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Telegraph writer loves Amazon’s Orwellian book zap
July 28, 2009 | 3:49 am
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By David Rothman
“Now, thanks to ebooks and the Kindle and Whispernet, the rights of authors—and their reward for spending their lives creating ideas and entertainment that benefit the world—can be protected and actively enforced.” – Paul Carr, blogging for the Telegraph in the U.K.
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Comments:
I guess he is a member of the Inner Party.
Siiiiigh…
Ummm, exactly *which* “author’s rights” need to be enforced *against your paying customers*? And exactly *who* said that these “author’s rights” supersede the buyer’s rights, or right doctrine of first sale, or fair usage rights?
Whatta twit.
Are the “rights” of an author dead over sixty years better served by a wider distribution of his works or by providing unearned income for descendants he never met?
Well his byline does say that he became a writer by process of elimination after he failed at dot coms. I think I understand why he failed.
@ Cerebus: The people who bought those illegally published editions of Orwell’s books could not be said to be “his” customers. The buyer doesn’t have a right to buy stolen intellectual property any more than to buy stolen physical property.
@ GJN: Under copyright law, the “rights” we are talking about are copyrights. Under that law, Orwell had a right to will the revenues of his works to his descendants. Do you have a problem with all inheritance law or just intellectual property as heritable?
@ Everybody who’s acting self-righteous about this: the epublisher who was selling those books was doing so illegally. They were reaping unearned profits, just the same as if they were making illegal copies of the latest blockbuster films and selling them on a street corner. Amazon said they won’t do this again, which probably means they will check more stringently the rights issues regarding what they sell in future. It’s a non-issue. Get over it.
@David Lomax
The customer has the money and for them to pay there has to be perceived value and their rights have to be considered.
My viewpoint is that when I purchase an ebook it is my data and the vendor should no longer have access to it period. I don’t own the intellectual property rights to it and I don’t have the right to distribute it or sell it but I do have the right to consume it any way that I want for my own personal use.
For me this never had anything to do with illegal books or intellectual property rights. It’s about vendors respecting my personal data and not touching it. Amazon doesn’t require this access to deliver their service just the way RIM doesn’t require the access to selective delete my emails. Their systems are not designed correctly when they grant themselves this capability.
For me this is a very large issue. We’re talking about the future of our personal digital libraries.
@ Bob W
I don’t entirely disagree with you, but it frustrates me that people want to use real-world analogies when it comes to what they have purchased, but resist those real-world analogies when it comes to the legality of the purchase.
If you bought that cheap edition of 1984, you were being sold stolen property. If we can set aside for a moment the issue that Amazon must clearly develop better controls so that they don’t sell stolen property, then let’s look at a real-world analogy. If I steal a car and sell it to you, you can probably expect that the car is going to end up getting taken back from you. You don’t get to keep it just because you bought it in good faith.
At the same time, I agree that vendors must respect our personal data. Look at Bezos’ apology. They’re not going to do that whole remote-deletion thing again. It seems to have been a foolishly applied instance of their refund protocol that they initiated when they realized they had been duped into selling something they didn’t have rights to sell.
I wish that DRM would disappear. I really do. I also wish that people would stop downloading things they’re not paying for. I don’t think we’re going to get either thing really soon.
On a positive note about “our personal digital libraries,” I had a computer crash recently, and had no trouble at all redownloading all my DRM’d books bought through the Sony eBook store. It was even easier to reload my Adobe ePub books. I just had to restore the files, then reactivate my Digital Editions. I don’t like DRM, but at least it’s better handled these days.
@david
First, 1984 is in the public domain in some jurisdictions, e.g. Canada. Are you saying that copyright is a longest-takes-all proposition? What stops, say, the Cayman Islands from enacting retroactive perpetual copyright and killing off public domain *globally*?
Second, I find the very idea that a creator is somehow due payment *for the rest of his life* morally and ethically repugnant. That these payments should continue after his death is just flat out absurd. Shall we universally apply this precept? Should I demand that my employer pay me tomorrow for the work I did yesterday? That he pay my children for the work I did last year?
Cerebus:
Not all IP is work-for-hire. A lot of it is, effectively, on-spec. And for many authors, making a living at writing relies on the “long-tail” of their back-catalog to make a living.
