How Out Of Touch Is The Copyright Office? It Thinks The Authors Guild Is The 'Leading' Advocate For Writers' Interests
from the not-mine dept
One of the concerns we have about the US Copyright Office is that the staff there often seem entirely out of touch with the world we live in today. Witness, for example, its 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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Filed Under: authors, copyright, copyright office, writers
Companies: authors guild
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Nothing is true
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Re: Nothing is true
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Re: Nothing is true
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While it may be PR garbage, it is PR garbage put out by an agency of the US government.
Some of us are NOT ok with the government lying to us, misleading us, or shilling for private groups - even if it just fluff.
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Wrongo.
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Re: Wrongo.
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"What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
Anyhoo: "the nation's leading advocate for writers' interests"
OKAY, SO NAME THREE MORE with even 9000 members! -- Isn't it then as said? -- So there goes your thesis for this item! -- Now I'm ready for your next RE-write.
Wait a sec, this caught my eye: 'The Authors Guild isn't representing 99.999% of all "writers."' That would be NOT one in a hundred thousand, right? So if there ARE 9000 members, then Mike claims that there must be at least 900,000,000 writers in the US! HA! Shows how well up he is on numbers.
Support Mike "Streisand Effect" Masnick's proprietary interest!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
He innovated the term all by himself! He alone! It's HIS!
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Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
9,000 out of over 500,000 published authors (including reporters, tv and movie screenwriters, and work-for hire writers on books and comic books) is less than 1%, a pitifully-tiny percentage!
OTOH, 90% of theater, movie, and tv performers are registered members of their respective guilds or unions.
Learn to count, boy.
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Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
Still, pitifully small.
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Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
He in fact he makes money every time you visit so you are actually indirectly funding Mike.
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Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
On the larger front, I've several times mentioned that everyone CAN avoid seeing nearly all advertisements on the net, and I think that'll eventually collapse it in some way. You are clearly too stupid and ignorant to even suspect that you don't HAVE to be tracked and targeted.
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Yes, yes, we get it...
Really, ootb, are you a member of the Tea Party?
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Re: Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
Also, NoScript - however great - doesn't offer full protection against tracking by web bugs.
It seems to me that you are the ignorant one. But I'll give you a hint: install AdBlock+Ghostery+FlashBlock. And forget about using the hosts file for protection. If you want actual protection, use a firewall, set-up decent rules, and white-list addresses as you go.
Or take the easy route: bury yourself under 30 tons of concrete. That should be deep enough for the trackers to miss you...or is it?
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Re: Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
You're not really leading yourself a lot of creadablity. Practice what you preach and be your highest self(which is admittedly pretty low in your case) or no one will listen to you.
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Re: Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
No, he's correct actually. Your hilarious idiocy drives page views, meaning that other people click on links to see what raving fiction comes out of your keyboard and mock your insanity, not to mention the nice little link exchange you seem determined to set up with Wikipedia to drive further page views of both sites. While, IIRC, Mike has previously stated that ads don't make up the majority of his revenue (although he might have just been referring to AdSense, and it's obvious to most that this blog doesn't represent 100% of his income), you're probably driving at least some of that traffic with your posts. Well done.
What do you do for a living, by the way? I'm sure that obsessively trolling somebody's blog doesn't pay that much, unless my preferences for facts and adult behaviour have left me unaware of a lucrative career path, of course.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
And I frequently go away entirely (twice for months), don't even check the site, plus didn't even KNOW about this site before 2009! (It's not all that famous or influential in my estimate! That too makes me wonder where the income is from.) What did/does Mike do then, hmm?
Then YOU END UP AGREEING WITH ME THAT YOU DON'T KNOW how Mike makes a "living" from this site! Brilliant, fully up to Techdirt's usual: divert, ad hom, but actually agree!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
That's a riot.
Just above you called "us" stupid and ignorant. If you're going to criticize someone for resorting to such logical fallacies, maybe you shouldn't employ them yourself. Kinda makes you look like a hypocrite.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
And yet with this "lack of influence" you somehow feel the need to reply to techdirt articles. Funny that
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
So, you get your kicks from trolling a blog. That's something I suppose, though that simply confirms my impression that you're an idiot. Intelligent people don't troll for fun, at least not as obsessively as you do. Oh, and since your posts are usually both illogical and/or fact-free, there's not much left other than ad hominems as there's nothing in the arguments you make to attack. We certainly can't address facts, since you neither use them nor answer direct questions about where you get your ideas from.
