Gremlins in the Garden
Published April 15th, 2011 | 
I was watching Bill Maher last night on HBO and went to bed thinking about our crappy government. The sideshow over planned parenthood and the pointless, ineffectual wrangling over reducing the national debt, etc. It’s enough to make a man scream. It’s like a bad neighbor waking you up every night with ridiculous outdoor lighting and loud music. They are out to make our lives and troublesome and inconvenient as possible while those bastards in the wealthier neighborhoods sleep sound.
Take the recent action over Google Books, for example. Judge Dennis Chin, after months of silence, finally issued his ruling in the Justice Department lawsuit over the previous settlement with the Author’s Guild. The fact that Google Books satisfies a public good (something that Chin, himself, acknowledged) seems to be less important to the government than protecting “orphan works” whose copyright no one is claiming. I’m telling you, people, there are gremlins in the garden shining their floodlights and playing Justin Beiber at 4 o’clock in the morning. As I’ve stated before, the issue of orphan works is a bullshit issue intended to put on a sideshow to keep small time authors fearful of big bad Google so they can’t see that this is really about protecting Rupert Murdoch and Disney. Whatever concerns authors or the Justice Department may have over copyright infringement can be addressed by simply change the Google books scanning project to an opt-in agreement instead of opt-out. Yes, this would slow the project down some, but it wouldn’t stop it in its tracks. Just don’t give me this bullshit about orphan works! These are creations that would’ve been in the public domain a long time ago had the Congress not decided to extend copyright protection well beyond what our founding fathers intended to begin with. And why did Congress do it? To protect the likes of Murdock and Disney. Because why the fuck would an author who’s been dead several decades need copyright protection? So their great grand kids don’t have to work? WTF?! So Disney can sue a video game designer who creates a character wearing a Mickey Mouse cartoon?
As a matter of principle, I’d certainly prefer Google do opt-in instead of opt-out, but even without that, Google has acted responsibly in this matter and is doing something monumental that will benefit authors and library and, more importantly, the public at large. So Chin’s decision, while thoughtful, is dead wrong.
Who’s Scamming Who?
Published April 6th, 2011 | A blog post I read today reporting on the rise of e-book piracy has a rather unique take on the issue: instead of placing the blame on the pirates and the market forces driving the piracy, the blogger places the blame on Amazon and Google. Clever that post quotes security expert and an SEO expert about the security vulnerabilities with eBooks and ties that to the Amazon’s Kindle store and Google Editions, and even mentioning Smashwords, but fails to mention Apple. Also curious that the picture in the blog post is of a Samsung tablet device running the Kindle App. Now call me paranoid, but I didn’t just stumble off the short bus with my school backpack in hand. I’m wondering if the author is on Apple’s payroll. Because who stands in the way of Apple controlling the eBook market that way they dominated the digital music market? Amazon and Google and third-party sites like Smashwords.
Here’s clue for your dumb ass if you’re thinking that Amazon and Kindle can do anything to stop pirates from stealing content. They really can’t. All they can do is close the barn door after it’s been opened. And if you’re thinking that somehow, Apple’s system is foolproof, think again. The fact is there is no way to completely eliminate piracy. So how about laying the blame on e-book pirates instead of making this the fault of legitimate sellers? Or at least mention all of the major players including Apple?
How to Get Butt Raped on Ehow.com
Published March 21st, 2011 | Recently, there was a big discussion in the Demand Media forums about the use of certain articles in the new beta segments. Writers “chosen” to write for these sections (Ehow Money, Home and Garden, etc.) typically get paid more than the usual $15 per article regular Ehow writers get paid. The problem is that writers have been noticing that articles they’ve written for $15 are starting to show up in these beta sections and they are crying foul.
It was kind of funny to read the responses, which ranged from calls to legal action (to hear few tell it, DMS has done something criminal, but I don’t think they have to worry about hiring a Criminal Attorney) to naïve acceptance that DMS will rectify the situation if this mistake is brought to the attention of the powers that be. One of the most laughable responses was from a guy who suggested the 2001 US Supreme Court decision, NY Times v. Tassini provided precedent to address the matter in the writer’s favor.
I just have to giggle when I read someone who knows very little about copyright law blathering on about copyright law.
Not that I think the situation is fair or that I want to be defending DMS, but here’s a clue for you clueless idiots: Read Your Fucking Contributor’s Agreement — you know, that contract you’all agreed to when you started writing for DMS. You signed-over your copyright to DMS when you wrote the article and accepted payment. You don’t have any rights to your DMS articles. Therefore, NY Times v. Tassini does not apply to work-for-hire situations like this. It only applies to freelancers who sold their work to periodicals where the rights surrendered were limited to a single publication published in a single medium. Under the DMS agreement, they can publish your work on as many sites as they want and they don’t have to pay you a single extra dime beyond what they advertised when you claimed the assignment.
If you don’t like it, you can quit writing for them. It’s really your only recourse. Otherwise, bend over and spread’em.
Posted in Current Events, Happy Horseshit, New Media, Publishing, Rants, The Writing Life, seo writing