Bearing letters patent...

I had a rant about the Apple "page turn patent" but it wasn't nearly as good as this one from Ron Charles, book critic for the Washington Post...

Our patent system is broken.

SOPA on the Ropes

The latest in a long line of efforts to censor the internet is wavering. Congressional supporters are abandoning the SOPA/PIPA legislation like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Online protests from Wikipedia and Google (and many others) had their effect. Congressional switchboards were swamped with calls, Google claims 4.5 million people signed their petition, and Wikipedia reports 162 million pageviews on their protest page.

The people have spoken and they must keep speaking.

Because it isn't over yet.

If you've followed me for any length of time, you'll know that I'm vehemently anti-censorship. Sadly, this is not the first attempt to restrict the conversations we have and the things that we share. People who do not understand how the internet works are trying to dictate how the internet should work.

The whole world has noticed. I was contacted today by the German publication Zauberspiegel Online for a comment.  You can read it here in German: http://www.zauberspiegel-online.de/ but this is an expansion of my comments to them, but really, it's a song I've been singing for awhile now.

Our lives are a collage of shared experiences, a patchwork of the culture that unites us. Our conversations are peppered with movie quotes, our events are back-dropped by the songs playing on the radio or piped through restaurants and coffee shop speakers.

Yet if we try to reflect that part of our lives online, we are "pirates".

SOPA is unnecessarily broad. It will have no effect on so-called media pirates who will simply go around. Instead, it breaks the relationship between the providers of service and the users of the services. It burdens internet companies, websites, and search providers, strangling startups and internet entrepreneurs with pointless regulations.  It requires everyone online to have a working knowledge of some very esoteric legal principles in order to keep out of jail. And copyright is an area of the law so esoteric that even the man who wrote the SOPA legislation violated them on his own website!

This law puts the onus on the owner of the house for all that happens within. It assumes guilt and sidesteps due-process. (Which seems to be a recurring theme lately in Washington DC.) All in the interest of taming the net, in the interest of forcing it to fit a business model that was created before the computer was invented. Rather than evolve to meet the new model, certain powerful elements of our society are seeking to force the rest of us to back track to meet them.

I am a huge fan of copyright. The creation of copyright laws Fundamentally changed the lives of creative individuals everywhere. They changed the world from a place where Charles Dickens was the most popular author in America, but never saw a dime of revenue from the U.S. printings of his stories, to a world where authors, artists, and inventors could benefit from their own creations and use those revenues to devote their time to creating more.

But those laws were intended to champion innovations and advancements so that built upon a previous work to create something new. SOPA and similar laws that stifle, and many creative ideas and advancements are smothered in their cradle.

They were never intended to stifle them.

Otherwise, copyrights and patents would never expire.

If the world had been a place where riffing on existing music was illegal, we would have not jazz. If variations on a theme were illegal we would not have a great deal of classical or modern music. Likewise, if the world had been a place where cracking open your devices and tinkering with the works was illegal, we'd be driving the Model T silent and auto racing would not exist.

Creators have the right to protect their work. But this is not the way to do it.

As a copyright holder, I understand the frustration felt by other copyright holders and I understand the kneejerk lashing-out that can ensue. Likewise do I like to think that there's room for reasoned response and discourse. There has to be a middle ground where the artforms can prosper, the citizens of the world can incorporate their culture into their lives (and Thereby spread by word of mouth how great your material is) and do it all without throwing open the gates and making it so that artists simply can not support themselves by their efforts.

Censorship is never the answer and therefore, SOPA cannot be.

HR 3261: the so-called Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which is currently before the US Senate, and its sister bill the Protect Intellectual Properties Act (PIPA) can be found in their entirety by clicking on their names.  Read them.  Read this breakdown of the laws by the American Library Association. Go online and find the analyses from the major news organizations, read what your favorite authors and creators have to say about SOPA.

And than, as always, make up your own mind.

Stop SOPA

The smoke of digital battle...

e-Books for the Blind

Because I suppose the publishing industry needed more bad publicity this holiday season. Copyright Owners Fight Plan to Release E-Books for the Blind

"A broad swath of American enterprise ranging from major software makers to motion picture and music companies are joining forces to oppose a new international treaty that would make books more accessible to the blind." - 'Threat Level' at WIRED.com.

