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First, thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) furiosity and snacky.
On another note: I was waiting to have my oil changed today, and reading a romance novel while I waited. I read a scene, and saw a type of line which I've seen before. These lines have never made me happy. Yet today, instead of just rolling my eyes, I thought, "I hate that. What the hell is the author thinking, writing that?"
Allow me to set the scene.
Our heroine is by herself in a dangerous place, when suddenly she is attacked by dangerous (and ugly!) men. Lo, she is about to experience a fate worse than death. [I read historicals, what can I say?]
The hero appears to rescue her from the threatening men, who flee in terror (or get beaten to a pulp, really, it's all equivalent).
What does our heroine think? (And, remember, this is usually her first time meeting the guy...) She thinks she feels safe with him. Looking at him, he's clearly not the sort of man who would rape a woman because he doesn't need to.
God, people; catch a clue. (This particular book is Lorraine Heath's Midnight Pleasures With a Scoundrel, if you're wondering. I will continue reading-- well, eventually-- but I hope to never see this sort of statement again.)
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Well, this ought to pretty definitively address the issue of profiting off of fanfiction.
Presuming it goes to trial, of course.
Based on the description of the book thus far (which does sound like neither critical commentary nor parody), I'm on Salinger's side. |
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Since we do actually use Amazon Prime, I do not approve of Amazon's latest interesting and mysterious glitch (link is to snacky, since she has a good collection of explanatory links), and this is the only journal I have which is Google-indexed...
amazon rank
ETA: Oh, and because I feel this deserves linking: what Bree said.
ETA2: Oh, yes-- and since Bree informs me that Amazon owns IMDb, I will simply note, for the record, that IMDb filters adult film stars in exactly this way: you cannot find them through a standard search, but you can through an advanced search. This seems to be disabled with "legitimate" credits (what these are escapes me), so you can find Traci Lords, for example. However, pick a random actor or actress in an adult film, and odds are you won't find them. So, as for this being a glitch-- I'd say it's quite deliberate. I assume they thought it would be as unnoticed as the similar filter on IMDb has been (since I've never seen anyone comment on it). But, oops, they made the mistake of flagging non-adult material as adult, so now people are up in arms.
I don't need a nanny. Flagging non-adult material as adult? Rather repulsive, actually. Filtering out adult content in a standard search? Not acceptable to me, thank you.
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Via yhlee. And, some math.
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Jan. 30th, 2009 @ 05:13 pm
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My God. At last. Something that describes what mathematics is.
I do little online things sometimes that want me to classify things as "science" or "art," and I hit "mathematics" and think, "Hmm... well, you probably think it's a science, so I'll pick that." But I have to think.
I agree with him that the soul-destroying aspects of mathematics education continually spread farther and farther through our system.
But, in the interest of actually presenting interesting mathematics: I'll talk about something fun, which is often boggling for people.
.999999... = 1
( the fun part. ) |
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First, congratulations to ilona_andrews for having Magic Burns nominated in the Urban Fantasy category for a Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award. Well-deserved, and good luck!
In response to my own recent griping about wallpaper historicals, I've decided to reread the Lymond and Niccolo books by Dorothy Dunnett. This is akin to using a sledgehammer to drive a nail, but needs must as the devil drives, etc., etc. Also, I'm going to follow Dorothy Dunnett's advice to read the Lymond books, then read the Niccolo books, then read the Lymond books again.
This will keep me busy for awhile, since I've also decided to deliberately read them really slowly this time.
I believe I've commented on Pawn in Frankincense at some prior point in a long listing of books, but I'm not going to bother to track that down now. It should be noted that the following is more of a discussion of the books than a review, because I can't figure out how to say anything that doesn't contain spoilers for the first book. I'm talking about fourteen books, so there you have it. I'm trying to keep the spoilers as limited as possible, but, still.
If this statement is still unclear in some way: there may be spoilers below.
( cut for spoilers and length, then, obviously. )
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So, I'm currently reading Jacquie D'Allesandro's Who Will Take This Man?, shortly after having read several of her other books.
Alas, once again, we're misusing foreign languages. Yes, one of my numerous pet peeves.
( Read more... )
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But I'm thinking Slayers Revolution may be going the way of Slayers TRY at this point. *Sigh*
I've not liked the last two episodes. I'll see how the next two go.
Yes, I've not missed the irony that years of griping about how I really wanted another series has led to griping now that I finally have one. :/
But, I'm sorry, did we totally forget the second major story arc in Season 1? Because I think we knew then that Zanaffar and the Sword of Light didn't get along, so why is it such a big surprise to everyone now? Grumble. |
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So, via a link from carlanime, I was reading Jezebel's comments on A Little Princess. (By the way, I totally hated that cover. I had an older version of the book which was "adult paperback" sized, and I read it until it fell apart. My mother tried to replace it with a book with that cover, and I was horrified with the "child" cover and "child" booksize. Anyway. I wouldn't care now, but boy did I care in fifth grade.)
