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Attitude!

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CanRay

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« Reply #45 on: <03-27-11/0035:41> »
I think you have an overly optimistic view of the publishing world. The quality of a work is no guarantee of finding a publisher or an audience. And getting notice for an unknown author is actually quite difficult.

Jason H.
Look at the music industry and the crap that gets pumped out of it.  While great local artists never get beyond the bar scene.

Or cinema where great actors and directors languish in "Artistic Films" while blockbusters with the same scripts are pumped out en mass.

Same deal with publishing.
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Mara

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« Reply #46 on: <03-27-11/0115:30> »
I think you have an overly optimistic view of the publishing world. The quality of a work is no guarantee of finding a publisher or an audience. And getting notice for an unknown author is actually quite difficult.

Jason H.
Look at the music industry and the crap that gets pumped out of it.  While great local artists never get beyond the bar scene.

Or cinema where great actors and directors languish in "Artistic Films" while blockbusters with the same scripts are pumped out en mass.

Same deal with publishing.

Want o make money in publishing today? Write a novel series about teenage girls and their pedophile, bestiality-equivalent
vampire lovers. (Seriously..what would you call it when someone 100+ is dating a 16 year old girl? What would you call
making something you eat for nourishment into your "girlfriend"?)

Who thinks that the world of Shadowrun is any more open of literary experimentation, when it is driven entirely by the bottom
line?

CanRay

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« Reply #47 on: <03-27-11/0116:46> »
Want o make money in publishing today? Write a novel series about teenage girls and their pedophile, bestiality-equivalent
vampire lovers. (Seriously..what would you call it when someone 100+ is dating a 16 year old girl? What would you call
making something you eat for nourishment into your "girlfriend"?)

Who thinks that the world of Shadowrun is any more open of literary experimentation, when it is driven entirely by the bottom
line?
"Vampire?  Vampires are pussies!  I'm the Prince of F***ing Darkness!" - Ozzy Osbourne
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Tycho

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« Reply #48 on: <03-27-11/0628:40> »
 
I think you have an overly optimistic view of the publishing world. The quality of a work is no guarantee of finding a publisher or an audience. And getting notice for an unknown author is actually quite difficult.

Jason H.

This may all be true, but jet you did not answer my question.

She received the computer-generated rejection letter along with a letter from an anonymous employee at Horizon's literary department saying the computer analyzed her book and spat back that no one would buy it. From that, let's assume she received similar rejection letters from other publishing houses (but not a letter like Anonymous'), she sees a pattern and decides to publish with the pirates instead.

Your assumption has no foundation, its just speculation. All we know is, she received a decline letter with a anonymous letter claiming her work is brilliant. It is more than likely that there are publisher who dont use the "horizon computer reviewer" and actually read the books, so it is hard to believe nobody would represent her after she received such high praise from the Horizon reviewer.

Even if she decided to use alternative Channels, she could just told the pirate publisher to sell her work independent, not in the illegal bundle. If I put may own book/music on thepiratebay it is not automatically illegal.

cya
Tycho

FastJack

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« Reply #49 on: <03-27-11/0952:13> »
Want o make money in publishing today? Write a novel series about teenage girls and their pedophile, bestiality-equivalent
vampire lovers. (Seriously..what would you call it when someone 100+ is dating a 16 year old girl? What would you call
making something you eat for nourishment into your "girlfriend"?)
I cannot say anything, being a fan of both Buffy and Angel. :'(

But to get back on topic. I think it's more about reinforcing the dystopic nature of the Sixth World, showing that the greatest literary mind of their generation has to resort to illegal means to get themselves published. It's a story idea, nothing more than that.

CanRay

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« Reply #50 on: <03-27-11/1146:35> »
Come on, you know us fans, we'll pick everything apart and to death with a lot more time than Line Producers and Authors had to write it.   :P
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Mara

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« Reply #51 on: <03-27-11/2123:13> »
Come on, you know us fans, we'll pick everything apart and to death with a lot more time than Line Producers and Authors had to write it.   :P

Well, yeah...because that is how we a) run our games and b) try to figure out what is actually going on behind the
scenes so we aren't surprised.

