Cory Doctorow writes in excrutiating detail at Boing Boing about copyright fights and the draconian measures being taken in the name of copyright. He's an advocate for Creative Commons and released all his books for free. That strategy hasn't hurt his sales, in fact all indication is that it helped him.
I have trouble wading through all the technical and legal analysis he presents and wanted someone to boil the copyright discussion down to specific examples. Along comes Teresa Nielsen-Hayden with a fantastic explanation.
She's an editor for TOR and someone you'd think would strongly defend copyrights, but she shows how they hurt sales, shove great books into obscurity, and tie up reissue of old works in a potential litigation nightmare.
Why haven't a bunch of compendiums of the greatest short stories of the 20th Century been compiled? Because rights are too hard to get.
The heirs would range from intransigent to unfindable; and those you could find would have to have the entirety of standard publishing practices explained to them, after which they'd consult their cousin the real-estate lawyer, who would give them dreadful advice. Best not to even try. Too bad, but it's best not to even try.
What a shame. But, what's the answer? In her addendum she writes about the ability to Print-On-Demand and how that can make any work accessible and micro-royalties to be paid to whomever has the rights. But, looking at it from a publisher, her main focus is how to get those books in front of readers - - how do they know the book exists if it isn't on the shelves or in the extinct wire racks at grocery and drug stores?
It's here. Online. My blog has a list of what I'm reading and what I've read and how I liked it. I'll try to link works as much as possible. Thousands of other people are doing the same thing. We don't need to spin that squeaky rack to find something to read, although if someone would like to program an app for my book lists that would simulate that, I wouldn't turn it down.
All this oppressive copyrighting is going to succeed at in the long run is removing publishers and distributors from the equation . . . we aren't going to want to deal with them when we know they're going to be hovering over a property for a hundred years.
- rick the opportunist
When I saw the title of this blog Mormon mentality thtguhos and asides by peculiar people , I just knew that here was going to be an angst-strewn wasteland of souls in torment.It seems I wasn't far wrong.I am not a Mormon (nor am I gay) but I do meet with Mormons on a regular basis and have had some very enlightening discussions with them. There is not a single Mormon I know who will claim that he or she lacks Christian charity and yet these same Mormons will assume the divine right to sit in judgement on others a judgement, incidentally, based upon the judgement of more' others as to what it was that Jesus taught while he was on earth.The greatest teaching of all that Jesus promulgated was about the casting of the first stone. There is not a single Mormon I have spoken to who does not accept that he/she is tainted with original sin and that this sin will not be washed away until acceptance after death.How is it possible for one sinner to sit in absolute judgement on another in a secular world?There is something inherently evil in any organisation that can set itself above the will of God.God is acknowledged as the divine creator of all things so it stands to reason that God created homosexuals. He didn't discard his creations as being abominable, instead he blessed them with wisdom and a larger than normal capacity for the love of their fellow human beings. What man in what position on this Earth has what power granted by what divinity to cast aspersions against one of God's own creations?Man thy sin is vanity.Vanity thy sin is existence.If you live with homosexuals in their home it is your duty to respect the rules of that home and to be polite and accommodating. Should you be asked your religion and you were to say that you are a Mormon, I doubt very much if your hosts were so lacking in Christian ideals that they would ask you to leave. If, however, you lacked sufficient Christian moral strength to acknowledge the good that is obviously surrounding you and not allow what you see to moderate what you have been taught, you add the sin of intollerance to the sins of pride and vanity.
Posted by: Germaine | Saturday, 07 July 2012 at 12:15 PM