that the creator of the works is NOT the best judge of what happens to the royalties that are generated after their death. This is true on the far extremes of both sides of the argument, of course, but it seems to be more prevalent on the side of those who want copyright to end at death or otherwise. I think the decision should lie with the creator, as with every inheritance.
Of all the suggestions I've heard so far other than Go back to the original version, or the bureaucratic nightmare that would be "let each individual person decide their own", Charlie Stross's sounds the best - except:
"One letter, one ten year extension, renewable as long as the heirs continue to express an interest in the creator's works."
Does this mean if the heir is a corporation (As per Barrie's Children's Hospital) instead of a person, they can continue to send that letter every ten years for the next 200 years? Or did you mean with a reasonable cap for corporate heirs?
Well, as for what we either had once, have or may in the near future have, I think I'm in the boat of copyright conservative (As defined, I believe by Will Shetterley): I heartily approve of the idea that copyright extends past the moment my life ends so that Will Shetterley's hypothetical "Movie of my book rushed into production on the day I get hit by a car" can't happen without someone I care about guiding the way.
I also heartily disapprove of having it extend to ridiculous lengths because corporate companies have put extensions on the original notion. Yick. No more logical argument than that presents itself right not but that everyone here has already heard.
On lighter notes:
Scott: " I can be more thoughtless than you with one hand tied behind my back and a broken keyboard"
If I had one hand tied behind my back and a broken keyboard, the things I would be saying would qualify at their kindest as "thoughtless". Especially if I was saying them to the perpetrator of the damage to my keyboard, and innocent witnesses were present to hear them.
CD: "Also, a certain author with the initials L R H."
Ack! I sign my casual e-mails by my full initials. It does strange things to my mind to see myself referred to as a writer who is both published and posthumous...
(Yes, I know you meant the thing that is Hubbard. Believe me, that is one association I would be most pleased to be rid of. Can't we change his first name to Xavier or Quentin?)
Julia: Re Janet Evanovich: It was a piece of fluff, fun for the holidays - definitely novella rather than novel length, even by the shorter than sf/f standards of mystery fiction. And short story weight. Having not read anything by her before, and with my mom enthusing about the 3 or so (All over the series) she's read so far, I'm inclined to read more, hopefully full length this time. I'll definitely remember your (And Jill Smith's) comments about the later books, though, just in case.
CHip: "And I'm baffled at all you multi-thread readers; I've gotten resigned to not finishing a book at one sitting, and I do some nonfiction in pieces, but I'd get completely lost if I tried to read multiple novels in parallel."
Well, as a writer, one needs to keep one's own characters and plot threads separate and distinct in mind. If others are like me, and working or thinking about multiple projects, or even if they just have some ideas for a book after the one they're working on (isn't rule # 1 to start the next book right after you finish the current one?), it's no longer a handy reading device, but a raw survival mechanism to be able to keep track of multiple stories and which characters belong where.
Of course, I probably learned the skill from reading rather than from writing, but it's hard to prove. I started reading at four, and writing at seven or eight. My memories back then are very fuzzy.
Currently:
Guns Germs and Steel - My at lunch at work book, becuase that's where I usually plod my way through non-fiction. Probably wouldn't need to in ths case - it's supremely well written, if, as someone above said, thin on the science. But then, it's an overview book.
Five Hundred Years after - rereading a chapter or two at a time each Friday, to get into the right mood to play a swashbuckler character who's supposed to be much more charming than I actually am. It actually helps.
Gail Bowen's Murder at the Mendel. She's very good at jumping right into the plot, but I think the msot fun is that it's set in real north prairie landscape. So many bits sound ever so much like home.
Just finished Connie Willis' Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, and a Janet Evanovich Christmas novella that's actually technically a gift for my mother. It's also technically as much a fantasy as a comic mystery, which I wasn't expecting.
Next on my to-read are Jo Walton's A Prize in the Game and Naomi Kritzer's Freedom's Gate. Oddly, considering one of the comments above, I've also been considering rereading Watership Down, though it hasn't made it past considering yet.
Patrick,
A valid point and part of the reason rep. by pop. came into being in the first place.
However, it still leaves a problem: the **impression** is that if something goes wrong in Ontario or another rich/populous centre that is relevant on a Federal level, it tends to get attention over a problem from another area, even if what they view as trouble leaves them in a better position than the ones that were passed over in their favour.
And, again, those provinces currently poor are often poor due to the system. If they had a higher population, they'd get the things they need to improve. If they improved, they'd get the things they need to lure people to move there. I believe that is called Catch-22.
It may be literally true that on a raw count of heads, the current system is fair, but the results lead to giving the support to areas already in good shape. And individuals, breathing human beings with their single votes, outside populous areas, do perceive this as their vote counting for less.
There's no perfect system. And overall, I prefer Canada's system to the States', even when it's "Politics as usual". Given the choice between flat rep. by pop. and flat numbers by state, I'll take by pop. It doesn't mean I can't grumble when the numbers come in. After all, I DID vote.
"The poor man tore at the stuff until his jaw ached, and he so wanted to use his teeth. "
Of course, the first half of this sentence had me thinking he was using his teeth, and wondering if the shrink wrap was that tough.
Looking forward to it - but not for about 3 weeks as I promised I wouldn't rush back to the bookstore and splurge until my special order came in. I did just buy one more sturdy bookcase, though.
