Surreality Check A Savage Writer's Journal | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
05 September 1999 I have seldom encountered as stupid an example of hotel design and function as the main con hotel, the Hyattwhich is no reflection at all upon the ConCom. The downtown Hyatt is one of the few Chicagoland (sounds like part of Disney World, doesn't it?) hotels that is centrally located around other hotels, has adequate (marginally) meeting space, and doesn't understand enough about fen to exclude them. But …
On the other hand, the con's own facilities, particularly the Green Room, were efficient, friendly, well-run (with the exception of the Con Suite, which was not the con's fault), and easy to find. There could have been more ice water in panel rooms, but that's a minor detail. Advice to future WorldCon bids in Chicago: Don't use the downtown Hyatt, which will be even more tatty by the next time around. II: Scam, Scam, Scam, Scam My first panel was the Literary Scams Panel, which included the following luminaries:
We were civil. We were not very nice. Remember:
Money flows toward the author
Cynthia Sterling, I hereby throw down the gauntlet to you. Go
ahead. Sue me for defamation in a court with personal
jurisdiction. Just remember, though, that I'll get to take
discovery on your business practices and finances to both
demonstrate that you cannot make a good-faith claim of
untruthfulness and your reputation.
Go ahead. Make my day.
Don' throw me in that there courtroom, Bre'r Fox!
III: The Escape of the Human Sacrifice
On Saturday morning, I fully expected blood on the floor during
the Copyright and the Internet panel. It wasn't going to be mine.
Unfortunately, the prospective victim cowardly left early to go
guide an art-show tour. So, instead, the remaining panelist, the
moderator, and I spent the next forty minutes repairing the
damage said idiot inflicted.
Strong, strong suggestion to all convention programming chairs,
particularly for WorldCon, NASFIC, WFA, and other major events:
Every panel that potentially touches on legal issues should
include at least one licensed attorney who practices in that area
of the law. If that is not possible, at least have the con's
attorney review full curriculum vitae and preferably writings for
all panelists on such panels. That would have excluded this
particular panelist, and enabled us to possibly move forward on
the issue for the full 75 minutes instead of just the last 20.
Specific examples of said panelist's affirmative misstatements of
law and fact:
Oh, I give up. That's the first two minutes of her presentation.
If the moderator, the remaining panelist, and I had not known
that she would be leaving early, I would not have let her get the
first incorrect statement out of her mouth without immediately
stepping on her neck. By remaining civilvery firm, but
civilI hope we let the audience, the people who really
needed to learn from the panel, learn the material without
worrying about the bloodstains all over their clothes. At least I
had had the foresight to sharpen the sacrificial knife and
dragoon a couple of chalice-holders to prevent carpet stains.
IV: Wild Donkey Sex and Other Party Animals
What would a WorldCon report be without a discussion of parties? Well, aside from
rather incomplete and deceptive, pretty short. I'm afraid that my reputation
may never equal that of the highly esteemed exemplar of Dirty Old Manhood, Gardner
Dozoisbut not for lack of natural aptitude. A few random thoughts (and considering
my average blood alcohol level after 6PM at the con, "random" is about
all you're going to get):
John Savage (noticing name tag): I'd like a demonstration,
please. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
10 September 2000 I wrote almost all of the foregoing 'con report on the train back down from Chicago. I had an extra hour to do it, too, which is particularly annoying for a 2-hour journey. My dictionary defines "Amtrak" as "clueless"although we sat on the tracks twice, nobody said a damned thing about either stop until we were almost ready to pull forward. Once was less than 300 meters from the Champaign station waiting 25 minutes for the northbound to come through; the southbound I was on would have cleared the station with a good 10 minutes to spare. Urghh. I did not have back spasms, because I could move around on the train. However, I was pretty sore (not in the right places, you filthy-minded little …) Tuesday. But enough of this nonsense. I'm having an interesting time with a couple of cases I'm wrestling at the moment, which is why I've been somewhat absent over the last few days. Normally I'm just absent-minded. No, I take that back. I used to be, back in my misspent youth. And, of course, there's always Life. Yes, I do have something resembling one; however dissatisfying it may be, it's the only one I've got, so I've got to live it. Speaking of interesting news, the U.S. government (specifically, the Department of Justice, the Copyright Office, and the Patent and Trademark Office) has weighed in on one aspect of the Napster appeal. Looking at their brief is quite instructive, and demonstrates why Napster is going to go down. What this really means, ultimately, is that if the Supreme Court grants certiorari after the appeal decision comes down, the Solicitor General will participate in the appeal (whether the parties like it or not). The government brief focusses on one narrow aspect of the Napster controversy: § 1008. Napster claims that this section of the Copyright Code gives it a free rideit cannot be sued for contributory or vicarious infringement. The government brief quite properly notes that the plain text of the statute denies this interpretation, that legislative history denies this interpretation, and that the policy decisions behind the exemption for manufacturers of digital media and devices absolutely exclude Napster from the section. The more interesting subtext of the brief, though, concerns Napster's general argument that the Copyright Act shouldn't be extended to new technologies by the Courts, but only by Congress. The brief points out, almost in passing, that Congress specifically considered future digital technologies during committee deliberations, and rejected the idea that merely creating a new technology would result in an exemption from copyright infringement suits (note that § 1008 only bars suit; it doesn't make the use noninfringing). Instead, the strict interpretation is in the opposite direction: that copyright protection must be assumed unless exempted. Food for thought for book pirates, too. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
