I promised myself no more shit storms for at least six months.
I promised myself I wouldn’t post about this latest crap to hit the m/m community.
Seriously though??
What. The. Fuck.
Yeah, based on the things I’ve read, it definitely seems like this situation is beyond the suck.
But can someone tell me when I suddenly became Ren and couldn’t dance any more?
And I thought I was Teh Cray-Cray one around here.
Geezus.
Kris + Books = Good. *Sometimes*. 
As commentary goes, that's not likely to get you in much hot water. 🙂
I am so out of the loop. Please send me a private note about whatever's going on. If I've seen anything about it, I may journal cryptically about it, but my focus has been on TV shows lately.
I don't know what the latest crap is. Could someone explain in an email, pretty please?
Kris, your posts are eternally entertaining and eternally unenlightening. I've made a point of not playing, but you always manage to pull me back in (and yes, I did say that in my best Al Pacino voice). Are you talking about all the hullabaloo over dreamspinner and its instructions to authors about adapting their fan fiction?
Chris: Obviously not since no one but you even understood what the hell I was talking about. LOL.
Em & Eyre: No need for offline convos. This shit is all over the place. In fact, Chris very kindly put all the linkity together in her Friday post. 🙂
Go here – http://www.stumblingoverchaos.com/archives/17827 – got to 'bookity' and then to the links in points 6 – 8.
Alaina: Yep, together with the subsequent book burnings.
Also, 'eternally unenlightening'? Brilliant. Just brilliant.
Ah, but you know what we're all like & that Deep way down in your heart
You're burning, yearning for some
Somebody to tell you.
Life ain't passing me by.
I know what you're talking about but I'm pretending to ignore it until it goes away, which it will. When the next big thing hits.
Sorry, been launching a new press. And yeah, I swiped the action scene–climbing a cliff–out of an old fanfic for one of the stories in my lesbian collection. (Another has an homage to Ice Pirates) The vampire piece was too rooted in the Star Wars universe to be retooled.
I'm having a busy year, just finished my 10th novel, and my lesbians come out (so to speak) in mid month, so I have edits to do. Dreamspinner isn't my press, and I ignore the drama.
Ok so, at first I had no clue what you meant but then when I read through the comments I was like ohhhh duh lol Yeah it's all a bunch of BS.
Kris, I need to stop by more often. Apparently you've forgotten how brilliant I am!
I definitely don't want to step in a shit storm, and maybe it's just me, but it doesn't seem to me that recycling plots is the same kind of bad as what happened to J.L. Langley last year.
But then again, I feel like we, as a culture, have taken intellectual property rights too far anyway. I freely admit to being a deviant socialist commie radical so people can do what they want with my opinion and I'll leave it at that.
Thanks for the links. I had seen a few things about that. I asked some folks if they had seen the movie “Shelter” and told them about the free book download. I have not seen the movie, but have read that book. I wouldn't feel qualified to judge unless I'd seen the movie.
Tam: “…until it goes away, which it will…”
Very true. We could run a book on how long it will last. That could be fun.
Angelia: Launching a new press and having written 10 novels? Holy shit, hun. You have been busy.
Maybe you need to include a warning at the beginning of the collection along the lines of “zOMG! I've included one retooled scene from my fanfic in this entire book. I beg forgiveness!” Bound to hold off the wankers. 😛
Angel: “… I love the way you think…”
But naturally. *hair flick*
I just find the whole 'if you don't boycott/support DSP you're totally evil and I'll hate you forever' thing bloody ridiculous. Apparently people are meant to be lemmings. Who knew.
Alaina: Or maybe you're just forgettable?? 😛
Your comment made me look up the definition of plagiarism. I had always believed it to refer more to the actual words than the ideas. I wonder if the latter has gained emphasis with the growth of the internet and notions of intellectual property.
Are the levels of plagiarism? As you say what happened in JL's situation seems a lot worse than this. Maybe there's some sort of scale out there which weighs up these things?
Tell you what… you go look for it and I'll time you and see how long it takes.
Em: I've seen the movie, but not the book. Interestingly, the book never appealed to me. Considering how much I love the movie, I wonder what that means??
Kris, you're funny! I actually don't have to look it up, since, as a teacher, I'm very familiar with plagiarism. It does refer to using both someone's words or ideas as your own, but in reality, this is less about plagiarism, which happens all the time in our culture and is a time honored form of cultural production– I mean really, things get recycled and reworked all the time and some of our most well known cultural icons are the result of plagiarism. Look at movies– Apocalypse Now and Forbidden Planet are both adaptations of classic literature, but they aren't considered plagiarism nor are they infringing on copyright because the books are in the public domain. Likewise, there are sequels to and rewritings of every single Jane Austen novel, some of which reuse her exact language, but that's also not plagiarism (it's paying tribute!) nor is copyright infringement because, again, Austen's work is in the public domain.
