Surreality Check

A Savage Writer's Journal

November 2003

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Chicago, including WindyCon 30 and various other frippery

Last Month (October)

03 November 2003
Damning the Longest River

Amazon.com has instituted a new feature that has been taking up a great deal of my time in the last week: the ill-conceived "search inside the book" feature. Sure, it may be a great idea for novels, or for book-length works of nonfiction. However, nobody at Amazon (or the various publishers) did very much thinking in advance, because there is a third—very large—class of books for which it is not a good idea at all: collections and anthologies. (Keep in mind that a cookbook is nothing more than a collection.)

What makes things worse is the shitty attitude Amazon has had toward the whole issue. Interestingly, their shitty attitude has revealed another shitty attitude, about which more anon. Upon confirming the retrievability of entire independently copyrighted works of short fiction from a client's collection last Monday (27 October), I sent a DMCA notice to the Amazon DMCA address, with a courtesy copy to the publisher (iBooks). A representative of Amazon acknowledged the DMCA notice later that afternoon, and promised to look into it. The next day, the entire feature was not working; but by late on Tuesday it had been turned back on.

A followup with Amazon on Wednesday—aside: may the individual who decided that one cannot get through to even a receptionist in the Legal Department, as opposed to a voice-mail system, rot in hell—resulted in two very interesting discoveries. First, Amazon claims that "contractual obligations" with publishers mean that the takedown request needs to come from the publishers. The lawyer to whom I was speaking denied that this was at all like Tasini, despite its obvious similarity (in both instances, publishers transferred rights to online aggregators that had not been transferred to the publishers by the freelance authors). But that's for another time. The most interesting aspect, though, is that the "problem" in this particular instance was not the publisher, which had in fact never been contacted. Instead, it was the distributor—another publisher (we'll call it Publisher X). Further investigation indicated that Publisher X had, in its role as distributor, made similar decisions "on behalf of" at least three other small publishers that it distributes.

Would it surprise anyone to hear that I'm struggling with Publisher X on royalty issues for four other authors at this time? I didn't think so. It would be a good idea for authors whose shorter, independently copyrighted works have been collected or anthologized to examine Amazon's search feature and determine for themselves whether the ability to retrieve complete shorter works is merely a sales gimmick or is potentially harmful to their interests. In the meantime, you can peruse some general recommendations (but not legal advice) on running Amazon's fax machines out of paper. Legally. Within the bounds of, and in fact as required by, the DMCA.

06 November 2003
WindyCon 30 Ho!

Unfortunately, it's not adviseable to put the formal name of Windycon 30 in this journal, because the number is in Roman numerals. Since the only pornography ever found here is discussion of obscene corporate behavior, I don't think that would work too well.

In any event, I'm off to Chicago for a few days shortly. Still no decision in Harlan's case. Still no backing down by Amazon. Still no money in the bank account after starting the teenager with the orthodontist. Still no sanity inside the Beltway. In other words, status quo!

13 November 2003
Living in Interesting Times

Well, I'm back. It was an interesting trip, and an interesting con, but not necessarily in that order. At least I don't feel like Cassandra: I got the feeling that my comments on Amazon's ill-conceived "Search Inside the Book" feature were at least considered seriously.

In any event, WindyCon 30 was more notable for the missing than anything else. (You know who you are.) The art show was a rather featureless event this year, but at least there was neither a Star Wars nor a Star Trek corridor; in fact, there was as much Babylon 5 material as there was from either of those franchises! Somewhat unusually for a dealer room, at least half the floor space was devoted to book dealers.

And, of course, times were interesting here upon my return.

14 November 2003
A Genius in France

In honor of today's opening of Master and Commander—although I am not a Patrick O'Brian fan by any means, finding his incessant infodumps infuriatingly inept, no movie that celebrates defeating the French can be all bad—a bit of lawyer humor. At the expense of the French.

Nonlawyers should therefore be more understanding when we are argumentative, annoying and otherwise difficult. It’s just the way we are brought up. In other words, lawyers are like the French—it’s just our culture.

The Rodent, "A Fee Apart" (14 November 2003).

On second though, perhaps being compared to the French is not exactly something I welcome. France, after all, celebrates Jerry Lewis as a genius. One shudders to think of either who might be considered an imbecile under those criteria—or of legal equivalents other than G. Harrold Carswell ("There are millions of mediocre Americans, and they, too, deserve to be represented in the United States Supreme Court!").

15 November 2003
A Self-Evident Proposition

This weekend's New York Times Book Review has an interesting essay filled with self-evident propositions about award programs. Here are a couple of them:

The NBA [National Book Award] judges habitually leave the year's "big books"—well publicized, briskly selling, critically acclaimed—for the Pulitzer committee to cherry-pick. (Only The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen, managed to beat this pattern, nabbing the NBA in 2001, though it ultimately missed the Pulitzer.) You could interpret this generously, as a desire to highlight less trumpeted authors, or you could call it, as one writer I know does, the "too many goodies policy." Perhaps both characterizations amount to the same thing, the belief that the meager bounty of the literary world should be dispensed as equitably as possible. This wouldn't be so vexing if talent were also so uniformly distributed. It's not. When writers are put in charge of such matters, too often the result is like the caucus race in Alice in Wonderland: the Dodo decrees that "everybody has won, and all must have prizes."

