Techdirt. Stories filed under "writers" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "writers"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 11 Dec 2012 05:10:00 PST How Out Of Touch Is The Copyright Office? It Thinks The Authors Guild Is The 'Leading' Advocate For Writers' Interests Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121204/01140521217/how-out-touch-is-copyright-office-it-thinks-authors-guild-is-leading-advocate-writers-interests.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121204/01140521217/how-out-touch-is-copyright-office-it-thinks-authors-guild-is-leading-advocate-writers-interests.shtml description of the Authors Guild in a recent announcement about an event they're hosting celebrating the Authors Guild 100th anniversary:
The Copyright Office is pleased to host a Copyright Matters discussion about the history and future of the professional author on December 11 at 3 p.m. in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress. The event, occurring on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of The Authors Guild, the nation's leading advocate for writers' interests, will feature Guild president, author Scott Turow, as the keynote speaker. Other speakers include author and past Guild president Robert K. Massie; John Y. Cole of the Library's Center for the Book; and book market analyst Peter Hildick-Smith of the Codex Group. Also present will be guest authors Roy Blount, Jr., Katherine Neville, Mary Pope Osbourne, Nick Taylor, and others. The event is free and open to the public. See www.copyright.gov/copyrightmatters.html.
Except, of course, that's not even close to true. The Authors Guild represents a very tiny sliver of "writers." It currently has about 9,000 members, and famously only realized that self-published authors count as authors... a few months ago. Look, if copyright only covered works that were officially registered with the Copyright Office, perhaps they'd have a point in claiming that the AG represents writers. But that's silly. Due to ridiculous expansion of copyright laws in the US and around the globe (much of which the Copyright Office gleefully supported), everything that people write that has even a tiny modicum of new/creative elements is automatically covered by copyright. That includes the email you just sent and the scribble your toddler just drew on a piece of paper.

Somehow, I don't see the Authors Guild watching out for those "writers" interests.

What about me? I make my living writing -- but I see the Authors Guild as an out of touch organization run by luddites working hard to limit and hinder innovation because they're confused and scared of technology -- mainly how it creates more competition for their special club which doesn't want too many members. This is the same organization that argued that having a legally purchased ebooks read aloud violated their copyrights. The same organization that has sued libraries for scanning books to make them available for people to read in digital form. The same Authors Guild who has argued that the future of books is... brick and mortar stores. The same Authors Guild who (seriously) argued that Shakespeare wouldn't survive in the modern era since no one respects copyright any more (ignoring that there was no copyright in Shakespeare's time, and he did okay).

The Authors Guild isn't representing 99.999% of all "writers." And it certainly doesn't seem to be advocating for writers' interests, considering that it's fought against some of the best new technologies for creating, distributing, promoting and monetizing writers' works today.

Of course, we know what this is really about. The Copyright Office is still living in a time in the past, where it gets to fetishize a small cadre and closed off "club" of top professionals, ignoring that the rules and laws they seek to pass to protect that club against innovation and competition, also have massive negative impacts on the vast majority of content creators who aren't members of that tiny club. The Authors Guild may do wonderful things for a small group of authors who don't want to change with the times, but I don't see how that's a particularly beneficial service. It seems like a mistake. And the Copyright Office celebrates this?

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]]> not-mine http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20121204/01140521217 Thu, 15 Apr 2010 19:58:00 PDT For Small Authors, eBooks Are Much Better Than Being Printed On Pulp Dennis Yang http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100407/1831288920.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100407/1831288920.shtml Hephaestus writes "This is a different perspective on the e-books as the killer of the book publishing industry. It's a take from the small author perspective."

As the eBook experience improves, especially with the increased adoption of the Kindle and iPad, authors now have the same opportunity that exists now for musicians to exploit new opportunities. Like the music world, most writers also don't expect to make a great living from writing, so for them, exposure to readers is more valuable than revenue:
If you give a writer a choice between $10,000 and 10,000 readers, the writer will always choose the latter.
After all, having 10,000 readers is a fantastic connection with which to work -- at that point, all an author would have to do to make money would be to give the readers a reason to buy. For writers, there's already a fantastic finite good that they can sell, the printed book. While this may seem counter-intuitive, we've seen this model work before: after a publisher gave away digital copies of a book for free, they saw their physical book sales increase 20x. So, like the musicians who embrace the opportunities that the new economy offers, writers have a similar entrepreneurial opportunity.

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]]> new-models http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100407/1831288920 Thu, 9 Jul 2009 13:30:00 PDT Using Creative Fiction To Increase Value Of Trinkets On eBay Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090709/0242355497.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090709/0242355497.shtml embrace the economics of infinite goods, one of the key points I've tried to make is that every product is a bundle of scarce and infinite goods. That's a point that some people have a lot of trouble with at times, insisting that some people who create infinite goods have no scarcities to sell... and, conversely, that those who make scarce goods, sometimes have no infinite goods to give away with them. While it may be a bit more complicated to separate out the scarce and infinite goods, it doesn't mean they don't exist.

Parker writes in to point out a fascinating example. Apparently a group of fiction writers are experimenting with selling physical goods on eBay with fictional stories given away "free" in the description. The project is called Significant Objects, and involves a bunch of fiction writers purchasing random trinkets, and then coming up with a neat story to go with them. The post at io9 notes that some stories seem better than others at increasing the auction bids, but points out that: "If Rosenfeld's success is any indication, these authors may actually get paid more for short fiction on eBay than they would at most publications."