The thing that's really driving me nuts is the plotfinder.
I've read the book; I'm certain of it. The problem is that I'm thinking of two separate books.
( Apparently, after 20 years, my memory is bad. ) |
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Taken from various others on my friendslist, with modifications.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them.
Added: Strike those you have read and can't stand
Also: Star it if you've seen a movie/tv miniseries adaptation. (I added this because, many times, I haven't read the book or don't intend to read the book because I've seen the adaptation. Actually, sometimes just seeing the commercials for the adaptation is enough; I'm looking at you, Atonement.)
( snip ) |
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Jun. 12th, 2008 @ 12:43 am
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My fiancé is out of town; thus I am doing the usual and seeing movies I would never get around to seeing, working on home improvement projects, and so on.
I saw "Iron Man" (finally) on Sunday evening, and the Indiana Jones movie tonight.
I liked "Iron Man." I'd watch it again.
The Indy movie-- it's not that it's bad. "Highlander: Endgame" is bad; "Little Nicky" is bad; "Nothing But Trouble" is probably the worst movie ever filmed.
The problem with the Indy movie was that it was never good. Scene after scene went by without ever catching my interest. (When I find myself concentrating on Cate Blanchett's curled eyelashes, it's a pretty good sign I'm not really enjoying myself.)
Oh, well. "The Dark Knight" will be coming out soon, and I'm looking forward to that. |
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Really; I promise.
So, as I said elsewhere...
Having reread all of the direct quotations and summaries of Rowling's statements at the trial, statements to the press, the types of questions the attorneys were asking, etc., I think that the fundamental issue of the Lexicon case from Rowling's perspective is not one of quality, trademark infringement, competition, her plans to publish her own encyclopedia, possible bizarre lawsuits by SVA someday for copying him, or anything else which is being mocked by the media.
She appears to be upset about plagiarism. Which, yes, the Lexicon does constitute. Most of the entries are either unacknowledged quotations (no quotation marks) or unacceptable paraphrase (where you rearrange the sentence a little or replace some words with synonyms), and they almost universally lack attribution (so, there may be no citation at all, or just a general book-and-chapter reference after what should be a quotation or is an unacceptable paraphrase). Yes, I have looked through it myself; it's among the exhibits. And, no, the fact that it's clearly about Harry Potter doesn't mean that you can take Rowling's prose with impunity, and the fact that you rearrange a sentence a little doesn't mean you can omit the quotation marks.
The thing is, of course, that plagiarism is not against the law. (Well, I lie. Plagiarism which constitutes research misconduct may be illegal, and it's conceivable you could plagiarize your way into libel or fraud. But, still, there's nothing on the books saying "plagiarism is theft.") So, if you're going to prosecute, you have to prosecute for copyright infringement, and you have to pray that it works.
I'd rather not see plagiarism found to be fair use.
The question of whether an analysis-free guide ought to be allowed at all under fair use, I'm iffy on. Legally, I think it should; honestly, though, I'd rather it weren't. But, unless Rowling's lying, I think the suit could have been settled even on the analysis-free guide if the current text weren't composed of so much plagiarism.
(Now, back to my book review. I'm severely out of practice.) |
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Continuing in my "actually posting" trend...
The Stanford Fair Use Project must be thrilled to death with the Lexicon case. (I mean that, seriously.) It is not every day that you get someone with 90+% of their material directly lifted from the source who is willing to go to court for the right to publish it.
See, I've seen a lot of commentary about how dumb the defense attorneys look, but that's because of a misunderstanding of their argument. Their argument is that 90+% of the material in the book is lifted, but the book follows a long historical scholarly tradition (which, therefore, clearly has value; the website hit count and WB's estimate of sales figures for the book play into that). Therefore, the current derivative works laws are too restrictive and fair use needs to be expanded (or derivative works abolished entirely-- they're not picky). Basically, if the Lexicon is legal, anything is. This is a quick step for them to radically change the law.
I'm interested to see how it goes.
If they were instead to win on grounds of copyright abandonment, it would mean a massive reform in copyright law, leading to copyright holders having to police content to the same degree that trademark holders currently do. This has somewhat nastier implications for online fandom, but would also represent a big change.
In any case, according to law the way it has been written up to this point, the Lexicon would seem to be a derivative work and therefore copyright infringement. WB seems to be doing an excellent job of showing that so far, and also showing that RDR willingly and knowingly infringed. It's just that the defense is trying to do a complete end run around that argument-- they care about the witnesses only so far as to show that the Lexicon has some value. (Which I would assume is the reason that people like RDR and SVA seem so uncoached.) The main defense witness would seem to be the professor that talked about Lexicons in general and their perceived academic value.
