Ursula K. Le Guin Resigns From Authors Guild, Because It Didn't Keep Up Its Silly Fight With Google
from the good-luck-to-you dept
Ursula K. Le Guin is a very famous author who many people insist is one of the best -- though, I have to admit never having read her stuff. Yet, she is one of those who is rather aggressive in policing the copyrights on her work, and who does not tend to side with those who believe in concepts like "fair use." Most certainly, she is not a fan of open culture. A few years ago, she got into a bit of a scrap with Cory Doctorow, because he dared to publish a single paragraph of hers in a blogpost as part of a larger (positive!) commentary.Her latest scrap with the world of copyright is to publicly resign from the Authors Guild. I'm no fan of the Authors Guild myself, and find that it tends to take a rather antiquated view on things -- from its absolutely ridiculous claim that a Kindle with text-to-speech software infringes on authors' copyrights, to its equally backwards take on Google's book scanning project, which helped index books and make them more findable which many authors have found helps increase sales.
While I am not a fan of the (still ongoing) settlement efforts between Google and the Authors Guild, it is this settlement that has upset Le Guin so much. In her resignation letter, she claims refers to Google as "the devil," and claims that the Guild has abandoned "the whole concept of copyright." Of course, nothing is further from the truth, as the Authors Guild notes in its reply (found via Michael Scott). As the Authors Guild points out, Google had a more than decent chance of winning the lawsuit because of something called fair use, which Le Guin still doesn't appear to recognize as a key part of copyright law. In her own introduction to copyright law, fair use makes no appearance whatsoever.
It really is a shame. Many people tell me that Le Guin is a fantastic writer, but I have no desire to read works by someone who is afraid I might like it so much I might share that joy with someone else. I also have no interest in reading works by a science fiction author who seems to hate technology to the point of calling a tool like Google "the devil."
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Filed Under: authors guild, book scanning, copyright, fair use, ursula k le guin
Companies: authors guild, google
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Whereas I would argue it is especially important to read works by those who hold different views to ourselves.
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Not surprising, really
Tin foil hats definitely don't interfere with the creative process, even if they do make one look rather silly.
Expecting such people to be anything more than artists is bound to end in disappointment.
The problem is that people will take her seriously, because she is a celebrity author. I have never understood why people take the pronouncements of celebrities more seriously than they take the pronouncements of anyone else, but they do.
That's why e.g. sportscasting has become the domain of illiterate jocks.
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Le Guin the author
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The devil's search
Anyhow, no need for me to read her books.
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leguin
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FYI
That can't be right.
Also:
"Tin foil hats definitely don't interfere with the creative process"
And thank God for that, since the chapters of my own book I've posted are specifically labeled "conspiracy fiction"
;)
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Re:
Whereas I would argue it is especially important to read works by those who hold different views to ourselves.
I have no problem reading her views on copyright -- and responding to them. But I have no interest in reading her literary works.
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Sharing her work if you happen to like it is extremely easy. Either give someone your copy of the book, buy them a copy, or else give them a gift card to a store such as Barnes and Noble.
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Re:
I agree that fair use would not seem to fit within the obvious purpose of the linked article.
"Sharing her work if you happen to like it is extremely easy. Either give someone your copy of the book, buy them a copy, or else give them a gift card to a store such as Barnes and Noble."
Ignoring your obvious intent to disregard the premise behind 'sharing', is it even possible to give someone an eBook after you've finished with it?
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Consistently Application of Logic and Reasonl
Would I read them? No! Simply because there just has to be something flawed about some of the concepts contained within, or maybe even with the major themes.
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The Lathe Of Heaven
I was only marginally happy with the SciFi Channels version.
To bad I missed the PBS version, when I was out of the USA in service to Uncle.
LeGuin seems to have an out look similar to Samuel Clemens regarding Copyright.
Old and outdated.
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Lequin and Science Fiction.
Who knew. I thought she wrote "squishy" fantasy stuff.
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Re: Lequin and Science Fiction.
I find it disappointing she can't deal with the changing world, but what can you do? She is about 80 now...
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Re:
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Re: Not surprising, really
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Re: Re: Re:
Which pretty much underscores the point of why otherwise law-abiding people get so frustrated with these things and don't have any problem with ignoring the law in this regard:
If I can buy a copy of the latest Stephen King book at Barnes & Noble, take it home, read it, then pass it along to my family and friends for them to enjoy without having to check for a license or worry about violating copyright, why shouldn't I be able to do the same thing with the ebook version. Why should a book's format somehow be the deciding factor as to the morality, legality or ethics of situation?
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:)
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Ursula LeGuin
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Re: Reading the works of those who hold different views
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The Dispossessed
Oh, the irony that someone who could write such a classic novel about a world with no concept of private property or central government (or any mention of copyright or other “intellectual property” at all), could harbour such a half-arsed attitude to real-life society.