Of course, nothing is ever that simple, but the lede pretty much sums it up. We've been here before. Back when the Kindle II came out and publishers freaked out when they realized it could read to you. A tornado of Brooks Brothers suits descended on Seattle and when it all fell out, the app operated only at the publisher and/or author's discretion. Opposition to the treaty is stiff and seems to mainly gravitate to copyright issues (Audio Books are big business) and the cost of producing machines that do what the blind need them to do in order to make them accessible. And let's be honest, requirements under an international treaty to provide accessibility would indeed incur additional costs for producers. (That's assuming you want to sell internationally or if the US ratifies the treaty and passes domestic laws forcing domestic producers to comply.) Requirements add cost to development. Requirements for accessibility and safety always do. I can't speak for the rest of the world, but as a nation we've generally accepted that some things are worth paying for. Nevertheless, in the US, the cost of most accommodations for the disabled (ramps, lifts, vehicle modifications, braille texts, &c.) has been borne by the individual with some help from national and local government programs. Some private assistance through NPO's and faith-based organizations help out, but in reality, the bulk of it falls on the individual. So why shouldn't the costs of a speaking e-Book reader? Or a braille monitor like David Strathairn used in Sneakers? Or any one of a thousand other things that allow the blind to operate in a world geared for the sighted? For the same reason I'm so vehemently against banning books. And for the same reason you can't charge sales tax on newspapers in the state of Washington. Because access to information is the basis of freedom and anything that imposes itself between you and that access is anathema to free thought. No one in a free society should have to rely upon the goodwill of others to give them the information they need in order to fully-participate as a citizen. As the ADA has aged and become set in our culture, a lot of manufacturers of hardgoods have begun building-in some accessibility requirements and have been able to amortize the cost of developing and producing these items over the whole consumer base rather than making them bespoke items costing the end-user thousands. It would appear that electronics such as e-Book readers are especially good candidates for working-in this sort of accessibility. (But I'm not the engineer in this family, so I could be wrong.) Kudos to Amazon for bringing out a blind-accessible Kindle with an audible menu, etc. But considering the explosion last time Amazon wanted to make the Kindle talk, we'll see how many publishers let you put out accessible books for it. Any way I look at it, this is a disheartening patch in the ongoing story of the transition from paper books to electronic ones. Posted using ShareThis

There's a Monster At the End of This Post

A mixed bag post, because I haven't done one in awhile... 


 Lost & Found I don't usually report on the whereabouts of missing library books or the people reluctant to return them and pony up the fine. Neither does the Times of London. Nevertheless, the Times reports that Harold Pinter's overdue library book was finally returned after 59 years. It wouldn't be that big a story, even considering the Nobel laureate status of the borrower, except that it happened to be a rare first edition of Samuel Beckett's Murphy and apparently Pinter had no intention of ever returning it. At that point, I think a man of lesser celebrity would be accused of stealing it rather than borrowing it. 

The bookseller handling the sale of the playwright's library returned it in order to buy it back so that Pinter's library would be complete and without the sort of provenance problems that crop up when one of the books in the collection didn't really belong to the man in whose home it resided. Read the whole tale, including the sort of oddly happy ending that could only occur in the bookworld at the Times website.

  Can I Make you a literary mix-tape? WIRED continued its coverage of the transition from ink to electrons with a profile of a grad student who MacGyvered his own book scanning equipment to digitize his textbooks and is now teaching others how to do the same. Now Daniel Reetz is at the eye of a copyright kerfuffle (which was inevitable) about whether or not what he's doing is a high crime or a misdemeanor. So the question is begged... since the inception of the computer, it's been possible to digitize your library either by laying the books on a scanner, photographing them or just typing them into a document file. There's even court precedent from the days of audio tapes that says you can copy your collection for personal use as long as you're not trying to profit. But those arguments got gutted in the Napster fight and are further eroded by decision after decision that creates a legal difference between the laws governing tangible copies and digital copies.

Right now, the world over, libraries are digitizing their collections, effectively turning them into e-Books. From national institutions like the Library of Congress and the British Library to the libraries of Harvard and Yale to the commercial ventures like Googlebooks and the Intenet Archive, the physical is being tranferred into a digital format. . . but who owns the bytes? Is it legal for me to copy my extensive library if I'm not doing so to turn a profit? I think it meet that we reflect on the outcome of the Pinter-Beckett affair and remember that the bookworld is a universe of its own creation where the outcomes that might be expected as we recall the chaos that surrounded the digital translation of music are not fait accompli.

  Digital Monsters There's no end of monsters on the internet. From the trolls that lurk beneath blogs and comment threads, spewing vitriol to the sort that players fight in online roleplaying games, and many others, the internet seems overrun by monsters of all sorts. So when I tell you that I am ecstatic to report one more monster on the internet, it may sound strange. That is, until I tell you that it's none other than the legendary blue monster that watched over my childhood... Grover. The Children's Television Workshop has put one of my favorite books of all time online as a free e-Book for new generations of parents and children to enjoy. There's a Monster at the End of This Book was more than a children's book, it was a watershed moment in my literary life. It's the first children's book I read (besides perhaps Where the Wild Things Are) that delivered something wholly different than everything else put in front of me. It's entry-level suspense fiction of the highest order with a twist ending sure to delight everyone. Re-reading it as an adult (or rather having Grover read it to me) was an eye-opener, and no lie.

