Oh, and I opted out.
On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 6:38 AM, Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Wow. 6am and I haven't slept - too much coffee yesterday. So I've
> spent the night meeting the deadlines I planned to meet tomorrow
> (today), since I know I'll be too buggered to do them otherwise.
>
> And now I'm sitting here, kind of astounded by the meh over the Google
> Books thing.
>
> I'm personally fairly laissez faire about the internet. Over the past
> 15 years or so, I've put tons of work out there, both my own and
> others, for free - in magazines that have asked me for poems, or in
> Masthead, or in all those poetryetc projects, or on Theatre Notes.
> I've never objected to fanfic of my work - when fans asked me I gave
> them the necessary permissions so they could upload their stuff to
> FanFiction.net without any hesitation. A couple of months or so ago I
> found that I'm also being enthusiastically pirated on sites like
> BitTorrent - around 200,000 downloads, at my most conservative
> estimate. I thought about that, and it didn't worry me - I figure that
> some of them will buy the books if they like them, and the rest, well,
> I'm not going to run to the publishers bleating copyright
> infringement, because that goes against how I figure the energies of
> the net works. It's just a bunch of individuals filesharing.
>
> The point is that aside from those naughty pirates, I am always asked,
> just as I always ask others before I publish their work. The point is
> that Google isn't asking, it's taking.You can be sure that Google
> isn't doing this out of the goodness of its heart - it is planning to
> make a lot of money out of this.
>
> A private mega-corporation overturning the basic tenets of the Berne
> Convention through a predatory fiat ratified through a US court
> *without any international representation* doesn't just change the
> rules, it changes the game.
>
> This goes well beyond self interest. That's what I don't get about the meh.
>
> xA
>
> On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 4:05 AM, Halvard Johnson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Sic transit . . .
>>
>> Hal
>>
>> "Publicity is like eating peanuts. Once you start
>> you can't stop."
>> --Andy Warhol
>>
>> Halvard Johnson
>> ================
>> [log in to unmask]
>> http://sites.google.com/site/halvardjohnson/Home
>> http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
>> http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
>> http://www.hamiltonstone.org
>>
>
>>> xA
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 3:13 AM, Douglas Barbour
>>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> > Reading this & LeGuin, one can understand her worry, & many others'; but
>>> for
>>> > a relatively little known poet, it may be less bothersome a question. I
>>> > mean, you, Alison, have your fantasy novels to worry about, but many of
>>> us
>>> > have a few collections of poems, & in my case, I confess, only some
>>> hundreds
>>> > of copies of all of the out there.
>>> >
>>> > I get the worry, especially about the end-run around copyright, & the
>>> > refusal of LeGuin & others, to join, but I'm not sure it matters,
>>> finally,
>>> > to someone like me, one way or the other....
>>> >
>>> > Doug
>>> > On 22-Jan-10, at 10:05 PM, Alison Croggon wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> ...Still not sure whether to opt in or not. Either option strikes me
>>> >> as unsatisfactory.
>>> >>
>>> >> From the US authors' petition:
>>> >>
>>> >> "The “opt-out” clause in the Settlement is most disturbing:
>>> >>
>>> >> First, it seems unfair that, by the terms of the class-action
>>> >> settlement, authors can officially present objections to the Court
>>> >> only by being “opted in” to the settlement and thereby subjecting
>>> >> themselves to its terms.
>>> >>
>>> >> Second, while the “opt-out” clause appears to offer authors an easy
>>> >> way to defend their copyright, in fact it disguises an assault on
>>> >> authors’ rights. Google, like any other publisher or entity, should be
>>> >> required to obtain permission from the owner to purchase or use
>>> >> copyrighted material, item by item.
>>> >>
>>> >> There is no justification for reversing that rule by forcing copyright
>>> >> owners to defend their right against every careless or predatory use
>>> >> of the material, thus rendering copyright essentially meaningless.
>>> >>
>>> >> The United States Department of Justice agrees, having declared that
>>> >> Google should negotiate individually with copyright holders. The
>>> >> Director of the United States Copyright Office calls the Settlement
>>> >> “an end-run around copyright law.”
>>> >>
>>> >> The free and open dissemination of information and of literature, as
>>> >> it exists in our Public Libraries, can and should exist in the
>>> >> electronic media. All authors hope for that. But we cannot have free
>>> >> and open dissemination of information and literature unless the use of
>>> >> written material continues to be controlled by those who write it or
>>> >> own legitimate right in it. We urge our government and our courts to
>>> >> allow no corporation to circumvent copyright law or dictate the terms
>>> >> of that control"
>>> >>
>>> >> If you don't have a problem with big corporations making money out of
>>> >> your work without your having any control over what they do, I guess
>>> >> what Google is doing isn't a problem. Otherwise, the implication are
>>> >> worrying.
>>> >>
>>> >> xA
>>> >
>>> > Douglas Barbour
>>> > [log in to unmask]
>>> >
>>> > http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/ <http://www.ualberta.ca/%7Edbarbour/>
>>> >
>>> > Latest books:
>>> > Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
>>> > http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
>>> > Wednesdays'
>>> >
>>> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
>>> >
>>> > Swept snow, Li Po,
>>> > by dawn's 40-watt moon
>>> > to the road that hies to office
>>> > away from home.
>>> >
>>> > Lorine Niedecker
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
>>> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>>> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>
--
Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
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