I, too, used to be a fan (though of her science-fiction stuff, not her fantasy stuff). But now I’m having second thoughts...
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Another person living in the past
As an author, she is not THAT great. The Lathe of Heaven was good. The Left Hand of Darkness, where a race of people change sexes periodically, was unforgettable and very imaginative, but not in my top 100 favorites, & I've probably read 800 science fiction novels.
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I too am a hard core SciFi reader
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Re: Another person living in the past
This describes pretty much everyone over the age of thirty-five in the entertainment industry.
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Re: The Lathe Of Heaven
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Re: I too am a hard core SciFi reader
That reminds me, what's the market share of e-books vs. audio-books vs. paper books?
Just how popular are the non-paper version of books?
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Re: Ursula LeGuin
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Ms.LeGuin
LeGuin is the daughter of a noted anthropologist, a field not too well represented in SF.
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Cory Doctorow and Ursula LeGuin
The single paragraph was a complete work. Ursula did not (and does not) believe that reproducing a complete work (and replacing her copyright notice with a Creative Commons notice) was Fair Use. Cory reports on this here.
I can understand why Ursula felt righteously pissed over this one.
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Re: Re: Ursula LeGuin
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Re: Cory Doctorow and Ursula LeGuin
I will take this opportunity to reproduce, for the purposes of commentary, a single paragraph originally published in a noncommercial venue as fair use under 17USC, the American copyright statute.
~
* I believe that blogging such a short work in toto, for the purposes of commentary, when the work had initially been published as a letter to the editor of a noncommercial fanzine, was fair use (but that I was happy to remove the quote if Ms Le Guin didn't want it on Boing Boing)
* Quoting a work on a page bearing a Creative Commons license does not put the work into the Creative Commons -- commonsense and norms apply here, and tens of millions of CC-licensed blog-posts quote material without putting it into the Commons.
* Though I didn't quote the copyright notice that appeared in Ansible, I did clearly state the author and time of publication in the post. The copyright notice isn't necessary in this context, since it creates no further statutory rights for the author being quoted, and identifying the author and date of publication is all that is required here to affirm the copyright in the work.
~ Posted by Cory Doctorow, October 14, 2007
~http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/14/an-apology-to-ursula.html
Do you see the difference between what you claimed and what was said/the facts of the case, Murphy's Lawyer?
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Re: Re: Reading the works of those who hold different views
The only valid exception is this kind of thing, where the people who actually read the books are attacked. Maybe that sounds a little harsh, but I'm somebody who only came across Le Guin's work by hearing it mentioned on a free podcast then stumbling across a novel in a second hand book store. She's basically arguing for a stop to the digital version of what I did, with a scary view of copyright that assumes no fair usage rights for readers.
I often wonder what people like this would have been arguing for had they been around when libraries and the second hand market were being created. I suspect they'd be arguing against them, and thus they don't want me as a fan. I have no desire to support an author who believes that the way I enjoy their work is somehow immoral, so I won't bother.
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That's one of the reasons I don't bother with eBooks. I can do whatever I want with a paperback after I'm done, from lending to a family member to trading with a stranger to selling for hard cash on Amazon. Unless they start getting significantly cheaper than a physical second hand paperback, a DRMed ebook is worth less to me than the non-existent paper it's written on.
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Sigh of relief ...
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She did not really call Google the devil. "Deal with the devil" is just an expression, for heaven's sake.
Also, she's awesome. I'm sad for those of you who are rejecting her out of hand over this one issue.
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Amazing that an author like Ms Le Guin,
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Unfortunately it seems to have simply left her with a deep insecurity. It's hardly worth criticizing her, she's clearly out of touch. Oh well, even the best visionaries can eventually fall out of sync with the world.
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Asking to be excluded from Google's book scanning project is like asking to be excluded from history, from posterity.
Like Mike says, obscurity is a far greater threat to an artist than piracy.
Therefore, if Ms. Le Guin wishes to be left out of the annals of time, then I say it's our OBLIGATION to grant her request to be banished to obsurity, and society will be the better for it!
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You short piece misconstrues what Doctorow did
In fact the "single paragraph" was a complete copy of an entire paragraph-long published story.
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Second sourcing
People, it's a bad idea to form an opinion and make decisions about your own future actions based on what in journalism is called a "second source" - in this case, one individual's incomplete take on a situation involving Ms. Le Guin. A few people commenting here did go to the original sources before making a judgement and thank whatever powers that be that there are a few such people left in the world.
To the rest of you, beware this trap of the Web. Misinformation abounds, some of it intentional. Don't add to it, no matter how innocently. Go to the original source before expressing an opinion. Otherwise you end up a puppet of the multitude of manipulators on the Web.
