A writer’s will
Neil Gaiman has decided to start a crusade to convince authors to specifically designate who will hold their copyrights after they die, and Miss Snark has seconded him (which is how I heard of it).
Writing a will has been on my and my friends minds recently. We’ve realized that we really are past forty. And if you read this blog regularly, you know that the ridiculous lengths of copyright terms has been on my mind.
So I will designate in my will not only who will hold the copyrights until they (hah!) run out, but that everything I’ve written will, within five years after I die, be available under the Gnu Simpler Free Documentation License version 1.0 (should it be available).
I’ve added a five-year buffer because I’m a bundle of optimism this morning, and want to give any in-progress projects a chance to settle. The blockbuster movie based on It Isn’t Murder If They’re Yankees will have time to finish and the producers will have time to recoup their investments if I die during filming.
Although seeing what they did to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy after Douglas Adams died I may change my mind about that.
If we had reasonable copyrights I wouldn’t have to worry as much: under reasonable copyright terms anything I write would return to the public domain a few years after I died anyway, if it weren’t already there. But we don’t have reasonable copyright terms. Authors releasing their writings back to the public domain early would only encourage poor copyright law.
On the other hand, leaving them under normal copyright restrictions would mean they couldn’t be used by the public for, basically, forever. By releasing my writings under the GNU Simple FDL after I die, anyone will be able to use my writings, as long as they are willing to abide by the terms of the SFDL.
- Important. And pass it on…
- “Les immediately saw my point, understood my crusade and went off and made a document for authors. Especially the lazy sort of authors, or just the ones who haven’t quite got around to seeing a lawyer, or who figure that one day it’ll all sort itself out, or even the ones to whom it has never occurred that they need to think about this stuff.”
- It Isn’t Murder If They’re Yankees
- “The true story of rural Virginia schoolteacher Carolyn Purcell, the small town of Walkerville, and the Washington, DC foolkiller known as the Quiet Man, as told by one of the Quiet Man’s famous victims.”
- Death…not just for murder mysteries any more!
- “Your kids will out live you, maybe your dog. Your literary agent, maybe, if you’re lucky. Your work will too. You need to designate an executor and an heir for your literary work EVEN if it’s not published.”
- GNU Simpler Free Documentation License
- “This License is not limited to ‘documentation’, or even to works that are textual; it can be used for any work of authorship meant for human appreciation, rather than machine execution.”
- Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
- While a decent enough movie, this adaptation of Douglas Adams’ brilliant satire drops the satire and ultimately doesn’t do anything different than most other movies today.
More copyright
- VidAngel: Here We Go Again
- Is VidAngel breaking the law with their streaming filter service? The answer may hinge on a long-standing misunderstanding of how copyright law applies to copies.
- Copyright reform: Republican principles in action?
- Their initial copyright policy brief was a brilliant example of how Republicans could tie small government and freedom to actual, concrete policy changes that will help the average person—while at the same time cutting the rug from under their traditional anti-freedom enemies. It was far too smart to last.
- Apple’s new Music Store ringtone policy
- I had started to consider purchasing digital downloads instead of CDs, but because download restrictions change too easily CDs remain a far better choice for me.
- Copyright and role-playing games
- Open source is especially important for computer code because copyright for computer code completely subverts the point of copyright.
- How not to convince your reps
- Copyright reform is likely to go the way of medical marijuana unless its supporters are willing to vote for candidates that do something about it.
- 10 more pages with the topic copyright, and other related pages
More writing
- Time is not fungible for writers
- Time isn’t fungible for writers; it’s not really fungible for anyone else, either. Time stolen can never be regained, because many of the things that would have been created during that time are lost forever.
- How black are jets?
- Outdated phrases in modern times: a topic so beyond the pale that this article isn’t worth a warm pitcher of spit, but now that you mention it… whose water are you carrying in that warm pitcher?
- ia Writer for iOS and Mac OS
- You have to enjoy using asterisks and/or underscores for emphasis, and hashes for headlines, but if you do, ia Writer is a great app for writing and note-taking on Mac OS and iOS.
- Let the reader be smart
- I’m sitting out in the dark right now with the stars overhead. The touchingly funny keynote by Jacquelyn Mitchard is over (that’s where the amazing sunset came from). Most of the attendees are now settling in for the night, but the hard-core late-night read-and-critique will be starting in about an hour with Mark Clements. I think I’ll read from a page of thorny dialogue in the current book.
- La Jolla Writers Conference wrap-up
- A quick wrap-up of stuff from my notes on the 2011 La Jolla Writers Conference.
- Four more pages with the topic writing, and other related pages