no flame. suggestion, comments, apology
First-- As everybody seeks to get copyright laws revised, I have a suggestion that will warm the heart (and the cooking fire) of every writer on earth. I recommend that regardless of how long a period of time a copyright extends, the first year that a publisher does not pay the writer at least $2000 in that year, the book should be considered effectively out of print, and the copyright should automatically revert to the writer. During all those years that the publisher is sitting on a book it's not making an effort to distribute, it's often the case that the writer could do other things with that book, even--in some cases--turn it over to PGLAF. Someone asked me what my longest-surviving book has been. It is SCENE OF THE CRIME, from Writer's Digest Books, and it has been in print since 1992. The first printing sold out before the official release date, because of the Writer's Digest Book Club. After that, it remained viable, though the entire rest of the series it was part of died, as a result of three unexpected events: (1) A lot of police officers bought it on the grounds that it was more thorough and less boring than their official police science books; (2) The O. J. Simpson trial showed a lot of people what happens when a crime scene is worked by total idiots, and I was asked to comment on that fact on nationwide television; and (3) the CSI shows have been a success. My most recent royalty check, though, was pretty small, and I doubt it will make it through another year. It needs to be thoroughly revised and I'm not up to doing the work, and WD people don't want it revised anyway. They prefer to kill it. It has earned me a total of about $18,000. I spent an entire calendar year working on it. Despite the fact that crime scene work had been my job for years, I was determined to be totally correct and up-to-date with my research. At times I had as many as 75 library and ILL books in my office; as I also slept in my office at that time, things got pretty crowded. The last year I worked for the telephone company I earned $30,000. Admittedly I would far rather write a good book than sell telephone systems to businesses, but since when did it become improper for people to have a job that they like rather than a job that they don't like? I really loved my police work. I'd wake up in the morning and think, "Oh, darn, I can't go to work today." I was one of the best fingerprint examiners on earth. I could do stuff the FBI couldn't do. I was called in to help FBI agents, Secret Service agents, postal inspectors, Marine Corps CID, and various small-town police agencies. It gave me an incredible feeling of power when I had just made a nonsuspect ident--that is, identified a criminal by no clue at all except fingerprints made in a place only the criminal could have made them, by cold-searching the prints through all the fingerprint cards we had--but there's no way on God's green earth that I could do that work now. I also cannot possibly sell telephone systems to businesses, at which I was marginal at best, or teach students to learn how to write, at which I was fair to middling competent. So I'm back where I started when I was seven years old. I can write. I can edit. I can wash the dishes if I can stay out of bed long enough to do it. I apologize for recent outbursts on my part. I hope at least some of you can understand why they have occurred. Now I am going to crawl back into the woodwork and resume anonymity. Anne
I think that we have to revise the aim and implementation of copyright. Copyright has useful features (allowing writer to make a living) and bad features (its implementation being giving a long-term monopoly to publishers, all the disadvantages of monopoly appear). A short-term monopoly might be reasonable, to allow the initial publisher to recover the investment, but a long one is bad. I think that the solution is decoupling monopoly and author royalties. There is nothing that disallows a double system: for a short period (14+14?) the author has a monopoly that he can transfer to a publisher, negotiating his conditions; after that, there is no monopoly, everybody can republish, but should give to the author a fair share of the sale price of the published work. This might be state-guaranteed, through author's registration, that might be handled by an international authority (I am thinking at UNESCO) to avoid overriding by national law differences. There is the possibility that an author will earn less, though reduced prices, but might get better compensation through increased sales and better diffusion. This royalty right might as well be life+N, maybe even life+100; but the royalty collection right should be non-tranferrable, it should go to natural heirs only or (as a limit case) to a literary foundation, not transferred to a publisher. I think that such a proposal might be favorably accepted, since it does not reduce author's rights, only monopoly power (words have to be carefully chosen...) I think that such a proposal, beyond technicalities, should be acceptable to everybody (except monopolists, of course), and could gather a concensus with good slogans (down with monopolies!) This is the scheme that was designed by Victor Hugo, and not accepted. He was considering limited control and perpetual royalties, to be given to natural heirs or, if they do not exist, to a state foundation to encourage beginner authors. I have started translating from french to english his proposal: it would be useful to have a revision proposal of copyright based on the proposal of a "Noble Father". Carlo Traverso
On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Carlo Traverso wrote:
I think that we have to revise the aim and implementation of copyright.
Copyright has useful features (allowing writer to make a living) and bad features (its implementation being giving a long-term monopoly to publishers, all the disadvantages of monopoly appear).
Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief of the MIT Technology Review says: "Copyright is the essence of intellectual creation. . . ." Of course, he neglects to take into account how many of the great works were created before copyright or by those who were against copyright, such as Milton. Not only were the greatest writers before copyright, such as Shakespeare and Dante, it is quite likely that they couldn't have published what they did under current copyright laws.