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This means the Author's Guild's reply to Ursula LeGuin is bogus. Yes, the AG _might_ have lost the "snippet" suit in court. No lawsuit is a sure thing. However, if the AG had _won_ their original suit--or at the very least hammered out in court a harmless-to-copyright-holders definition of "snippet"--that precedent _would_ have protected copyright holders. Since the AG set no precedent, any and every other party that wants to scan entire books to display "snippets" is still free to do so and wait for someone to sue _them_.
In short, the Author's Guild has protected no copyrights at all. They've just given Google a huge grant of rights owned by numerous copyright holders with no connection to either the Author's Guild or Google, and which, contrary to Google's PR, are by no means all out-of-print or so-called orphan works.
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Objections to the Settlement
The author, the freelancers, the publishers' employees, etc., all have to pay for housing and groceries just like you do. These are professions: People learn professional skills, do full-time professional work, and need to get paid for it. Often they are not that well paid, but they cannot afford to work for free. It is unfair to expect numerous people to give away all their work to you, while you get paid for your own professional work.
The Google Settlement is NOT about legally approving the current Google Book Search. It is a 300+ page publishing contract negotiated by a handful of parties on behalf of millions of copyright holders who have no connection with the suit and no power to modify the contract. The Settlement applies to all works published in most English-language countries before January 2009, regardless of their in-print status and regardless of the locatability of the copyright holders. It makes Google the publisher of entire books, as both e-books, and print-on-demand books, and sets Google up as both a bookstore and a wholesaler to sell rights to third parties. It also gives Google the right to sell ads next to the book pages, and none of the ad revenues go to the copyright holders. The other terms are also far inferior to most publishing contracts.
Essentially, Google has claimed publication rights for almost every book published in the English language. This is not an altruistic act, and copyright holders have every reason to object to it.
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Objections to the Settlement
The author, the freelancers, the publishers' employees, etc., all have to pay for housing and groceries just like you do. These are professions: People learn professional skills, do full-time professional work, and need to get paid for it. Often they are not that well paid, but they cannot afford to work for free. It is unfair to expect numerous people to give away all their work to you, while you get paid for your own professional work.
The Google Settlement is NOT about legally approving the current Google Book Search. It is a 300+ page publishing contract negotiated by a handful of parties on behalf of millions of copyright holders who have no connection with the suit and no power to modify the contract. The Settlement applies to all works published in most English-language countries before January 2009, regardless of their in-print status and regardless of the locatability of the copyright holders. It makes Google the publisher of entire books, as both e-books, and print-on-demand books, and sets Google up as both a bookstore and a wholesaler to sell rights to third parties. It also gives Google the right to sell ads next to the book pages, and none of the ad revenues go to the copyright holders. The other terms are also far inferior to most publishing contracts.
Essentially, Google has claimed publication rights for almost every book published in the English language. This is not an altruistic act, and copyright holders have every reason to object to it.
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Re: I too am a hard core SciFi reader
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I have always loved Ms. LeGuin's work
Furthermore, copyright is intended to apply to commercial use of copyrighted works, not private, noncommercial, personal use. Ms. LeGuin seeks to limit fan fiction because in the age f the internet people have more friends. As disingenuious a hack as he is of late, I can more easily support GRRMartin's idiot idea that all fanfic is infringement than Ms. LeGuin's notion that fanfic was okay pre-internet but is suddenly not because a fanfic work may reach more non-paying friends than before. (I do wonder how either of these New Wavers became SF writers since they seem to have such a short-sighted view of technology. Both of them have such a way with prose, and once saw so far. It's really a shame.) Reinstating the committee that misrepresented itself and illegally had Cory Doctorow's work removed from a a sharing site, as Ms. LeGuin suggests is a step backward for people who are supposed to be in the business of looking forward.
I was impressed by Cory's gracious apology to Ms. LeGuin and his removal of clearly non-infringing material, rather than do what I would have done--allowed Ms. LeGuin to attempt to have the material removed through the courts. He expressed genuine respect for both Ms. LeGuin and her work, and repeatedly stated that he would not have posted his (extremely positive) commentary had he believed she would be hurt by it. That she (and Mr. Pournelle, another author I loved and respected in the 20th century who failed to join us here in the 21st century.) felt the need to be obnoxiously hurtful on both her own webpage and Mr. Pournelle's demonstrates that she is no longer in touch with the present, let alone the future.
I won't be buying any more of Ms. LeGuin's books. The only way to let an author know their behavior is unbefitting an SF writer is to stop supporting them. She and Mr. Pournelle will be joining GRRMartin in my list of SF authors I will no longer support.
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Learn to adapt...
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Re: Second sourcing
If one is 80 and has antiquated views on technology, that's predictable and forgivable. If one is 35 and declares that any author who happens to disagree with one's views and therefore doesn't deserve reading (as if authors owed it to readers to seek out their political views and kowtow to them) is self-righteous and immature.
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