Question: Is it unreasonable that the creator of a product receive a royalty for its creation for an extended period during which such a product is generating revenue?
If it isn’t unreasonable, then the proper terms of the debate relate to how long a period of time royalty rights should endure. And that’s a valid topic of discussion. Most would agree the term should be greater than zero and less than infinity. Reasonable folks can then debate a the merits of certain periods, keeping in mind that human longevity is constantly increasing.
On the other hand, if *any* extended period of royalty revenue is unreasonable, then there is nothing to debate, is there?.
Cerebus,
If I as an author were to be paid by the hour for my work, I might not care so much about copyright and my right to revenue for the work I do today. But I’m not. I might spend years writing a book without any pay whatsoever. Getting royalties over a long period of time then goes to compensate me for all that unpaid labor. It’s not at all the same thing as an employer paying your children for the work you did last year.
@Felix: Note that I never said a creator shouldn’t be compensated, but “forever” and “lifetime” aren’t reasonable starting points. Neither is there some innate entitlement for the creator’s children to continue sucking on their parent’s dead teat.
@Paula: The “long tail,” while an interesting concept, hasn’t exactly panned out in practice. The New Scientist synthesized a series of studies on this topic back in the December issue that you’d do well to dig up. The upshot: the vast majority of works (>80%) on the “long tail” generate zero revenue.
Article here (behind a paywall):
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026873.300-online-shopping-and-the-harry-potter-effect.html
Quickie search turned up a summary here:
http://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/chris-keall/the-long-tail-myth
And there’s a good HBR article here (also paywalled):
http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2008/07/should-you-invest-in-the-long-tail/ar/1
Cory Doctorow has it mostly right; your enemy as a creator is obscurity. Keeping your works locked up forever does nothing to alleviate obscurity, and much to exacerbate it.
Paula B says:
“Getting royalties over a long period of time then goes to compensate me for all that unpaid labor.”
But that is the whole fallacy of lengthy copyright laws. The simple indisputable fact is that of the hundreds of thousands of books published each year only a tiny fraction of 1% of those titles will sell more than a few thousand copies. Only a figurative handful of authors will continue to derive any royalties years down the road.
Most books quickly go out of print and are left to sales of used books for which authors receive zero royalties anyway.
While every author has dreams of selling copies of their work in sufficient enough quantities to support themselves and their heirs for decades the only folks that really benefit from lengthy copyright terms are the usual corporate suspects.
I say we go back to copyright terms being the same length as patents (which have changed very little in the past two hundred years or so).
I see your point, Cerebus, but I think we’re talking about more than one issue here:
Whether to “lock up” a creator’s rights in the first place, although I think most of us who’ve commented agree that creators are entitled to some copyright.
If so, how long to do so. Till the author’s death? Beyond?
To whom do ebooks really belong, and what rights do the buyer and seller own? Did Amazon have the right to zap people’s copies of the renegade Orwell title?
Just a couple of points:
1. If I write a book and die right after it’s published, don’t my children have the right to the income from the sales of that book? What if they’re toddlers?
2. Whether or not most long-tail books make money for the author isn’t the issue. The issue is whether the author has the *choice* of giving the book away free after a certain time…or not.
Writing a book is an entrepreneurial activity. If I start a business and it’s successful, are you saying that after a certain number of years I should turn it over to the state or the people of the world and let them do what they want with it?
Okay, HeavyG, I’ll bite. You’re talking about 17 years (ish) for copyright–the same as the life of a patent. So what if I put out a number of novels that sell a few thousand copies each, but after I’ve been writing for 25 or 30 years one of them is made into a blockbuster movie or TV series. Then all of a sudden everyone is interested in my back list. But wait! I don’t own half of it anymore, and now I can’t make anything from sales of those titles.
I will admit that this is an unlikely possibility, but it can and does happen.
Cerebus, the Kindle is sold exclusively in the States. I wish it were sold in Canada. If it were, and if 1984 were free here, I would download it with no compunctions. I’m only in favour of US copyright law holding in the US. I didn’t know that was a particularly controversial opinion.
I find myself startled with your position on creator’s rights as “morally and ethically repugnant.” If I were you, I would, in a world where slavery still exists, and where bombs are dropped on civilians, hold off the big “morally and ethically repugnant” guns for the larger issues.
