| Monday,
September 3, 2007 Much of the
weekend was absorbed with the SFWA/EFF scribd.com flap initiated by Cory
Doctorow with flames fanned by ars technica, boing boing, and EFF. You can
read much of it in the weekend's View. It begins
Friday and there are
developments through
Sunday. There's even
some glimmer of a sign that scribd has
discovered they haven't won quite as thoroughly as they thought. I am
preparing a more orderly presentation as this week's column since I think
the matter is one of some importance for the future.
I am somewhat rattled by the number of people who
automatically leaped to the conclusion that SFWA and the writers are the bad
guys, and those who have posted hundreds -- year thousands -- of copyrighted
works without even the pretense of authorization by their creators are the
good guys. I note also that attempts by readers to put up somewhat different
views in the places where this flap originated have been turned down. For
many apparently it is enough to hear one version of the story.
In any event I'll have a column on the subject because it is
important for the future. I'll try to be a bit more orderly in the
presentation than I was in the day book.
================
A public announcement from SFWA
The Board has just passed the following motion by a vote of 5 aye, 1
no, and 3 abstain:
Motion: That, effective immediately, all of the the activities of the
current ePiracy Committee be suspended and the Committee itself be
disbanded until such time as the Board has had the opportunity to review
the legal ramifications of sending out any additional DMCA notices, as
well as to explore other methods by which SFWA may be able to assist
authors in defending their individual rights, while ensuring that any
such activity will not unduly expose SFWA to negative legal
ramifications.
Further, that the Board shall issue a call for a temporary,
exploratory committee of between five and nine individuals to
investigate the views of the membership on issues of copyright, authors
rights, what role the membership would like to see SFWA take on these
matters and what level is risk (legal, public relations or otherwise) is
acceptable to the membership in regards to that role, and what - if any
- public policy statement SFWA might issue on these subjects on behalf
of its membership.
Finally, that the Board, in conjunction with the findings of the
above committee and its own deliberations, will work to develop a new,
permanent committee with a clear matrix of operations and goals, whose
purposes shall include, but not necessarily be limited to protecting the
copyrights of our member authors who desire such protection in a way
that complies with the applicable laws, and to help educate both our
membership and the public at large in regards to copyright law.
Translation: Authors, you are on your own; SFWA will
no longer act for you in defense of your electronic rights.
Congratulations are due to those who have won this battle.
That includes EFF whose legal warning in defense of their client scribd
doubtless played some part in the Board's decision. I have no
consolation for those who lost.
I can take care of myself. I know how to generate DMCA
takedown letters if I care to go to the trouble; Scribd has said they don't
think this an onerous process. I disagree, but I know how to do it. I
can't act on anyone else's behalf nor will SFWA.
I have, with the expenditure of under an hour of
investigation, found on scribd.com many of the works of Heinlein, Chalker,
Chandler, Anderson, Saberhagen, and other dead authors as well as two story
collections by Harlan Ellison who is very much alive and very much unlikely
to be pleased by this. Scribd was notified of much of this by two
separate emails. I have not heard any reply from them, but I did not expect
to.
If there are any venture capitalists thinking of investing
in scribd who are members of any branch of the Masonic order, they may want
to take note that the estates of many of those writers belong to their
widows or widows' sons. If any are Catholic or Jewish they may want to take
note of the specific Biblical prohibitions in these matters.
I repeat the following from what I said over the weekend:
I understand that I must not call scribd.com a pirate
site: it's just a place where anyone can put up a copyrighted document
without any legal authority and scribd won't do anything until a legal
notice by the owner is sent to them. Better be sure the notice is in the
proper form. So although there's a lot of other people's work available at
scribd without any permission from the copyright owners, it's not a pirate
site. Keep that firmly in mind.
====
An open letter to Michael Capobianco,
President of SFWA
A version of this was posted in a closed SFWA forum, partly
in answer to Michael's comment on my dismay about SFWA's action. I want one
thing made clear: I don't blame Michael Capobianco for what happened.
Dear Michael,
Frankly, sir, while I expected this action, I am greatly
disappointed. It was predictable, but I did have some hopes.
Anyway, it's over. SFWA has caved, authors -- and their estates --
are on their own, and that is an end to it. We lost the battle, and
probably the war. The white flag is up. That does not mean that we can
or should concede the moral high ground. SFWA was on the right side in
this. We were on the side of the authors. That is where an author's
association has to be.
We will test the hypothesis that defending copyright against
electronic piracy is not important, because absent some organization to
do it for us, most authors will be unwilling or unable to go to that
much effort. Despite SCRIBD.com's PR representative saying that the
procedure needed to get them to remove a copyrighted work is not
onerous, most will find it so. I have posted the model of a letter that
worked. Whether someone will do that for the dozens of works I have
identified in about 45 minutes of work examining their site is another
matter. (I have elsewhere listed about fifty copyrighted works available
on scribd including just about everything Jack Chalker wrote. Eva is
Jack's widow.) Eva's web site makes it pretty clear that she's not up to
doing that for Jack's work which I find all over that place. I think
that is true of many estates.