Cultural production happens we people let go of their obsession with owning ideas and instead enjoy the free exchange of information. We've extended copyright laws to the point that nothing that has been written in our lifetime will ever go into the public domain. Did you ever wonder why they keep remaking Superman? It's so that Warner Bros. can retain the copyright, not because there's a burning need for another Superman movie. Want to adapt Hemingway? You're going to pay through the nose because his family owns the rights to his stories almost in perpetuity. Or, at least for well over the course of several lifetimes. It's completely stifling of every form of cultural production. Instead of putting Hemingway on the screen we instead get countless iterations of Superman.
This situation with Dreamspinner reminds me of the Hunger Games controversy. The whole premise is almost identical to the Japanese book and subsequent movie, Battle Royale, but there's no way to prove plagiarism on either side because they came out simultaneously. Sometimes that just happens.
None of this is to say that wholesale plagiarism/copyright infringement like what happened to JL Langley is OK. I do think copyright laws that protect authors are a good idea, but we as a culture need to relax and use reason when applying them. The best ideas come out of a free exchange and are likely to stick around. Similarly, the best ideas are often thought of by more than one person, and to act as if that isn't the case is silly and takes ideas of property too far.
Apparently people are meant to be lemmings.
TBH I don't know what to think. I'd need to know more (read everything) in order to feel like I could make a decision one way or the other. Which is very fence sitter, but…I don't know what to think 😦
errific comment, Alaina. Maybe I do think you're brilliant after all. 😛
I am in absolute agreement that the exchange, exploration and challenging of ideas is integral to cultural expression and to building communities – which can sometimes lead to interesting times. 🙂
I also believe copyright should be tested so as to allow as much access as possible to information and ideas. Indeed, the issue of accessibility is one of my many soapboxes and probably why I have no major issues with interpretation and adaptation of 'property' un/bound by copyright.
I have to admit the notion of the 'public domain' is more complex for me. Yes, copyright can come to an end. However, there is a vast difference in something becoming more open and accessible to allowing it be plagiarised in any substantive way.
This is coloured by my work in the history field. You may reproduce material, but you must reference the piece and acknowledge who gave you permission to incorporate it in your work.
You can probably imagine how much I absolutely despised all those so-called reimaginings of Jane Austen's, and others, books. Grrrrrr.
Orannia: I wouldn't bother too much, hun. After reading the first post, you can probably guess the way the rest of it goes.
Kris: “You may reproduce material, but you must reference the piece and acknowledge who gave you permission to incorporate it in your work.”
THIS!!
(Also, I've written about 5 responses and then deleted them because I can't quite put into words what my thoughts are. I blame wine)
Kris, if you want to read Klune's book, DSP is currently offering a free download. (But maybe you'd better read War and Peace first to protect yourself against those Dreamspinner germs.)
Nic: Blame the wine all you want. We both know that's just the way your mind normally works. 😛
KZ: I'll put 'War and Peace' next on my list right after I finish reading Isabelle Rowan's 'Ink'.
O.O
But…
NO! That's a DSP book! These germs you speak of… will I die??
Maybe I should go and kill my best friend before he gets me into his DSP-author-claw-like clutches!
Yeah.
If you honestly believe I would rub my hands in glee and run over to DSP with the rest of mob just to get a free copy of Klune's book so I can decide whose side I'm going to be on, than you don't know me at all.
Oh, and the 'War and Peace' thing?? I lied. Or maybe you've forgotten I don't like historical fiction? I've only mentioned it once or 100 times over these past few years.
“These germs you speak of… will I die??”
According to some people, your body might live on, but neither your intellect nor your ethics will survive ('cause, you know, DSP's mind-numbingly bad books are really part of a covert plot to usher in the Zombie Apocalypse).
“If you honestly believe I would rub my hands in glee and run over to DSP with the rest of mob just to get a free copy of Klune's book so I can decide whose side I'm going to be on, than you don't know me at all.”
Nope, didn't think that at all. Not even for a nanosecond. Just figured you might be curious about it (since you've seen Shelter). *shrug* That's it. No ulterior motive.
KZ: Well, I've never claimed to be intellectual or ethical, just opinionated, so maybe I won't get infected. Have to say, though, that the zombie thing sounds kind of cool.
“Nope, didn't think that at all. Not even for a nanosecond. Just figured you might be curious about it (since you've seen Shelter). *shrug* That's it. No ulterior motive.”
Fair enough. As I said in an earlier email, Klune's book never appealed to me when it was released and that hasn't changed. However, if I did get over curious enough, I'd wait until I could buy it again.
Jumping on the 'now we can truly pretend to know what we're talking about when we're yelling about how much we support/hate it, but really… FREE STUFF!' bandwagon doesn't appeal either.
I ❤ you 🙂
*smooches*