Personally, I feel a mild distaste for the outrageous sense of privilege that leads people to decry creator’s rights. Who are you to decide when an author should stop profiting form the fruits of her or his labour? And where would you set that line? Here’s what happens when a writer writes a book: the writer invests usually more than a year’s labour and inspiration. A publisher then offers a small advance on royalties, then takes the further risk of spending on marketing, preparing, and printing the book. A bookstore then takes the risk of accepting a consignment of those books in hopes of being able to sell them.
Once the books are sold, sometimes, someone who does not respect the rights of any of these people digitizes that book and makes it available for free so that others may benefit from the risks and investments of all of those I mentioned before.
If the book is popular, what gives anyone the right to say when the author has profited enough from it? I do understand the idea of allowing copyright to expire a certain period after the author’s death. After a certain time, it becomes part of the cultural legacy. I don’t believe, however, that I personally have the right to set that period.
I honestly just don’t understand your point. Why should an author not benefit from their invention? Anyone else who invents something of use to us all or patents a process can expect to own the rights to that invention or patent in perpetuity. How is a beautiful novel or poem or story any different?
Paula B. says:
“…but after I’ve been writing for 25 or 30 years one of them is made into a blockbuster movie or TV series.Then all of a sudden everyone is interested in my back list. But wait! I don’t own half of it anymore, and now I can’t make anything from sales of those titles.
Well…you bask in the glow of a job well done!
Or…your newfound celebrity allows you to go on tour and give “Paula B. Shows” and rake in the big bucks giving readings or workshops. Or you get back to work and write another book or series and make big bucks from your new generation of readers.
Using your line of thinking why shouldn’t patents last for the life of the patent holder plus 70 years? Shouldn’t Thomas Edison’s heirs still be getting royalties for every light bulb sold?
In the past couple of hundred years many attempts have been made to also extend the term of patents. Fortunately our legislators have, at least for the present, been sensible enough to realize that without a rather short patent term the advance of civilization would essentially stop.
The whole intent of patent and copyright laws is to “advance the useful arts and sciences” not to provide income protection for the miniscule percentage of authors who might have a legacy that lasts beyond the remainder bin.
How many of us really believe that the current term of copyright won’t be lengthened yet again in a couple of decades when the specter of the public domain again looms over many Disney works?
Will anything ever enter the public domain again? Who benefits most from “perpetual copyright” a few dozen authors or a handful of corporate titans?
@ HeavyG: I actually didn’t realize patents were so short. I guess it makes sense from a pragmatic standpoint. However, there is no similar pragmatic argument to make for depriving authors of copyright so soon during their lifetimes or afterwards. I agree with you that it should keep on being extended, but I do believe that an author and that author’s direct descendants should benefit from the author’s work. If my father works to build up a small business during my lifetime, if he labours every day of the week to accumulate clients, goodwill and loyalty, then he can will this to me and be secure that his hard work has created a legacy that will help the next generation. If my friend’s father has laboured just as hard to write some moving novels that have captured people’s hearts and imaginations, why should he be any less secure in the knowledge that he, too, can will that legacy for the betterment of his heirs?
That’s all I’m saying. I don’t want Disney to keep owning 101 Dalmatians in perpetuity. Sooner or later, I want that to enter the public domain.
In an earlier response on this thread, I foolishly equated copyrights with patents. I now think that to be wrongheaded. Inventors and scientists must, as Newton did, see further by “standing on the shoulders of giants.” Writers, on the other hand, should, as much as they can, invent anew. A lot of people are salivating at the thought of Batman and Superman entering the public domain, and many think that entrance should have happened much sooner. Personally, I think those people ought to write their own original work.
I wonder what Paul Carr will say when the government, political parties, religious groups and so forth decide to strong arm Amazon into deleting/editing the content on your Kindle for reasons that have nothing to do with copyright.
While the act of deleting the Orwell titles was relatively minor, it set a dangerous precedent.
@Paula:
You make a case for fixed-term copyright. If you create a successful work and then immediately die, a fixed term copyright can be passed to heirs. But sooner or later they’ll have to pull their own weight. This is a feature, not a bug.