 Now, I'm off to do some Christmas shopping. Good reading, everyone!

Google Books Update

The parties involved in the Google Books settlement are cracking it open to see if they can fix it to the satisfaction of all parties and the regulators that are making anti-trust noises.

"Lawyers for The Authors Guild and other plaintiffs said in court papers filed Tuesday that they plan to have settlement talks with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve complaints about a $125 million deal that the Justice Department said probably violates antitrust law." -MSNBC

Read the whole story at the link above. Here's hoping they can get it right this time... stay tuned.

Booknews Roundup

This week the Pirate Bay sale threatened to run aground after the buyers were accused of being on the take and de-listed on the Swedish stock exchange. Allegories abound and metaphors were sighted off the port bow. I wonder if Johnny Depp will get a role in the eventual movie. (via WIRED magazine) Speaking of movies and metaphors, the challenges faced by an award-winning and beloved childrens book that's only about ten sentences long shouldn't surprise us, but it does. This transition from pre-adolescent fantasy to post-modern film is brought to you by the letter N, Y and T. But this tale of a childrens book's coming of age wouldn't be complete without this compelling illustration edition. That Gap ad is magical. (Five words I never thought I'd write.) (via NewYorkTimes and Geektyrant) Tuesday is the big day and the District of Columbia grits its teeth and braces for the onslaught of conspriacy buffs as it makes preparations "to be Dan Browned" on Tuesday (I prefer my cities medium-rare, thanks). Meanwhile, the Publishing Industry prays to be Dan Browned. Makes me wonder where I left my decoder ring. (via MSNBC, AFP, the L'il Orphan Annie show and the makers of rich, chocolaty Ovaltine) Of course there isn't a publisher or bookseller who doesn't wish Dan Brown could take a leaf from James Patterson's playbook. Patterson writes a couple books a day, I think and gets by with a little help from his friends. To his credit, Patterson's a heckuva nice guy and it reportedly very generous to his co-authors. As a writer, it must be odd to be the CEO of "Your Name Here" Inc. (Speaking of the Beatles, do you think there's much hope we'll see an author's edition of "Rockband" that comes with a typewriter and a bottle of Scotch? Maybe not.) (via Reuters, .CNET, Paul, John, George and Ringo) And in other news: This article on flexible screen makes me wonder if my pondering about dancing text isnt so far off, and the melee of authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians and lawyers currently centered on Googlebooks is giving me a headache. If you can summarize it or make it funny, more power to you. (via WIRED magazine, Yahoo/Reuters, ALA, and NewYorkTimes).

Kindle Return Policy (redux)

Amazon has come full-circle on the Orwell controversy. According to NPR they're offering the restoration of the titles (presumably legal editions) plus some walking around money in hopes of putting the debacle behind them.

"In an e-mail sent Thursday to Kindle owners whose books were erased, Amazon offered to redeliver the titles to their e-readers for free, along with any annotations users had made. Or the customers can get a $30 Amazon.com gift certificate or a $30 check — which could be worth much more than two Kindle books, because many of them cost $10 or less." -from NPR (listen and read the complete story)

As I recall from my earlier reporting (cough-ranting-cough) on the subject, the eye-catching titles were 1984 and Animal Farm, but titles by JK Rowling and Ayn Rand were also deleted and there's no word on how that's panning out. I suppose there's a cache in having the headline-grabbing titles missing from your library. What do you think? Does this make you feel any different about the whole affair?

Nessman's Box

"Outside the box" is one of my favorite cliches. (Yes, I allow myself to have favorite cliches, sue me.) It gets across in one succinct phrase all the dangers of these artificial boundaries we erect between what we are comfortable with and what is possible. It also illustrates the benefits of being one of those who is willing to step across the yellow tape surrounding our imaginary boxes. We all live like Les Nessman from the WKRP television show. Imaginary walls that provide us with imaginary comforts. Please use the imaginary door to enter and don't forget to wipe your feet on the imaginary mat. I feel like writers and publishers are more guilty of laying tape around our comfort zones than anyone else. We live and work in an industry that has - more than any other - remained virtually untouched by the last 500+ years of technological advancement. From the scribes at their desks in the monasteries to the guy at the cafe typing on his laptop, all that is different are the tools we use to put the ink on the paper. Yet in the past ten years, the idea of the book or newspaper has changed so drastically that we sometimes forget that the tapelines that form the boundary of our imaginary worlds exist largely as a matter of tradition. And the tape is peeling. My recent series of posts here at P2T have focused on how other forms of creative storytelling can add colors to an author's palette. In this ongoing meditation, I've talked about how Commedia del Arte informs my character choices, play writing helps me hear my dialogue and role playing helped me see the story from the inside. All of these are methods by which I break down those imaginary walls. For me, this blog is yet another step across the tape -- a place where I can think out loud about these things and maybe get some feedback from like-minded folk. Do you know a novelist that works outside the traditional boundaries? Someone I might not have heard of? Talk about it in comments! I'm curious to hear from you. ---

Scott Walker Perkins writes literary thrillers and novels of suspense woven from the threads of history. His current novel is The Palimpsest and he is working on another tentatively titled 42 Lines.