Again, some will incorrectly claim that we're saying that fiction writers should start selling crap on eBay, but that's not it at all. This is just one (fun) example of many of content creators smartly using infinite goods (the stories) to make a scarce good (the trinket) more valuable, and putting in place a business model to profit from it. Once again, we learn that creativity knows no bounds, not just in creating content, but in playing around with new business models.

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]]> using-infinite-goods... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090709/0242355497 Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:18:00 PST Writers' Guild Claims Studios Ignoring Earlier Settlement As Actors Get Ready To Strike Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081124/1651202940.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081124/1651202940.shtml big mistake in demanding residuals for internet usage. All that does is make it more difficult to get that content online. And, of course, it meant that actors were going to fight for the same thing.

Now, just as the studios and actors had their negotiations breakdown, the Writers' Guild is claiming that producers are not living up to their end of the deal struck earlier this year. The writers claim that they're not getting the promised residuals, and the producers seem to be disputing which content is covered by the agreement. The writers say that all modern content from the past few decades is covered, while producers say the agreement only covers content made after February 13th of this year -- the date of the settlement.

To be honest, the whole dispute is rather silly. Any such system of royalties is going to break down. It may have worked in the past, but it's based on that same old concept of artificial scarcity that makes it more difficult to adapt to the modern economic reality of digital content. By insisting that the studios have to pay residuals on content reused on the internet (effectively getting writers and actors paid multiple times for the same work), it just solidifies the barriers for the folks who employ those writers and actors to adapt to the modern economic and technological reality. The writers and actors are just harming themselves by making it harder for studios to move into the internet era, adding tremendous additional costs beyond what was already paid for.

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]]> this-won't-end-well http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20081124/1651202940 Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:24:00 PST Hollywood Writers Eye Startup Life Timothy Lee http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071217/095518.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071217/095518.shtml LA Times reports on ongoing negotiations between writers and venture capitalists to create Hollywood startups. Apparently "dozens" of Hollywood writers are looking to launch companies that would allow them to produce video content that would be distributed directly to fans on the web. We've noted that there are already a number of companies pursuing this strategy, and with thousands of talented writers sitting idle, this is an ideal time to start more of them. In the long run, these kinds of startups will ensure writers get compensated fairly because it will give writers who feel they're under-compensated an exit option. On the other hand, the LA Times makes clear that writers jumping into alternative business models may find that the reality of Hollywood startups to be a culture shock. A lot of successful online content outfits tend to be shoestring operations, and it's likely to take a few more years before the bulk of viewers make the switch to Internet-based sources of information. Writers used to the relatively large budgets and large audiences of Hollywood studios may find it difficult to adjust to being at a web startup that no one has (yet) heard of. This may explain why in a town with ten thousand writers, only "dozens" are looking at the startup option. On the other hand, those writers with an appetite for risk or a thirst for creative control may thrive in an environment where they call the shots and reap a much larger share of the rewards if they succeed.

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]]> risky-business http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20071217/095518 Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:03:44 PST Staples Sued By Canadian Writers And Publishers For Photocopying Books Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071115/191450.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071115/191450.shtml Michael Geist points us to the news that Access Copyright, an organization representing approximately 9,000 Canadian publishers and writers has sued Staples/Business Depot for copyright infringement over photocopying done at the stores in Canada. They're asking for $10 million, which Geist notes is "the largest lawsuit ever launched over copyright infringement of published works in Canada." For photocopying books in stores? Are book publishers really worried about the photocopier menace? Hopefully there's more to this claim than just the fact that people can photocopy passages from a book at Staples. It's pretty difficult to believe that this practice is widespread enough to cause any serious harm to publishers or writers. If it's just about people copying an occasional passage, as Geist notes, a previous lawsuit against libraries had found that the libraries weren't responsible and that "fair dealing" (similar to fair use in the states) shouldn't be constrained. Sure, if Staples were somehow copying books and selling the photocopies out the back you could make an argument that it's an issue, but if people are just using the photocopier in the store to copy parts of a book for personal reasons, it's hard to see the rationale here.

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]]> had-to-happen-at-some-point http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20071115/191450 Tue, 7 Aug 2007 03:15:00 PDT Movie Industry: Live By Royalties, Die By Royalties Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070806/015203.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070806/015203.shtml work they did 50 years ago. Of course, if you're from the entertainment industry (and I can already hear you readying your replies), you insist that this is how it must be done -- despite plenty of evidence that it need not be done this way (and that doing it that way can limit the potential market for the content). Apparently, however, the movie studios disagree with you. Well, partly. They agree that's how it must be done when they're getting paid money. So every time a movie is being shown or sold, you better believe the studios want their cut. However, the studios feels quite differently when they have to pay money out. That's why they're trying to negotiate residuals out of the new writers' contract. That's right. Suddenly, the movie industry that insists it must get paid for every possible use of a movie, doesn't think it makes sense to pay the writer after the initial set fee for writing the movie. It actually makes much more economic sense for the writers to be paid a straight fee with no residuals -- but it's a bit hypocritical for the Hollywood studios to claim it makes sense when it benefits them and doesn't when it costs them.

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