"And I frequently go away entirely (twice for months), don't even check the site, plus didn't even KNOW about this site before 2009!"
However long you claim to have known, you're definitely a regular commenter. Your lack of a login means I can't directly check when you started posting (unless someone knows how to sort Google results by date?), but saying you've only been posting idiocy for 3 years hardly refutes the nature of your posts. Hell, you haven't even bothered answering questions about what that stupid Wikipedia link is meant to achieve, despite repeated questions.
However, for at least the last few weeks you've been commenting on every single thread, often the first poster, usually without reading the actual article first. That you take a holiday from this stupid pastime doesn't change the fact that you do it a lot. Nor does raising the nature of Mike's career remove questions about what sort of career such a prolific troll could possibly have.
As for where Mike's income comes from, I agree it probably doesn't all come from running a blog, but that's irrelevant to me. To my knowledge Mike is also involved in other projects, including consulting and presentation, although he may consider himself a writer first (and may have writing gigs outside this site, of course). It's only you who assumes that Mike's statement about writing referred only to income from this site, and as ever that half-complete piece of information is where you draw your idiotic assumptions from.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
He probably bills his masters by the post, so he comments without putting any thought into it just to log an entry...
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Failing again?
Do you know about the Antarctic treaty?
If not, lemme explain...
It basically sets up Antarctica as a scientific preserve, which prevents any civilization from settling in down there. Yeah, that's right, it's not that it's freezing cold down there (humans live in Siberia, Northern Canada, Greenland and Northern Norway and Sweden after all), but it's because there's laws against it.
It has a lot of influence, but a lot of people don't know about it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
You're an idiot. Techdirt is a living example of how to leverage "free" (this blog) to sell actual scarcities which are Mike's time and consultation services (Floor64). Mike has always maintained that Techdirt's ad revenue barely covers operating and bandwidth costs. Techdirt is basically a loss leader for Floor64.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
Oh, wait, that's right. It's because you're a troll, not someone who promotes interesting discussion. This is the best that pro-copyright shills have to offer? Really? But on the other hand pro-copyright shills have never been great with numbers or math.
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Re: Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
Freetard.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
Ha. I can make up my own useless words too.
How about "hasbeenist" for all those aging artists pining for their glory days and bitching about all these youngsters on their collective cyber-lawns?
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Re: Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
You can also time-shift DVR recordings to bypass/avoid commercials, and that hasn't destroyed that income source for tv stations/networks.
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Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
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Question though...
That is, are any members on both?
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Re: Question though...
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Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
Add the Writers Guild of America and the Science Fiction Writers' Association (Note there is some overlap between the three).
Each has more members than the "Authors Guild".
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Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
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Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?
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Leading is misleading
Then again, I'm one of the leading male candidates at work to eventually marry Angelina Jolie; which isn't saying much.
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WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
So WHAT'S THE SECRET?
I call on Mike to TELL us how he gets a "living" from "writing", because if all one needs do is re-write and let Google run javascript on your site, it's sheer magic! It ought to be illegal to get a "living" so easily! -- And we need to know how to promote a site having mainly re-writes too, that seems even bigger magic! How can re-writes DRAW people to here rather than the sources? -- And IF Mike doesn't tell us that, then we can reasonably conclude, at the very least, that he's keeping the REAL tricks to himself.
C'mon, Mike, you STATED that "I make my living writing". You need at the very least to detail HOW. Isn't that "sharing"? Wouldn't your fanboys be vitally interested in that?
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Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
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Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
Aren't you in the least interested in this magic money machine? Mike says he makes a LIVING from writing! It may not all be here, but he claims it's from somewhere, not me. There isn't enough evidence on this site to even attempt to say he makes a living from it.
But of course the key point to Mike is that the least questions undo him: if you don't accept his premises and "authority", then he's got bupkis. You fanboys know that, and so just go for ad hom whenever a reasonable question arises.
Now, I'm leaving this item 'cause don't have form fill turned on in this FF and it's too much trouble to type in my attractive moniker that PaulT says draws readers, besides that I don't actually hope for any answers, it's rhetorical.
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Re: Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
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Re: Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
2. on the other paw, i -along with nearly everyone else 'here'- am simply tired of your juvenile carping with little-to-no salient points to 'argue'...
3. as an absolutist on free speech, i am not a fan of the 'report' button, because it is used to hide mere idiot's rantings, *not* to actually hide really hideous speech (which i *don't* want to have hidden in any event)...