Contact Me

Copyrights

You'll notice that I write a lot about copyright issues here. Part of that's because it's important to me for the work I do at the writing center, which includes some work facilitating the transition to a Creative Commons structure for our educational materials. This is bringing us in line with the draft Washington State technology plan for higher ed, which includes more "open source" materials for classrooms and students.

Which brings us back to copyright.

I'm not a copyright expert, but one of the things I have to do everyday is evaluate how something we're doing falls within the spectrum of "fair use". Last weekend at the writer's conference it came to my attention in conversations with others how poorly-understood fair use and copyright law is. The laws are byzantine and the things you most want defined aren't, or rather they are defined by a dizzying array of legal precedents and caselaw. So we need tools to help us.

Are your derivative works or inspired critiques going to run you afoul of US law? Don't ask me, ask the experts. When I have a question I can't answer from native knowledge and experience (and sometimes even then) I go to the following sources, which I now share with you, my fellow writers...

The Copyright Advisory Network tracks and actively participates in discussions of copyright law. "The purpose of this site is to encourage librarians to discuss copyright concerns and seek feedback and advice from fellow librarians and copyright specialists. The Network is sponsored by the American Library Association Office for Information Technology Policy."

The Fair Use Evaluator is and other tools are available from the American Library Association offering helpful advice on evaluating of the murky issues of fair-use. Neither of these sites are going to provide you ironclad legal opinions. They are a part of doing what is legally known as "due diligence" when you are stepping into unfamiliar territory.

Will it keep people from suing you? Maybe, maybe not. Nothing will provide you with Teflon coating, but you can and should always do your best to limit your exposure.

Finger Food?

Someone asked me recently whether I was at all concerned that my comments on Amazon's Kindle and eBooks in general might someday come back to bite me. After all, I am trying to get a novel published and then I have to sell it to people. That necessitates making nice with retailers.... so, isn't that biting the hand that feeds me? Have I really said anything bad about any one bookseller on here? Because they all seem to get my money at some point in time or another. For the record, I'm a big fan of bookstores. All of them, really. When I was first dating the woman who is now my wife, we would often go on to the Tattered Cover instead of going to a movie. That sounds terribly romantic doesn't it? We've been married almost ten years and a nice day out still involves at least one bookstore. Isn't nerd love sweet? I want booksellers to thrive. I want all of them to survive. The Tattered Cover, Elliot Bay, Powells as well as Borders, Barnes & Noble and Amazon. I would miss them if they were gone. Without Amazon, I wouldn't have been able to find esoterica like Middleton's A History of English Craft Bookbinding Technique. That title would still be scrawled on the index card in my wallet instead of up on the Amazon wish list where my friends found it and bought it for me. Powell's is the only place I can think of where that sort of book might pop up on the shelf and I don't get down to Portland nearly often enough... Incidentally, one of the things that inspires me to write about publishing and bookselling and allows me to go into detail comes as much from the decade I spent working for one or the other major book retailer as it does from my experience as a writer. This blend of perspectives is where I come from when I write this blog. There's a reason why I added "Technology" to the topic header. We are standing at the intersection of technology and our literary culture -- for better or worse, the industry is transforming in front of our eyes. You can't talk about that without discussing e-Books. And you can't discuss e-Books without discussing the industry leader in the e-Reader market. The Amazon Kindle sets the pace for e-Readers if only because of its name recognition (actual sales figures are a subject of great speculation). There's no ignoring that. Everyone who comes along -- whether it Barnes & Noble's new site or someone we've never heard of -- everyone will be casting themselves in the Amazon mold. Despite a Luddite streak a mile wide (it took a major illness in my family to get me to begin carrying a cell phone), I think e-Books are an excellent idea if we can get the kinks worked out. I recently read a biography of Gutenberg by John Man that mentioned as an aside that the printed output of western printing presses is roughly equivalent to the mass of the Alps. Not a mountain of books, a mountain range of books. In terms of ink and paper, that simply isn't a sustainable output. Much though I love the smell, feel and heft of a real book, the e-Reader seems inevitable. And it makes sense. But that means that our society as a whole needs to facilitate a frank and open discussion of what form the next evolution of books will take. It means hammering the dents out of our copyright laws and finally aligning them with the current level of technology. In my view, the music and movie industries failed to begin this discussion early enough. The creators of the music didn't get involved early enough. Now, if the writers' blogs I read are any indication, the authors seem to be more open to the discussion digital rights than their musical counterparts were. For all it's problems and ensuing legal entanglements, the Google Books settlement with the Author's Guild was evidence of this. The changes are happening now. The market is being created around us. In many ways it's being defined in the legal battles that swirl around Amazon and Google. Each decision creates the precedent upon which the next will be decided. Once there's a body of law, it will take something extrodinary to change it. The time to sort this out is now, while things are still in flux. Keeping the story in the realm of the reasonable mean, keeping the story from moving entirely to the fringes, and moving the debate forward toward a resolution is good for readers, it's good for the book industry (Amazon & Google included) and it's ultimately good for me. I don't bite the hands that feed me. But I do nibble the fingers once in awhile.