I'm not actually in favor of the Fair Use Project winning here, though, since I don't like the idea of creators losing that much power. It's always tempting to stick it to the major corporations, but authors make very little money, in general. When they do make money, it's off licensing, and this would seem to remove that source of income entirely. I don't like that.
ETA: Slight rephrasings to make my point clearer. |
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It's really been too long since I've updated this journal. I've been busy, yes, but I seem to be suffering from my usual self-censorship problems.
(Let it be said that I wrote up a complete post, deleted its content, and started over. It's amazing how little progress you can make that way.)
So; let's see. I'll try to do something brief here, instead of my previous list of things I'm not posting about. (I mean, why does anyone care what I'm not posting about? You can already see that.)
( Let's start with weight/cholesterol. ) |
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I was going to gripe about breaking my right arm again and make snide comments about how I love my dogs anyway, really, and I wouldn't trade them for the world not even for a nice lightweight dog like a Schipperke, no, really, no. ...But it's been a few days, and I'm getting much better at the one-handed typing, so I'm going to gripe about the difficulty of finding books I've read before and gotten rid of.
( Read more... ) |
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Vaguely interesting meme, copied from Charmian, among others.
These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today). As usual, bold what you have read, italicise what you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand.
( snip )
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I commented on Knife of Dreams when it came out, but this is more general, and a rather more serious commentary on the books. Robert Jordan died the other day of Amyloidosis.
( More on the Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan, etc. ) |
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A lot of the journals I have friended here don't have anything to do with fandom (and, actually, most of this journal doesn't, either).
I have mirrored most of my fanfiction on my JournalFen account (which I believe I said I was doing last time there was one of these fandom disagreements with LJ). I'm considering mirroring my book commentaries on JF as well, though I'd probably use a different account for them. My JournalFen account is easy to find; it has the same username.
For those on my friendslist, I have a permanent account on JF and can create accounts there. If you don't have a JF account, would like one, would use one, and meet the age/fandom membership qualifications for membership on JF, let me know. (The ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) leavin_eljay community is also offering accounts on JournalFen.) |
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I've been very reluctant to provide commentary on P.C. Hodgell's Kencyrath books. I love them too much, and am willing to forgive almost any flaw. This makes me just a bit unreliable. However, I realize most people have never heard of these books, and I've been asked what they're about. This I can do.
( Commentary. )
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These were my predictions. I had a few others, some of which you can see in my fanfiction (if you ignore the Snape/Black bits, obviously).
No, I will not be making new ones.
I've had all my LJ comment notifications turned off for the past week or so; I'll be turning them back on. I'm planning on picking up the book just after midnight on Saturday; if I can't get one then, I'm sure it will be easy enough the next morning.
No, I will not be posting uncut spoilers for at least the next week and a half.
In other news, I was talking to a friend last night about PC Hodgell, and he tells me Meisha Merlin has gone out of business (something about having gotten a loan from their distributor to cover costs, then the distributor didn't distribute a lot of their books, so they were unable to meet their obligations). (He says he got this from an author when he asked about author's next book-- not naming names.) So, once again, Hodgell's books are out of print, whether Amazon has figured that out or not. I suppose I should be happy-- the value of my books has just shot back up. I'm not. Presuming it's true, this dramatically decreases the odds of there ever being a book 5. Damn it.
Anyway, if you were ever thinking, "Gee, I might like to read one of PC Hodgell's books," you might want to pick one up if you see it in stock somewhere.
I have kind of wondered about Meisha Merlin since Phyllis Eisenstein's City in Stone was announced, available for preorder on Amazon, then kept getting delayed and delayed and delayed until it disappeared from everywhere. I was very disappointed; I really enjoyed Sorcerer's Son and The Crystal Palace-- I bought them in junior high or high school-- and I was looking forward to a sequel.
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May. 30th, 2007 @ 09:52 pm
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In light of recent LJ events, I'm working on copying my fanfiction over to my JournalFen journal: http://www.journalfen.net/users/white_serpent
I'm intending to keep it both here and there in the future.
I doubt the great fandom exodus will ever occur, but mirroring my fiction at JF seems reasonable.
Also, I figured there was no reason not to create a Greatestjournal. white_serpent and avocado are taken at GJ already (dammit!), so I've had to choose yet another name there. *Sigh* I'm justly punished for stalling. Maybe the icon space at GJ will make up for it. Maybe.
Other generalized updates: My weight loss program is going well. In addition to watching LJ implode and writing with my usual light speed, I'm rewatching The Irresponsible Captain Tylor. I love Slayers, of course, but Tylor is one of the great anime series.
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