*   *   *

Writers, who harbor the understandable hope that everyone will read their books, resist the idea that only a handful of truly excellent titles are published annually. The common reader, who often has time for only three or four novels per year, wants someone to point out the very best. The more the National Book Awards [or, for that matter, any source of reviews—CEP] serve the former, the less relevance they'll have to the latter.

Laura Miller, "You Could Already Be a Winner", NYTBR (16 Nov 03)

My agreement with this position is not dictated solely by my fondness for Lewis Carroll. As another saying goes, "Academic politics are so vicious only because the stakes are so low." At least academics have tenure at issue—which makes the stakes substantially higher than in the arts… or the Nebulas…

16 November 2003
I Have Jeopardized Western Civiliztion

Western civilization is no longer safe, if it ever was. I put in a new rug in the living room yesterday. Today, I was telling my youngest son to help make sure that the dogs didn't stick noses and paws under the edge of the new rug. Without missing a beat, he said:

"Mission Impawsible!"

I've let loose two of these monsters on the world now. Even if I were not a lawyer, I'm afraid I would be headed for hotter climes after death just for that.

21 November 2003
Revenge of the Worms

Tomorrow's Guardian has two articles of interest for writers. The first is Nicholas Clee's weekly gossip column. Even though he's in the UK, and the UK and NY publishing worlds try to pretend that they're completely separate, they're actually symbiotes in almost all respects. One amusing comment today bears that out, although not intentionally:

Fiction can boast a quantity of wannabes to rival those in pop music or opera, as anyone who has dealt with a slush pile can confirm. So it is not surprising that the publishing world is getting its own version of Pop Idol and Operatunity. Lit Idol will reach its final round at the London Book Fair in March, when five finalists will read from their work in front of a panel chaired by literary agent Ali Gunn. The winner will get taken on by Gunn's agency, Curtis Brown. Aspiring writers will have to supply a synopsis and up to 10,000 words from a proposed novel. Borders and Books Etc branches will have entry forms, which will also be available from thebookplace.com.

Nicholas Clee, "The Bookseller" (22 Nov 03)

This should sound an awful lot like other literary contests in this country. Among other abominations. Clee's description of recent changes at John Murray also bear some thought, although the conclusions one may draw are far from unambiguous.

On a somewhat more positive note, Rachel Billington notes in response to the "Harry Potter phenomenon" that "Children, when they are allowed to be, are extraordinarily open-minded, prepared to read anything, however unlikely, if it grabs their imagination." "Tales of the Inspirational" (22 Nov 03). She closes with the following paragraph:

Finally, it's important to clock a child's personal preferences—which may well not be your own. As I have said, children's tastes can be surprising. My eldest son, for a long time an obdurate non-reader, surprised us one holiday by reading the entire collection of PG Wodehouse, followed immediately by the science-fiction of Asimov. In a neat reversal of the mother-son roles, I ended up reading both authors for the first time and thoroughly enjoying them—well, to be honest, I found Asimov rather hard going. But that's probably what my son thought about Thomas Hardy.

Interesting that the final implicit comparison is that a major science fiction author deserves to be treated as an equal with a member of the traditional canon—which loops right back into the subject of the entire article.

27 November 2003
The 2003 Turkey Awards

Gobble gobble. It's that time of year again, folks: my not-quite-to-the-end-of-the-year nominations for this years most ridiculous personages. Drumstick, please…

• The Greasy Gravy Award goes to the US steel industry for its mendacity in convincing the Bush Administration to provoke a trade war with Europe over purported "dumping" of steel in this country. Even cursory examination of the records shows not only that there was negligible market impact, but that the foreign steel was not being sold substantially below cost.
• The Red-Tide Oyster Stuffing Award goes to SCO for its misuse of the copyright laws in a way that makes it substantially harder for those of us with real copyright claims (and clients with real copyright claims) to protect themselves. SCO's actions, one might add, are based upon a dubious purchase of a dubious copyright to begin with.
• The Broken Wishbone Award goes to Elizabeth von Hullesem (or whatever her real name is) for her thefts from writers as "Melanie Mills," a fraudulent literary agent, and in running a fake "writers' conference" in Banff, Alberta (trading on the reputation of a legitimate writers' conference in Banff). And to the US Embassy in Ottawa (or perhaps the Department of State in Washington), which failed to forward the extradition request on the outstanding US warrants in time to get her transferred back to US custody (admittedly, the fact that one set of warrants is from Arkansas—a state with a death penalty—didn't help). It's bad enough that writers are such suckers, often with such grandiose dreams that their wishes alter their realities to their detriment.
• The Golden Gristle Award goes to Amazon.com for its refusal to consult with affected copyright holders prior to placing complete works online.
• The Crabapple Pie Award goes to Torcon's Hugo nominators and voters for somehow managing to nominate a novel by a fellow countryman for a Hugo—and then giving it the Hugo—when that novel didn't crack the list of the top 15 novels of any respected critic.
• The Brussels Sprout Award goes to Fox News and Bill O'Reilly, for their collective idiocy in suing Al Franken over Franken's latest bit of satire.
• The Dried-Out Breastmeat Award goes to George III W. Bush and his top advisors, particularly including Karl Rove, for their attempts to turn the judiciary into a partisan plaything of the executive branch. (That this is not historically very successful is beside the point.)
• The Rancid Drumstick Award goes to Mr. O'Brien Attorney General John Ashcroft for failing to understand that making our government act like a totalitarian government means that the totalitarians have won.

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