Dear Amazon...

It just had to be Orwell didn't it?

I suppose it was inevitable that this would happen eventually. You've been quietly pursuing what was no-doubt the advice of a whole bevy of lawyers (what is the correct collective noun for lawyers? I'm going with 'bevy' until proved wrong.) and deleting copyright-infringing material and quietly rebating the purchase price. Illegal uploads of Harry Potter, Ayn Rand, and finally... Orwell.

It just had to be Orwell, didn't it?

This is the point where your legal rights and responsibilities under current law get annoyingly vague. And the issues too tangled for you to defend yourself without retreating into an impenetrable thicket of legalese. In many ways this isn't your fault. Our copyright law is a mess and simply isn't keeping up with technological advancement. Fair Use is undefined, as are Parody, Satire and a whole passel of exceptions and exclusions that one would hope would be clear as day. Your DRM policies weren't written on a whim. Lawyers were consulted, copyright law was parsed, and your Kindle End User Licence Agreement (EULA) was born.

You were simply pursuing the policies that we agreed to (whether we realized it or not). You wrote it in there; you told us this could happen. And America clicked the "I Agree" button as we always do. Because if we didn't, we couldn't use your gadget, couldn't keep our libraries on a hard drive and carry them around with us. 

And one day it happened -- as it was going to eventually -- you deleted something provocative. You gave the news directors of the world a hook. From a dry subject that no one wanted to cover or discuss or read about, you helped create a rallying point.

Each of the books had been illegally uploaded to your site using the Kindle's self-publishing option and people bought them. When made aware that the books were "pirate" copies, you took them off sale as you were obliged to do. But then you went a step further.

It was a bad idea.

It scared people.

It woke people up to the fact that they were actually renting their books rather than owning them. You scared the crap out of your customers and you angered many of them.

Good for you.

No, seriously, ultimately this is a good thing. For you and for all of us.

Let me explain. While some editors and bloggers resisted spinning out a scenario built upon the plot of the book, enough of them couldn't resist that it caught and then became the zeitgeist. It's a short walk from your copyright issue being resolved to government censors demanding the redaction of the printed record. A scenario with the thought-police come electronically knocking and banned books tossed into the oubliette of history, never to be retrieved.

It could have been worse, I suppose. It could have been Fahrenheit 451.

It's bad PR and probably bad for Kindle sales in the short term. And you really should give your PR people a seat at the table when you're discussing these things if you don't already. (And if you do, find new ones who are going to say "Um... let's let this one go.") But nonetheless, we really needed this to happen. And so did you.

That it surprised so many users is mostly a testament to the number of legal documents, service agreements and heaven knows what that we all sign every day without fully understanding them if we read them at all. 

And maybe what's really alarming people isn't the fact that you did it so much as the fact that you can. And as the diversity of our market expands with Barnes & Noble's competitor site introducing an e-Reader with the chops and price-point to compete, now is the time to get this out of the way. The music industry waited to have this discussion and it nearly gutted their industry. They still haven't fully recovered.

eBooks may well be the future of publishing -- for better or worse, they probably are. The definition of 'ownership' is up for grabs and readers are just now becoming aware that these comfortable notions are not fixed points in space.

This conversation was inevitable; I'm just thankful that it's being spawned now, not two decades in the future by a government-ordered redaction or some such truly 1984 scenario. It comes at a time when these things are still in flux. A time when we've yet to go too far to easily go back. I am glad that your actions brought this to the fore now and in the framework of an explicable and understandable act of copyright protection. Because of this, this largely abstract debate won't have to happen in the abstract. And the concrete issues that prompt it will add context and frame the debate.

We're awake now. And you woke us up whether you intended to or not. And in the long run, it's good for you and the industry that you currently lead. It's good for all of us because it's drawing normal people into the discussion. It's bringing people who are not dyed-in-the-wool partisans or legal wonks into a conversation about the exchange of ideas and the future of literary culture as well as the evolution of publishing. A dry debate just got more vibrant. Will it bring up the level of rhetoric? Probably not. Reasoned debate seems elusive in our polarized culture, but the addition of voices that don't come with preconceived notions attached may temper it.

Or at least force us all to speak in layman's terms.