*BUT* while i hardly ever use the 'report' button on *anyone*, i have taken to doing so on most of your posts as a reflex action...
you are simply incorrigible, and NOT in a good way...
troll on, li'l boy blue, you only make more converts to the cause...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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Re: Re: Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
I've seen spam and more objectionable posts hidden quickly with that button, and I also disagree with it being used indiscriminately. But, the button's stated purpose involves reporting troll comments, and I can't recall having unhidden a reported post (as I do often) and seeing a post that didn't fit that or another stated criteria.
Usually it's the same 3 idiots posting comments of no value, and since the posts are only hidden (that is, not removed nor the user banned), I don't see the problem with it. Given that it's a mere click to unhide a comment, and there's a very clear notice that a comment has been hidden, I barely even consider it censorship, let alone a real problem.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
but as masnick always tells them, that only brings your attention to them.
So instead of hiding the post from the 'innocent' people it actually PROMOTES IT, and ensures it is well read.
Thanks for the tagging system masnick, It's highlights all the best posts. It's also considered a badge of honour to know that you have at least upset 1 rabbit mansick fanboy.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
And so even more people learn what a batshit insane jackass OOTB is. Your point?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
(AGAIN, techdirt deserves major props for the amount of free speech they DO allow; i do NOT hold this tiny bit of (barely/kinda/sorta) censorship against them...)
2. as far as that goes, i like the slashdot method of commenting and 'reporting' that the readers assign cumulative numeric values to the posts, and a person can surf at whatever 'number' they choose... personally, i almost always show 'all' posts, no matter how downgraded by the community...
3. another related issue, is that of threads gone by: you get a good debate/dialog going, and then it scrolls off the page before the day is out... it seems like there should be *some* easy method to keep active threads available and continuing... (even if them become divorced from the original article)
4. a pie-in-the-sky idea i'd like to see implemented, is that of having designated posters/'debaters' square off against each other on the issues... there are far too many active and interesting threads that scroll off the radar screen (to mix metaphors, after all, what's a meta for?), and that also get derailed by sideshows (perhaps purposefully by bots, but that is another thread)...
maybe by a vote of the posters as to who goes head-to-head against whom ?
like i say, just a barebones wish of an idea...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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Re: Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
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Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
Oh wait...
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Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
It's a little known formula that goes like this: CwF+RtB=Success.
It's really incredible. Here, I'll point you to a website where you can read all about it:
http://www.techdirt.com/
Enjoy.
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Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
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Re: Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
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Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
1. Writes blog posts
2. ???
3. Profit
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Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
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Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
I'm not sure if he's specifically said it himself, but the trolls he tends to be associated with do tend to parse "use low value infinite goods to leverage sales of more valuable scarce goods" as "sell t shirts", and "I want good content at a reasonable price" as "I want to steal". I assume he's using the same low level of thought here.
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Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
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Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
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Re: Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
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Re: Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
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Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
Not only is it not illegal, he will be making money off of it for a minimum of 90 years after his death!
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Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
Fuck off.
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Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?
You bill your masters by the post.
That's why you do numerous entries that make no actual sense, simply to log a billable item.
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The Authors Guild is primarily for book publishing authors. As you mentioned they only recently saw that the interwebbed datamats are more common than the potential of 3 machines in the world.
Journalism which I would say you to some degree are doing is something else. There are net-media journalist associations that you would fit into.
The piece you comment on is some lame advertisement. It may warrent a story, but it needs more than this imo. How is the history of the Authors Guild? When was it founded?, for whom? and what has their "raison d'etre" been?
There is an argument, that they may have gone awry in recent years while historically the advertisement is true.
Basing a story on a single source takes a solid message. This is to the thin side.
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I'm hard pressed to think of a more accurate definition of guild.
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"the nation's leading advocate for writers' interests" what they ment was
"The nation's leading lobbying/donation/this-money-is-not-a-bribe advocate of their member's who are authors that can write at a minimum, a check."
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Like Big Media?
(Did you know that, according to studio acounting, AVATAR still hasn't made a profit?)
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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.
It says "leading advocate for writers". You're the one claiming that their relative size somehow disqualifies them as the leading advocate. Is there another author's group who advocates for writers interests that you think is more deserving of that title than the Author's Guild?
I'd argue that the AFL-CIO is the leading advocate for workers interests. Even though the percentage of the workforce that are union members is a tiny fraction of the total workforce. The AFL is engaged on issues important to all workers, union and non-union alike. Does the fact that their membership is a small percentage diminish the benefit to other workers?
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Writers Guild of America.
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Which is exactly why Republicans in Michigan and other states are trying to destroy the AFL-CIO.
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