15 September 2000 People don't die from seasickness very oftenthey only wish they could. Never having been seasick in my life, despite crewing some relatively small boats on Puget Sound in bad weather during my misspent youth, I wouldn't know. As of yesterday, though, when I had intended to put up an entry (I can't very well nag other NAW members if I'm not keeping up myself), I wish I could have died instead of suffering through post-'con crud. Do you have any idea at all just how aggravating it is for a lawyer to lose his voice? Particularly with a client crisis, a couple of phone calls with the fedabodies (sort of like antibodies, but in the legal system, and equally capable of the occasional destruction of healthy tissue), etc.? Plus back stiffness leading to mild spasms, fever, and the other usual symptoms of influenza. Dear Mr. Landshark: Congratulations on developing your new resistance! Although it is no guarantee of immunity, your body has now developed antibodies to this particular strain of I. non carborundum. You will now be vulnerable to only 457 strains this season. As always, we stand ready to confuse you further with meaningless questions and obfuscatory responses.
Sincerely, There will be a Dumpster Diving entry in the next few days ("midmonth"), and several full reviews at the end of the month. In one of the full-length reviews, I will be taking serious issue with An Established Reviewer who completely blew it. Hint: Said Established Reviewer is a regular at Locus who will hopefully consider me an Esteemed Enemy (should the review cross the horizon) rather than merely contemptible. So, ladies and germs, some homework before the next journal entry. Get a recent publication contractthere are plenty available on the weband read it. This is a "get familiar with the contract" reading, not a "just what the hell did that mean?" reading. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
19 September 2000 Starting today, a short treatment of choice of law, alternative dispute resolution, and why authors should care. We'll start with choice of law today. That might give you stragglers in the back of the roomyes, that does include you, Mr. Nazzarioa chance to get ready for the remainder of the lesson [to be delivered in the next couple of entriesed.]. Mr. Karlin! Please explain what "choice of law" means. Well, umm, I guess it's what it sounds like. I mean, sometimes a defendant and a plaintiff live in different places, and the law isn't always exactly the same. You guess, Mr. Karlin. I didn't ask you to guess. Why wouldn't the plaintiff always get to choose which law applied by choosing where he files suit? Umm, because you can only file suit in a court that has personal jurisdiction over the defendant, and that isn't always the plaintiff's first choice? Mr. Karlin, I ask the questions; you give complete, concise answers. As this is not a class in civil procedure, but in contracts, someone will need to help Mr. Karlin. Mr. Cauley, why am I asking this question? Because contracts sometimes [almost always in publishing contractsed.] include a clause in which the parties agree which jurisdiction's law will apply to interpreting the contract or resolving disputes. Precisely. Miss Sondergard, why would a publisher want to choose Virginia or Maryland law, as opposed to that of any other state? I don't exactly remember the name, but those are the two states that have passed the uniform act that covers computers and information. The one the Conference rejected for inclusion in the Uniform Commercial Code as Article 2B. A judge will demand that you know the name and citation of the act, but that is in substance correct. UCITA (the act Ms. Sondergard referred to) is evil. It is strongly favored by software publishers, because it makes shrinkwrap licenses completely enforceable and enshrines the assumption that all that is transferred is a "license." There are insidious provisions in UCITA, though, that could be greatly to an author's disadvantage, because by its terms UCITA applies to transfers of information and information technology. Thus, if you see a choice of law pointing at Virginia or Maryland, object, or at least seek qualified counsel who can tell you what is really at risk. To be continued … | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
22 September 2000 I've never understood why arbitration and mediation are called "alternative dispute resolution." Courts are, themselves, an alternative means to resolve disputesin modern civilization the last alternative to violence. But, anyway, more and more contracts these days, both inside and outside of publishing, are including arbitration clauses. The clauses always look innocuous; sometimes they actually are. The key questions one should ask before agreeing to the clauses are:
When used properly and in good faith, arbitration can indeed be an excellent means of resolving disputes over publishing contracts. However, one cannot assume that the editor who has become your best friend will be making decisions if there's a screwup in accounting three years from now; or that she will even be with the publisher; or, in the worst case, that the publisher hasn't been purchased by GrendelCorp, a giant international conglomerate that makes Genghis Khan look like a humanitarian. To be continued … | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
26 September 2000 The Supremes (what else should I call a song-and-dance group that's mostly guys in dresses?) have decided a couple of interesting things by motion today.
We'll return to the tutorial next entry.
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