Sincerely,
Scott

The Kindle Return Policy?

David Pogue's Technology Blog at the New York Times reports how Amazon takes a book back. And they may not tell you before they do it. I'm talking about eBooks, obviously. I've read the DRM statements for the Kindle and this doesn't actually surprise me. This is allowed for in the Kindle Terms of Service. This is basicallt part of what I'm talking about when I say that the eBook paradigm is shaping up to become a "limited lease" agreement. In lieu of ownership (in the classic sense) of the electronic book you are agreeing to specific conditions under which you may keep it and under which the purveyor may take it back. Not only can they tell you if, when or how many times you can loan your copy to someone, they can remove it from your electronic library with or without your permission. They may have had good reasoning, that's not the point. It's about who owns your books.

Sailing the Bounding Main

Pirate Bay -- the notorious harbor for online filesharing fans -- has been acquired by Global Gaming Factory, also of Sweden.

The acquisition comes in the wake of the legal battle that ended recently with the captains of the Pirate Bay spending a year in the brig and dolling out millions in fines and legal fees. The sale of the site comes hot on the heels of their announcement of a planned video site called VideoBay that promised to operate without the copyright restrictions. This would mean an end to the takedowns that so bedevil many of the folks on YouTube who want their vids to have a soundtrack (with unlicensed music) or share other protected video content (such as television shows). Today's LA Times story lays out an interesting business model for the new iteration of the site that would bring them in compliance with copyright laws by selling spare bandwidth.

Read the full article here (click) or by clicking the link to GGF above to read the press release about the acquisition. While the harbor may be closed, the Pirate Ship has sailed. The copyright battles of the beleaguered founders of the site inspired the creation of The Pirate Party, a political party operating on a platform of "decriminalizing" all online file-sharing. They usually couch this in terms of protecting online privacy and it's a movement that hasn't died with the company that inspired it and doesn't look likely to after winning parliament representation in Europe.

Personally, my inner war is ongoing, inevitably coming down in favor of both sides assuming a mantle of reasonable discourse in lieu of the war we find ourselves in now.

On the one hand, it seems to me that the Pirate Bay was a bad idea from the word go. The idea that they could insulate themselves as neutral site-operators and escape prosecution for aiding and abetting by claiming they just owned the building where the alleged crimes were taking place... well it seems rather naive considering the luck others (like Napster) have had trying to shield themselves with the same arguments.

On the other hand, draconian "Digital Rights Management" often forgets or ignores that it was the word-of-mouth sharing of great and inspiring music and literature that created the industries that are now so hellbent on snuffing out what made them great.

In many ways, the overreaction of MPAA and the RIAA have built the house they are desperately trying to knock down.

As a copyright holder, I understand the frustration felt by others whose work has put food on someone else's table and I understand the lashing-out that can ensue. Likewise do I like to think that there's room for reasoned response and discourse. There has to be a middle course through these shoals where the artforms can prosper and spread by word-of-mouth without making it so that artists simply cannot support themselves by their efforts.

The all-or-nothing fervor of the extreme agents of both camps seems to be all that gets airplay. But somewhere between hanging pirates and letting them rampage there has to be a happy medium, a way to coexist. A place where I can lend a digital book, movie or song to a friend without coming under fire from the shore guns of the legal system.

Holden On-Hold (For Now)

Catcher In the Rye pseudo-sequel has been halted for 10 days by command of a federal judge. Here's the story at the New York Times. I guess that it's a day for lawsuits and copyright musings at P2T.

The Goblet of Lawsuits

There's a court case brewing against Harry Potter's author and publisher over allegations that JK Rowling stole concepts and ideas for Goblet of Fire from a 36-page self-published 1987 booklet called "Willy the Wizard". The suit alleges that the author of Willy sent his manuscript to Rowling's agent in '87 and 13 years later, shenanigans ensued. Among other things, the suit alleges that Willy's author originated the ideas of a wizarding tournament, problem-solving in the John and that wizards travel by train. From this remove, I'd say that this appears to be a dodgy proposition at best. The author of the novelette - or in this case, his estate - would have to prove that not only did Rowling's agent have the Willy manuscript, but that he passed it along to Rowling and that she strip-mined it into a book the size of a cinder block*. That seems to be quite a hurdle. It's possible that Rowling may find that her own plaint that Goblet of Fire was the hardest to write and that she got stuck midway through. Which just goes to show that you should never admit to writer's block. I'm not 100% familiar with UK copyright law, but in the United States, ideas and concepts are not protected by copyright. In a manner of speaking, it's the material execution of ideas that are protected in US copyright law. The moment you put it down on paper, it's theoretically protected as you executed it but not the ideas behind it. Ideas are in the air, not on the page. The bookshelves are alive with various treatments (and outright knockoffs) of popular ideas. Been into the Young Adult section of a bookstore recently? You can't toss a stake without knocking over a pile of Young Adult vampire novels hanging on Twilight's coattails, which would then tumble into the previous wave of Harry Potter inspired young wizards and witches. Not to mention that if concepts are protected under copyright, then a lot of people owe the Tolkien estate a metric boatload** of money. From where I sit, I see a world of recycled memes and this lawsuit feels to me like someone fishing for a big settlement. --- * 636 pages in the UK, 734 pages in the US according to Wikipedia ** equal to 1.45 Imperial Boatloads

Catcher in the Lie?

