SF Writers Commit Suicide

This is one of the stupidest things I have read all day. I guess sci-fi writers like being in a literary ghetto because this is a great way to stay there.

Viacom isn’t the only organization involved in sending out “bass-ackwards” DMCA takedown notices; the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (abbreviated, for complicated reasons, as the SFWA) is in on the fun as well. The group has issued DMCA takedown notices for sci-fi reading lists drawn up to aid teen literacy, freely-distributed webzines, and Creative Commons-licensed material.

The debacle began a few weeks back when the SFWA contacted Scribd, a site that allows users to post documents in the same way that YouTube allows people to post videos. SFWA alleged that numerous works on Scribd violated copyrights of SFWA members and requested that these works be taken down. They were. But it quickly became apparent that the USS 1701-SFWA had a crack in its dilithium crystals.

Stories began to emerge from the blogosphere, and not the sort of Stranger in a Strange Land stuff that the SFWA exists to promote. Nick Senger, an eighth-grade teacher and promoter of teen literacy, found his sci-fi bibliography targeted in the crackdown. “I’m not sure what the SFWA has to gain by requesting that the list be removed,” he notes. “That list does nothing but encourage people to buy their books.”

Now I can point to this as a good reason why I left SFFFFFWA, instead of just saying “Because Ben Bova was a jerk.”

Posted by  on  08/31  at  03:58 PM

Let me get this straight, they got all huffy about people telling other people to buy their books?

Someone doesn’t understand the capitalist system.

Posted by Remulak MoxArgon  on  09/01  at  09:07 AM

Some of them, like Ben Bova, hate capitalism. They are always complaining about it.

Talking about being careful what you wish for.

Posted by  on  09/01  at  09:42 AM

Somehow I don’t think Jerry Pournelle, hates capitalism. He has admitted to having been a Marxist as a youth, but people do learn better.

Pournell has the other side up on his website. The complaints came about because Scribd had complete, fully copyrighted works up _without_ the permission of the copyright holder (including one by Charles Sheffield and Pournelle,) and the website made it virtually impossible to take them down. This is theft.

Now, Baen has found that putting complete works up on the Baen Free Library actually increases sales of real books, and if I were Pournelle or Sheffield’s estate I would have sued Scribd to demand they have a link to Amazon so readers’ could buy the book, but SFWA and Pournelle were not getting any response from Scribd, so they played hard ball, and other people got caught up in it.

Note: I happen to be a SFWA member (honestly, they let anyone in these days!)

Posted by John Costello  on  09/02  at  01:03 PM
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