As someone living in a country where representation in the government is by population, I have to point out that those of you who feel powerless now have nothing on those of us who watched the Liberals achieve a majority government because of ONE province (this was about 3 elections ago for those keeping count). Never mind that two to three provinces often drive most policy even between elections, and one of those powers also fronts a secessionist party. And I'll stop before I go on a rant about the Bloc Quebecois.
Representation by population is also theorised by some to be part of why the Maritime provinces still struggle on as some of our poorest, in sharp contrast to most of their neighbours in the States with similar resources and geography. not only are they under-represented, but they're neglected in a way that guarantees they won't ever get the population levels to compete.
Rep. by pop. is a good idea in general, but past a certain point, I think the larger populations need a handicap not to leave everyone else outright ignored.
Chris: An MS request isn't a guarantee (Though yes, it is very promising), so it would be bad to outright turn down the others while waiting.
My understanding (And someone please please correct me if I'm wrong - I've not got that far yet myself) is that you should send the MS to CB exclusively - but request that they hold it exclusively for a limited duration (Common ones are 8 weeks and 12 weeks - if you're requesting it will be exclusive only for a set time rather than the agent making the offer, it might be wiser to use the longer time...). That way, if the others do call or e-mail or anything with a request for more, you can say, "It's with someone else, but I can send it on on X date", so they will know there's a reason for your delay.
This means you don't have to lose an opportunity if the first one falls through - and it does not reflect badly on you to either agent.
A bit of an odd perspective:
In the so-called real world, while my co-workers mostly know me as Lenora, and my family likewise, the vast, vast majority of my friends call me Gwen. Including in middle-of-the night emergency scenarios (This has been tested).
Reason being, the local branch of the SCA (This is NOT true of most of the SCA I am given to udnerstand) uses persona names for every social interaction within the SCA, instead of just for events where you are dressed in that role. The phone list includes both names, SCA name first. It's the name you learn first as a newcomer, and the "other" name is sometimes hard to even remember.
Yet, where other branches only use the persona when pretending to be someone from another actual era, this means we're using it for day to day chatter. This means talking about your computer business under your SCA name, or about the book you just read. Or your thoughts on the mayoral candidates. Or your religious views. It's used face to face, where there's no hiding your age or gender.
So, in short, I'm accustomed to using a multiplicity of names for myself and others without using them as a smoke-screen of any form. (Even my online name - also my pen-name for my few publications, also the name under which I sell pottery and paintings - is only 2/3 of my real name word-wise, and 55% of it letter-wise. Except on those occasions I've typed Lenora Raven instead of Lenora Rose... which also doesn't mean what you think it means, as there should be an umlaut in there).
There's aslo something revealing about what kind of names people choose. Sometimes it's laughable, and gives away a streak of immaturity. Sometimes it's wonderfully smart. Sometimes it startles you, and it blooms on them, and reveals new layers. Sometimes, it just fits, like another skin. And this is, for me, *part* of the magic of names; sometimes a new name is more honest, or lets you be more than you are when restricted to what your parents gave you. It's also part of why some people are Gerald, and some are Gerry, and some just G., even in day to day converse. becuase the name slips and slides until it fits.
I have no problems with someone like, say, Xopher, whose use of a handle doesn't hide anything, and whose basic honesty about what he thinks and feels comes through whenever he posts. I never will have a problem with this, or even discourage it, sicne I KNOW that most such people, met in real life, mention their handle if they think they know you under another name.
Caveat: I do not advocate using another name to say something you would not stand behind if you were outed, anything you would beg to take back if anyone foudn out it was you (barring common-sense problems like job- or life-threatening situations or other common sense issues. I mean for childishness, or viciousness.) But I have more often seen people use other names to say MORE of what they mean, in the noblest sense.
I do admit I get pissed off by true anonymity used wrong. Not just the liquid freepsh*t. On the Rumour Mill, once, a young man - a regular visitor - got himself in deep trouble by creating a topic and using an anonymous handle to do so. The topic was on the differences between genders, and he decided that sicne his opinions would be blasted as sexist, he'd stay anonymous - even though he told us several times he was a regular poster and we all knew him.
The parts of the topic related to gender got heated but not flame-worthy. However, he got savaged personally for his anonymity. And deservedly. Once he stood behind his opinions and outed himself, the topic got a lot less vicious and went back to the normal course of things.
Will - In the realm of over the net misinterpretation, let me just make it clear my response was meant to be read in a friendly tone. Not that you seemed to miss it, but I was recently badly stung by not making that clear, so now I'm being over-paranoid.
"(I always have the most perverse reaction when someone compliments a book of mine that I consider a failure. I want to say, "Good god, that sucked! Please try (one of the three that make me feel as if I know something about writing)!" But, at the same time, I'm delighted that something that didn't work for me still resonated with a reader.)"
It probably resonated with you, too, as you were working on it. Everything you've written, even Never Never which was half rewritten prior work, reads like you both had fun doing it and sweated blood trying to get it right. (And as for Never Never, I read it before I read the source stories, or even registered that there were previously published bits - I got into Bordertown via the novels - and I thought the structure odd but successful. I was actually looking at the Fast Forwards at one point while trying to figure out how to do a good quick "time passes" scene).
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| 2005 | 12 |
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