There's a long tradition of dusting off the typewriters of the fallen and carrying on in their guise. There's a sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide coming, penned by Eoin Colfer. Sebastian Faulks was retained to write Devil May Care "as Ian Fleming" by Fleming's family. And it's not a new phenomenon: Sherlock Holmes never got any rest during Arthur Conan Doyle's life and the sleuth has hardly paused to catch his breath since, and it's almost comical the attempts to postulate a finish for Edwin Drood. As a society we are not well-disposed toward letting go of our literary heroes, despite the mortality of the authors. It's almost heartwarming when it isn't creepy and depressing. Some few of these have been profound tributes and expansions upon the source material (Laurie King's delightful take on the retired Sherlock Holmes and his wife, Mary Russell comes to mind) but most have been rather banal and forgettable (Betancourt's "Dawn of Amber" series leaps into mind). It's an inescapable truth that some characters had a story to tell and those stories were finished with the final page that passed beneath the pen of the original author. Which brings us to the counter-culture icon Holden Caulfield who has decided to go for another walk... this time tiptoeing through the intricacies of copyright law. If you follow me on Twitter, back in May you saw my reaction to the news that there's a "sequel" to Catcher In the Rye coming out that wasn't written by JD Salinger. Not a parody, not a critical work, an out and out sequel to the original book. Which on the surface isn't really all that surprising unless you take into account the fact that Mr. Salinger - whatever else can be said about him - is most definitely still alive. My initial reaction to this was dismay. Holden hails from the halls of the literary protagonist with but one story to tell. The eternally misunderstood youth, the personification of alienation and angst. He forever stalks the streets of our shared imagination, scowling at ducks and toying with his hat. Copyright is a funny thing and I recently bemoaned the fact that it stifles works that are tangential to or inspired by the original work. If I wrote a character who was strongly inspired by and referred to Disney cartoons it would probably never see the light of day because Disney would likely insist upon an endless list of licensing fees or litigation that would tie up publication in lawsuits to the extent that no publisher would be interested in looking at it. Unless I'm writing a parody making fun of Disney or a critical work examining Disney, their material is off-limits. Such is the nature of current copyright law. Likewise, I can quote Shakespeare, Robert Frost and Arthur Conan Doyle to my heart's content and write all the books I like using their characters because those authors are no longer living or their works protected. Othello meets Moriarty on a path that diverges in a wood? No problem. But I can't write a sequel to The Shining no matter how much I might want to. I cannot write and publish a sequel to The Highlander no matter how greatly I desire to put right the travesties of the authorized sequels. And that's fine. I wouldn't want to have someone appropriate my characters and have them haring off in rogue adventures and expect to profit from the venture. That's why we have copyright laws. It's mine, you can mess with it when I'm good and gone, but hands-off for now! Why would anyone think it's ok to write a sequel to Catcher In the Rye whilst Salinger draws breath? When my local NPR station asked that question, I responded with a more emphatic statement than this because - even on NPR - there's little room for nuance in a soundbyte. The truth is, I've been watching this thing unfold with a jaundiced eye, wondering if - in fact - the jokesters at the Swedish printshop trying to foist this thing off on the world aren't engaged in some sort of hijinx. They readily-admit that they're jokesters out to poke the world in the eye. The ascendancy of the copyright-protest "Pirate Party" in Europe and especially Sweden makes me wonder if this may simply be an attempt to make some sort of elaborate point. It's gratifying to note that I'm not alone in wondering if this isn't the first prong of a cinema verite copyright protest. By tweaking the nose of one of our most famous living literary figures, this hitherto unremarkable Swedish printhouse has drawn international focus. By drawing a notorious literary curmudgeon out of hiding and into a mudslinging match, they've generated a LOT of publicity from the self-appointed cultural commentators and blogs (myself included). Up to this point, aside from the mention on Twitter, I've refrained from commenting because bandwagons make me carsick. But whatever their intentions or whether or not the book exists outside of the Amazon description that sparked the controversy, a worldwide discussion has begun. A debate on the nature and reach of copyright and intellectual property. For good or ill, they've let the genie out of the bottle, dragging this debate out of the blogosphere and into the so-called legitimate media. There's no doubt in my mind that a sequel to a copyright-protected work is a violation of copyright. There must be some protection for creators or we're on a roadtrip back to the days when Charles Dickens was the bestselling author in America without ever seeing a dime from the sales of his books. Nevertheless, this is a valuable discussion and one that is overdue. Let us hope that what comes out the other end is going to encourage innovation, allow for creativity and fall well short of someone reading over your shoulder has to deposit $.50 for the privilege.