Good! Numbers to munch. We made the quantitative jump. Very nice. You say your most successful book so far, probably http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0898795184/102-5247226-9968935 took you more than 2000 hours of work and brought about 18,000 USD. That is 6 to 9 dollars an hour of work... Hardly more than the minimum wage in the US, about the minimum wage in France. And one is not even sure to get that when he works on a book. Most books bring their author much less money... Let's make a little detour through the music and record industry, which resembles the book industry in some ways (and is more in the headlines these days). A few months ago there was this French singer on a TV show. | Host: We haven't seen you in medias for a long time. What have you | been doing? | | Singer: nothing! | | Animator: How do you make your living then? | | Singer: the day I opened my mouth and sang "Capri", I made myself a | living for the rest of my life. 40 years after, it still brings me | a good 3000 to 4000 EUR a month. And he said this rather arrogantly. But such people are an exception[*]. [*] Most singers members of the SACEM (a French company managing royalties for music) get nothing but peanuts. Interestingly, if you sign up with SACEM any time in your life, all your subsequent songs MUST be managed by them, you can no longer produce Creative Commons, public domain stuff, editor your records yourself or go and work with other guys. The French music majors have been orchestrating a media public relation campaign for a few months on the subject of file sharing on the Internet. See one of their ads at: http://zmaster007.free.fr/pubsnep.htm They repeat "this is stealing, artists must make a living, saying a CD costs very little to make is like saying the movie _Gone with the Wind_[*] just cost the price of its footage...". [*] Funny he used that example... This is very efficient in timed, reflexionless and spectacular speak, as in medias, but it forgets a number of things: 1/ most of the money does not go to the artists (sometimes majors also say "we spend it on marketing, etc."... as if they really helped discover "new talents"!) 2/ very few people live with their music How many French people make their living with the income they get from the mere sales of their records? books? (and derived products) out of 60 million people? I would say just a few hundreds, maybe thousands. A little more if you kick in people living with concerts but then this looks more like a "real job". Most books are written by people who have a "normal" job on the side. Most music bands people have a job on the side. So less copyright "protection" would not mean less creation. And this "support the artist" idea is bogus: 1/ most artists don't benefit from it 2/ don't deprive millions for the sake a a few tens 3/ creation would go on any way. Much of the time, the biggest successes are made by unknown people. Don't you have in mind cinema movies for which the original one was genuine and the sequels nothing but an attempt to squeeze more money out of the public because the first opus proved to be popular? Anne, that book is 240 pages long. It took you, say, 10 hours a page to make. Suppose you are a very inefficient (or, more positively, an especially caring and researching) author, and it takes most authors less time for every page they produce (how little? 5 hours? 2 hours?). Still, we could derive from sales numbers[*] (is that data available somewhere?) the expected income of all books for each hour spent on it and see whether it is possible or not for their authors to make a living with their typewriter. [*] You dont tell us how many such books you sold. At a "list price" of 16.99 USD, if you were in France and on a typical edition contract, you would make about 1.30 USD for each book sold. It would therefore take about 14,000 books sold to give you that kind of revenue. Now, of course, the question is: is there any point imagining new copyright schemes and new laws here? Even if we could reach an agreement, the road would still be long to any chance of publicizing it.
Sebastien Blondeel wrote:
[*] Most singers members of the SACEM (a French company managing royalties for music) get nothing but peanuts. Interestingly, if you sign up with SACEM any time in your life, all your subsequent songs MUST be managed by them, you can no longer produce Creative Commons, public domain stuff, editor your records yourself or go and work with other guys.
The Dutch BUMA/STEMRA has simular all or nothing clauses in their contracts, but at least you can break with them (but then have to withdraw all your works from them; and since they are an effective monopoly, you have nowhere else to say. I am thinking about filing complaints about this with anti-monopoly authorities, but need musicians or others directly affected by this who are willing to join in, and find people in such an organization that it is NOT the copyright monopoly itself that I am complaining about. Jeroen.
Sebastien Blondeel <blondeel@clipper.ens.fr> writes
2/ very few people live with their music
How many French people make their living with the income they get from the mere sales of their records? books? (and derived products) out of 60 million people? I would say just a few hundreds, maybe thousands. A little more if you kick in people living with concerts but then this looks more like a "real job". Most books are written by people who have a "normal" job on the side. Most music bands people have a job on the side.
Whilst it may be true that most books are written by part-time writers, it is also true that hardly anyone reads most books. I expect that most books read are written by full-time writers, or writers who could be full-time if they chose to be. e.g. books by Terry Pratchett make up about 1% of UK fiction sales, the impact on the supply of good fiction if he still had to have a day-job would be significant, as he would not be able to write nearly as many books.