KarmaInferno

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« Reply #52 on: <03-27-11/2334:05> »
Tycho, your strident arguments about copyright are all well and good, but they assume one major thing that isn't really true about the Shadowrun universe.

Strong enforcement.

Copyright only really works if there is a strong enforcing agency to make sure people don't abuse or violate it. In a world where most governments are largely puppets of corporations, it makes perfect sense that copyright would be equally warped and twisted into whatever the corporations want it to be.

I also don't find it THAT unbelievable that Rodriguez would try to get larger coverage by piggybacking her work onto other more well known works. As to why she went with illegal distributors rather than legal ones, well, people do that kinda thing all the time even today. It's not always optimal, sure, but people do silly things all the time.


-k

CanRay

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« Reply #53 on: <03-27-11/2343:03> »
Work tech support.  You'll learn to never underestimate the stupidity of humanity ever again.

"There are two things that are ultimately common in the universe:  Hydrogen and Stupidity.  And Stupidity is winning." - Me after a particularly bad shift.
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Tycho

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« Reply #54 on: <03-28-11/0934:39> »
Tycho, your strident arguments about copyright are all well and good, but they assume one major thing that isn't really true about the Shadowrun universe.

Strong enforcement.

Copyright only really works if there is a strong enforcing agency to make sure people don't abuse or violate it. In a world where most governments are largely puppets of corporations, it makes perfect sense that copyright would be equally warped and twisted into whatever the corporations want it to be.

I also don't find it THAT unbelievable that Rodriguez would try to get larger coverage by piggybacking her work onto other more well known works. As to why she went with illegal distributors rather than legal ones, well, people do that kinda thing all the time even today. It's not always optimal, sure, but people do silly things all the time.


-k

I would they the opposite is true: copyright only works, if the capacity to publish is limited to a few companies. Nowadays everybody is able to publish, copy and modify creative work, because the capability is availble to everybody. Since imens fast matrix traffic and unlimited data storage space, a pirated product could be transfered in the entire world in a couple of minutes. Enforcing copyright in 207x is simply impossible.

Back to Rodriguez:
I dont find it unbelievable that Rodiguez choose to go illegal, where other authors would simple published the book independently. But that means the entire chapter is useless, since it is not evil Horizon, who banned her book out of sheer profit reasons. It simply was her own fault. (if you ignore the whole Tolstoi nonsense)

cya
Tycho

FastJack

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« Reply #55 on: <03-28-11/1012:47> »
Copyright is not about prevention of publishing works. It's about the author's right to recompense for those works. When enforcing copyrighted material, you're not telling people they cannot publish it, you're telling them that they have to pay the orginator of the material a fair share. This is why (normally) material is moved to Public Domain a certain number of years (usually between 50-70) after it's originally published, since that's typically after the author has passed on.

Nowadays, of course, that's very different since the rights to material is being copyrighted well after an author's death in order to support surviving relations. This is where we're getting items copyrighted well beyond there normal move to public domain.

hobgoblin

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« Reply #56 on: <03-28-11/1056:07> »
Work tech support.  You'll learn to never underestimate the stupidity of humanity ever again.

"There are two things that are ultimately common in the universe:  Hydrogen and Stupidity.  And Stupidity is winning." - Me after a particularly bad shift.
Reminds me of some supposed quote of Einstein...
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CanRay

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« Reply #57 on: <03-28-11/1142:48> »
Work tech support.  You'll learn to never underestimate the stupidity of humanity ever again.

"There are two things that are ultimately common in the universe:  Hydrogen and Stupidity.  And Stupidity is winning." - Me after a particularly bad shift.
Reminds me of some supposed quote of Einstein...
If you're going to abuse a quote, it might as well be from a great man.
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Adarael

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« Reply #58 on: <03-28-11/1150:53> »
Quote
If the corps can just claim Tolstoi and other classics, there is no copyright anymore. There is a right that allows the corps to do what they want. A creator is at their disposal.

This is, in a nutshell, exactly my point.

hobgoblin

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« Reply #59 on: <03-28-11/1223:07> »
In essence, the only strong enforcement of copyright that corporations in SR will back are the ones that allow them to make the most money, as quickly as possible, with the least effort on their part. Public domain have always been a torn in the side of IP based corporations, and they would likely use any opportunity to dismantle it in part or in whole.
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