As far as passing into the public domain goes, that’s most certainly not your choice. As a society we maintain that a greater public good comes from contribution to the public domain. Exclusive control over your creation *for a limited time* is your payment in exchange for passing these works into the public domain. Recall the copyright clause in the US Constitution: “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts [...]” This is explicit. If you don’t like the terms of this trade, don’t publish.
In re: passing businesses to heirs: This is the same reason we have (and need) estate taxes; to limit the accumulation of huge piles of wealth from generation to generation. They have to contribute too.
@David:
And yet Amazon is a global operation. Presume Amazon sells the Kindle to Canadians, and they download _1984_ as a public domain work. Shall Amazon erase it when they cross the border?
The global patchwork of copyright of today is a disaster waiting to happen with the Internet as it stands. This is truly a global network, and the only reasonable answer for sellers is to adopt the strictest standards possible. So shall Canadians be denied access to ebooks that by Canadian law are public domain just because Montenegro has decided that copyright should be life+100 years?
Even Apple was only partially successful in blocking sales to jurisdictions it didn’t operate in, and they spent considerable sums to get as far as they did.
In re: the rest of your post, I’ll repeat my respons to Paula, above. Copyright is not an innate right you as a creator hold. It is granted to you in exchange for passing those works into the public domain. Society decides–after due debate–what those terms are; not you alone, nor I alone. If specifics of this trade–i.e., the length of time you hold copyright–are not to your liking, don’t publish.
And let me repeat since it doesn’t seem to get through to you: NOWHERE HAVE I SAID A CREATOR SHOULD NOT PROFIT FROM HIS CREATIONS. I *have* said–and this will be what, the fourth time in this thread alone?–that exclusivity must be limited, and that lifetime or longer is *not* a reasonable starting point for the discussion. Clear enough?
@David, @Paula: Your business analogy fails because an heir to a plumber has to work to benefit from his father’s work, to keep the business going, or it fails and he has nothing. As such, he actively contributes to that business, and makes it his own.
The heir to _The Lord of the Rings_ just has to keep the lawyers employed chasing publishers and need not lift a finger or contribute anything to the greater good.
The former is the sweat of two brows; the latter is the sweat of one brow and the lottery of birth. See the difference?
@David:
What’s the cliche? “Good artists borrow; geat artists steal.” Attributed to Picasso, isn’t it?
If you seriously think that creators don’t draw from a common experience, that they don’t “stand on the shoulders of giants,” you need to get out more. Or read more. Ecclesiastes 1:9 and all that rot.
Every riff I compose is an echo of other riffs I’ve heard. Every chord progression is an idea I picked up from others. Very very little is truly original. Read Samuel Taylor Coleridge on this topic, he had some interesting ideas on the topic of creativity.
Ah, Cerebus, you’re an interesting person. I’m not saying that an heir shouldn’t work. What I am saying is this: What if your plumber has started a business that has employees? When he dies, should the business be wound up, or should his heirs get to keep running it?
Cerebus,
Regarding creations passing into the public domain at some point, I don’t disagree with you. They should. And sooner than the length of time Disney and Sonny Bono have rammed down our throats.
All I’m saying is that creators should have the right to benefit from all our work and sacrifice. People who work regular jobs and have regular incomes can save for their old age. Those of us who “freelance,” if you will, have a much harder time doing that. Sometimes we have to wait decades to make any significant money. (Most of us never do no matter how long we live.) And by then, HeavyG, we may be too old, tired, ill, or whatever to make a lot of new stuff and/or go on a lecture tour.
All of which means I should have my head examined for getting into professional writing in the first place.
Thanks to Cerebus for the entertaining quote attributed to Pablo Picasso. “Good artists borrow; great artists steal.” I have not found any direct evidence that Picasso actually uttered the bon mot, but there is a solidly referenced quote by T. S Eliot that captures the sentiment:
This passage is contained in Eliot’s collection of essays The Sacred Wood from 1922 and is available at the Bartleby website. “The Quote Verifier” by Ralph Keyes states that “Pablo Picasso has been credited with “Mediocre artists borrow, great artists steal,” and Igor Stravinsky with “A good composer does not imitate; he steals.” But Keyes gives primary verified credit to Eliot. (If Picasso said it then the original might be in Spanish or French.)