So less copyright "protection" would not mean less creation. And this "support the artist" idea is bogus: 1/ most artists don't benefit from it
Most artists don't benefit from it because most of them just aren't much good, so few people read their books.
2/ don't deprive millions for the sake a a few tens
Don't deprive millions of readers for the sake of a relatively small number who want to read poor quality older books. The really good stuff, the stuff people are actually interested in reading, tends to stay in print.
3/ creation would go on any way.
You would get less of the good stuff, the stuff people actually consider worth paying for, if the small minority of really good writers needed a day-job and couldn't write full-time. -- Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm Brett Paul Dunbar To email me, use reply-to address
"Brett" == Brett Paul Dunbar <brett@dimetrodon.demon.co.uk> writes:
Brett> Sebastien Blondeel <blondeel@clipper.ens.fr> writes >> 2/ very few people live with their music >> >> How many French people make their living with the income they >> get from the mere sales of their records? books? (and derived >> products) out of 60 million people? I would say just a few >> hundreds, maybe thousands. A little more if you kick in people >> living with concerts but then this looks more like a "real >> job". Most books are written by people who have a "normal" job >> on the side. Most music bands people have a job on the side. Brett> Whilst it may be true that most books are written by Brett> part-time writers, it is also true that hardly anyone reads Brett> most books. I expect that most books read are written by Brett> full-time writers, or writers who could be full-time if Brett> they chose to be. e.g. books by Terry Pratchett make up Brett> about 1% of UK fiction sales, the impact on the supply of Brett> good fiction if he still had to have a day-job would be Brett> significant, as he would not be able to write nearly as Brett> many books. >> So less copyright "protection" would not mean less >> creation. And this "support the artist" idea is bogus: 1/ most >> artists don't benefit from it Brett> Most artists don't benefit from it because most of them Brett> just aren't much good, so few people read their books. >> 2/ don't deprive millions for the sake a a few tens Brett> Don't deprive millions of readers for the sake of a Brett> relatively small number who want to read poor quality older Brett> books. The really good stuff, the stuff people are actually Brett> interested in reading, tends to stay in print. Those artists will probably make more than enough money in the fist few years (ten?) and should be encouraged to publish more books just not giving them any more money after the initial period. If the copyright terms lasted just a short period, probably we would have more novels of J.D. Salinger. In this case, long term copyrights have served just the opposite of encouraging more literary production. Carlo Traverso
Brett Paul Dunbar wrote:
Sebastien Blondeel <blondeel@clipper.ens.fr> writes
Whilst it may be true that most books are written by part-time writers, it is also true that hardly anyone reads most books.
If you look at it on sales per copy, that's fine. However, please take a look at this article from Wired called "The Long Tail" which has many statistics on how the sales of all those hundreds of thousands of "unpopular" books actually match up with sales of the most popular books. There may only be a few readers of each but there's significant profit made (by some people, at least) on all those unpopular books: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
I expect that most books read are written by full-time writers, or writers who could be full-time if they chose to be. e.g. books by Terry Pratchett make up about 1% of UK fiction sales, the impact on the supply of good fiction if he still had to have a day-job would be significant, as he would not be able to write nearly as many books.
Here you make the most erroneous assumption: that less restrictive copyright laws would force Terry Pratchett to get a day job. Assuming Copyright was as it was in the U.S. Constitution (14 years with an optional extension for a total of 28), Terry Pratchett would still be earning money from his last 28 years of writing. Take this in the context that he started writing "full time" in 1987.
So less copyright "protection" would not mean less creation. And this "support the artist" idea is bogus: 1/ most artists don't benefit from it
Most artists don't benefit from it because most of them just aren't much good, so few people read their books.
Wait, wait, wait. The artistic merits of a book have very little to do with how many copies they sell.
Don't deprive millions of readers for the sake of a relatively small number who want to read poor quality older books. The really good stuff, the stuff people are actually interested in reading, tends to stay in print.
I see, now it's "older" books that're of poor quality. Why is this? Is literature undergoing some miraculous transformation which causes all older books to be of poorer quality? With less restrictive copyright laws in place (I suggest 14 years + 14 years), all authors capable of selling enough copies of a book for them to make a living out of, would still be able to do it. Copyright was not created (in the U.S.) in order to ensure a never-ending payday for authors (and, more importantly, publishers!) -- it was created to encourage more creation than would otherwise happen. Going back to Anne's analogy, if you're a plumber and you do one year of amazingly good work, you're paid for one year. Authors, on the other hand, seem to think that for one year of work, they should be paid until seventy years after the end of their lives. I know I'm not the only person who think that's unreasonable. Cheers, Holden
participants (7)
-
Brett Paul Dunbar -
Carlo Traverso -
Gutenberg9443＠aol.com -
Holden McGroin -
Jeroen Hellingman (Mailing List Account) -
Michael Hart -
Sebastien Blondeel