Murder By Piracy

The Real Problem With Piracy

Piracy is killing the wrong people, for all the wrong reasons. It’s not destroying the traditional publishers. In fact, it’s helping them by keeping us in the past. Piracy is really destroying the new world of digital creators. People who want to do it right!

That!

All The Way Down It’s Just Writers

How To Change the Future of Publishing Now, Even Though It’s Too Late

Technology and social networks both require serious cash. With investment, it is possible to beat back giants. Look at the rise of Apple in 1999 when the company finally started making the right technology choices again. Look at famous disrupting forces like Napster, Redhat, Netscape, Firefox, Twitter, Ubuntu, Chrome. All of those required large amounts of cash to take their share. Is that share important? It definitely is. Can it be measured meaningfully looking at P & L margins alone? No. Publishers: your content is the same way. It’s no longer just about making enough unit sales on a project and then moving along. You have lists, there is a long tail, you have cults of personality, you have devoted audiences, you have long lifecycles for books across all manner of digital media that you don’t control. Wake up.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

This addresses publishers.

But publishers twiddle their thumbs without writers.

Unclear Developments In The French International Book Robbery

Anthologies Of Authors In Translation Pulled From ReLIRE

Without a statement from the committee behind ReLIRE, it’s hard to know if these works have been removed from the registry because they were errors, or if the authors, translator or publisher concerned has submitted an opt-out. As a commenter pointed out on Lionel Maurel’s blog, the lack of transparency concerning the contents of the registry makes it difficult to know the status of a book on the list, for example whether it has been opposed, confirmed, etc. So it isn’t obvious why these works have now been removed.

Isn’t it funny how that braying dickhead Scott Turow — who always reminds us he is President of the Authors Guild — doesn’t seem to know that this unprecedented robbery of writers is being attempted in France?

No. No, it’s not funny at all.

Previously here:

French Book Theft Targets American Writers Too
French Government To Steal Books
France’s Writers Sold Down The River
France’s Book Grab: Worse Than Google Books

French Book Theft Targets American Writers Too

Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. Le Guin Among Award-Winning Writers On French “Copyright Theft” List

Among the authors I found in the registry are Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. Le Guin, Samuel R. Delany, and R.A. Rafferty. You won’t find them by searching for their names in the author field, but the anthology in question shows up in a free text search using their names. Although ReLIRE doesn’t present the catalog details, apparently it does use them to present search results. Here is the catalog listing from the Bibliothèque National de France.

Now that some prominent American names are in the crosshairs, will this news finally get some goddammed traction?

Previously here:

French Government To Steal Books
France’s Writers Sold Down The River
France’s Book Grab: Worse Than Google Books

French Government To Steal Books

Legalized Copyright Theft Begins In France: Government Prepares To Dispossess Writers Using Public Funds

In France there is now a double standard for piracy: it’s illegal for individuals to copy material without permission and share it freely online, but for some works the state can make a digital copy without permission and allow its sale for commercial gain. This looks like the plundering of individual property for private gain, which deprives writers of the rewards of their own labors and deprives the public of open access to orphan works.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Hugo, Baudelaire, Nerval, and the rest rage from their graves.

Previously here:

France’s Writers Sold Down The River
France’s Book Grab: Worse Than Google Books

Memo To Scott Turow: Just STFU Already!

Turow on Amazon/Goodreads: This is how modern monopolies can be built

Amazon is buying Goodreads, its only sizable competitor for reader reviews and a site known for the depth and breadth of its users’ book recommendations.

I know you think a computer is sorta like a telegraph, Turow, because you also think Google Search is like a word processor’s Find command.

But are you so stupid that you can’t even parse the sentence you wrote?

A Billion Dollars Isn’t Cool

Peter Thiel Talks About the Day Mark Zuckerberg Turned Down Yahoo’s $1 Billion

The most successful businesses have an idea for the future that’s very different from the present–and that’s not fully valued.

Google Pimps Play eBooks

Which is a waste of marketing dollars. What are they really selling here? eBooks or a tablet? Why no mention of the Google Play Store? Why no link to just the damn eBooks?

Wake Up: Real Writers Are On Their Own

The Outrage of the Week is the revelation that Random House is out to screw people with their new self-publishing scheme.

Just Shut the Fuck Up. No, really.

For years I have screamed — screamed! — about how the Big 6/4 are out to screw writers.

Quote: Kristine Kathryn Rusch

The Business Rusch: The Death of Publishing

You’re a rotating group of widgets that might make the publisher some money.

That’s the truth.

And she also explains why the print bastards haven’t yet died — and nearly convinces me.