copyright

Set public domain content free from locked PDF files

Set public domain content free from locked PDF files

Lately I’ve been digging around online to find old genre short stories written in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In many cases it’s clear that the works have passed into the public domain, at least here in the U.S., but in other cases there’s a questionable copyright claim, as when a modern publisher slaps [...]

Angry Robot plans fan-created anthologies via new WorldBuilder site

Fandom breeds content, as nearly any Internet user who has ever loved a TV show, movie or book already knows. Fans love to spend time absorbed in their favorite works by inventing new adventures, filling in backstories, and expanding the characters’ worlds with fresh details. (Or just by making the characters have sex with each [...]

Say goodbye to Google Books Settlement for good

The heavily criticized proposed settlement between Google and a small group of authors and publishers has been dealt a final, fatal blow, reports Publishers Weekly this morning—although in this case the deathblow comes indirectly because it’s actually about a different, older legal battle. In case you need a recap of what this is all about, [...]

What Neil Gaiman likes about the Kindle, and why you should care

Hopefully you don’t need a Famous Author to validate your purchasing decisions, so I’m not posting about Neil Gaiman’s opinions on the Kindle just to make you feel better/worse about your new ereader. Instead, I thought it might provide some useful things to think about when you shop for your next device, or when you [...]

Why it’s sometimes good for writers to build on each other’s work

Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon writing out my idea for how fanfic and other writers could theoretically use digital technology to bypass copyright roadblocks. What inspired me was the recent story about an unauthorized sequel to “The Catcher in the Rye” that Salinger managed to quash in the U.S. before his death. Now [...]

Dehydrated books, or how to make money off of fan fiction and unauthorized sequels

Imagine that this evening I follow a friend’s link to a new Harry Potter book, one that essentially replaces “The Sorcerer’s Stone” in the canon with a Year 1 adventure that’s darker and closer in tone to the final few books, but that wasn’t written or authorized by J. K. Rowling. The link I follow [...]

The public domain hobgoblin and how he steals your gold

Okay, so there’s a little bridge near the edge of the village. It’s not used very often, but it still serves a need for villagers who want to cross the river at that point. It’s nearly a century old now and the original builder is dead, and everyone agrees that it’s now public property that [...]

Why DRM is a distraction

There are bigger problems in the ebook marketplace than individual piracy. You may not feel that way if you’re an author or publisher with a marketable title. And you may not feel that way if you’re a staunch consumer advocate, or if you worry about how DRM prevents ebooks from being future-proof. But the underlying [...]

Three misperceptions about the ebook business

You can pretty much always find outspoken, passionate diatribes about ebooks online. I’ve written several myself, but in my defense I had to, or else the Ebook Bloggers Board would have flogged me and taken away my WordPress dashboard. Even setting aside my own involvement, I’ve always enjoyed this sort of spirited discussion–it’s like politics, [...]

U.S. Copyright Office okays stripping DRM on some types of ebooks

Update: I may be getting too excited; readers over at Teleread say this was already possible, and today’s announcement just affirmed that it will remain an exemption for the next three years. The Copyright Office is handing out a whole bunch of copyright smackdowns to big business today, with its formal announcement of a new [...]

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