Copywrong?

It's tough out there for a book blogger.

The publishing industry has been distressingly tame the the last week or so (of course, I've been sick, so it was nice of them to wait for me) All the same, it's time to uncork a big Bottle of Literary Chaos, don't you think?

Well. That didn't take long...

Kevin sent me an email to alert me that famed Swedish wordsmith (and watercolorist) Lars Gustafsson has riled some and energized others with an op/ed he published in the Swedish mag Expressen in favor of voting for the Pirate Party. The Pirate Party - you might recall - was named for and inspired by the Pirate Bay filetrading trial and exists to push an agenda of extensive copyright reform. (The Expressen link above will take you to a page written in Swedish, you can find his words in translation at Copyriot here.) In his article, he comes out strongly in favor of a more social ideal of setting aside copyright protections as an undue hinderance on the free exchange of ideas provided by the internet. He compares the Pirate Bay verdict and efforts by governments and the RIAA to squelch file-sharing to the efforts of the French government in the leadup to the revolution to squelch the printing of revolutionary tracts.

Copyright Protectionists as French Aristocrats putting down revolting peasantry and soon to meet Dr. Guillotine? Man the barricades and storm the Bastille? Does that mean we have Robespierre to look forward too on the far end, followed by Napoleon as well?

In some ways I agree with him, though I respectfully submit that the learned gentleman overstates his case. While I am apalled by the draconian efforts to encode DRM into my library to the point where the free sharing of beloved movies, music, writers and books with my peers will be actually illegal, I don't think this is necessarily an either/or proposition. Nor do I believe that history bears out the idea that copyright protection -- in and of itself -- stifles freedom of speech so much as it protects (on the whole) creators from penury whilst others party at their expense.

The argument has become the epitome of the reductio ad absurdum argument on every side.

The RIAA has been draconian and almost comically dictatorial, but they're not throwing people in the Bastille, they're suing them in civil court and losing rather a lot. On the other side are people who are benefiting financially from the efforts of others and some who have entire libararies without ever a thought for the creators. There must be a way to counter that without dragging twelve year olds into superior court and assessing $150,000 per track for the crime of being caught up in the dragnet.

On all sides, the arguments boil down to who owns the book on your shelf? Who owns the DVD or the CD in your player? Why does the format of a digitally downloaded song somehow change the manner in which we may use it? Why does the digitization of a book change whether or not I can lend it to a friend or resell it to provide revenue to buy more books? How does the exchange of paper for pixels alter the contract between the page and the reader?

They don't and there's no reason why they should.

I've said it before: the protectivist impulse to profit from every eyeball that looks at a page or every ear that hears a song forgets or ignores the communal aspect of the artform. It forgets that it was the word-of-mouth sharing of great and inspiring music and literature that created the industries so hellbent on stifling that very thing today.

To broaden this, there's the additional problem of the manner in which copyright and the abuse of copyright disallows works inspired by the protected works.

Not long ago, you may remember, I asked YA author John Green during a Q&A what his thoughts were on the Google Books settlement. During his answer, he mentioned that his Edgar Award-winning book Paper Towns would not have been possible if the heirs of Walt Whitman were are vigorous as the heirs of Walt Disney in assaulting the sunset provisions of copyright laws. His book hinges a great deal on the poem Song of Myself and would have been all but impossible to publish if it had been similarly dependent upon the song Message to Myself by Melissa Etheridge.

Not because it would have hindered Ms. Etheridge's ability to make money from the song -- his mostly-young readership would likely have flocked to iTunes to buy the song -- but because it would be considered infringement of extant copyright law. And by ignoring the infringement, Ms. Etheridge would have damaged any future effort to enforce her copyright when actual damage did occur.

As a copyright holder, I understand the frustration felt by other copyright holders. And I understand the kneejerk lashing-out that can ensue. Likewise do I like to think that there's room for reasoned response and discourse. Be that as it may, the book I purchase is mine and the cross-pollination of my collection and the collections of the people in my circle of friends makes more money than a similarly-sized digital libary that only I can use.

There has to be a middle ground where the artforms can prosper and spread by word-of-mouth without throwing open the gates and making it so that artists simply cannot support themselves by their efforts. Just my opinion, mind you.

eTolkien

JRR Tolkien's hat has finally been thrown in the eBook ring after six years of negotiations. Also an excellent article covering the battle over eBook licensing from the preferences or wariness of authors (and their estates) to the ongoing disputes over cost-versus-royalties: One eBook to Rule Them All