I understand your position here, and absent some groundswell of
membership support which never materialized I don't think you had any
choice in the matter. I'm not disappointed in you. It is never pleasant
to be the general of a defeated army, and you have my sympathy. We lost,
and it wasn't your fault.
I am disappointed in SFWA collectively. We have caved, and quickly,
without much of a fight; but that was done by the membership which
allowed one view to prevail. I wonder if it actually does represent the
views of the entire membership, but given the one-sided way in which the
issues were presented out there on the web, perhaps so. Over time the
real truths of the issues involved will come out: the conflict of the
rights of those who want their works displayed for free download, and
those who are trying to protect electronic copyright. In the one case, a
few were deprived of the right of public display for a limited time. In
the other, entire works, indeed an entire lifetime of work, is offered
to anyone who cares to take it without the author's consent. To put
those two issues as morally equivalent is bizarre.
The effect of SFWA's caving is going to be wholesale abandonment of
any attempts to enforce electronic copyright. A few of us have the
resources to carry on as individuals, but there is no one to do it for
estates and for the many writers who don't have a sophisticated group of
readers and subscribers already organized. The effect is going to be
that there will be a few efforts to defend a few individual copyrights
-- Harlan's team comes to mind -- but for the most part the "practice of
the industry" will be abandonment of any such attempts.
I do not know the long term effects of that. They may be nil.
But I do believe that an important event happened this weekend, and
even though this action by the Board was predictable, I certainly do not
see it as joyful.
As to my own tactics: my apologies if you find them offensive;
believe me, I do not intend you any personal injury. I think you had no
choice. But I do want to make sure everyone understands just who has won
here, and what those who won stand for. I have already seen some signs
that the PR battle did not go quite as expected for scribd and its
champions. I have heard a few apologies from erstwhile supporters of
what they thought scribd and its supporters wanted. I expect more as
readers begin to understand the issues.
I think it's important that people know that whatever its faults,
SFWA was on the right side in this; that we have not one damned thing to
be ashamed of; that we owe no apologies to a web site that allows and
encourages the wholesale infringement of the copyrights of authors dead
and alive, yet claims to be the aggrieved party when an author's
association attempts, first by polite inquiry and notice and finally by
the only means that seems to affect scribd, to act for authors and their
estates. That scribd has the support of the Electronic Frontier
Foundation and its legal resources was certainly a factor in your
decision; but while that adds to scribd's power to intimidate, it is not
I think anything for EFF to be proud of, nor does it add to scribd's
moral authority.
I do not concede any part of the moral high ground to SCRIBD and its
sycophants whether those be inside or outside SFWA, and I do not believe
that SFWA ought to make any such concession.
We can regret that a few people were temporarily deprived of the
privilege of having their works available for free download from scribd
but I am damned if I will equate that ethically or morally with what
scribd is doing -- continues to do -- to authors and their widows and
orphans. They damned well do not have any right to the moral high
ground.
SFWA has lost a battle and probably the war. I am sorry we had to run
up the white flag. But I will not apologize for being in the battle, and
I will not concede that scribd and its minions have the moral or ethical
high ground.
SFWA did and does have the moral right of it.
Jerry Pournelle
Chaos Manor
========
Apparently the fallout continues.
While a faction friendly to Doctorow and the information wants to be free
group, coupled with intimidation from Electronic Freedom Foundation lawyers
representing scribd (see
http://blog.scribd.com/ ) were successful in getting SFWA to withdraw
from the business of protecting authors electronic copyrights, scribd seems
to be feeling some pressure, and I am told scribd is taking down a large
number of posts, possibly including all of Chalker's work. Included in that
takedown are the works of some of those who screamed loudest when SFWA
erroneously included some works that should not have been on the takedown
list; but apparently they are not screaming this time.
Apparently scribd which thought it was winning hands down in
its stonewall campaign (Send us DMCA takedown notices in proper form or we
will do nothing) is learning that this isn't as popular a stand as they
originally thought. We'll see. I hear all this indirectly, but I do
note that when I search for Chalker's works, which I found this morning, I
now get an error notice.
It may be that they have won less than they thought they
did. That doesn't change the fact that SFWA has been defeated by Doctorow,
ars technica, scribd, and EFF in that we will no longer be representing
members in protecting electronic copyright; members are still on their own.
I do point out that if scribd had been anything like
cooperative in the past weeks when Dr. Burt was trying to negotiate with
them, instead of simply stonewalling and insisting that they would pay
attention only to properly worded DMCA takedown notices, SFWA would never
have sent the list of documents to be taken down, Doctorow's work (posted by
a third party, not by Doctorow, and widely available on many other sites)
would not have vanished from scribd, and none of this flap would have
happened; and SFWA would continue to look after the electronic copyright
interests of its members.
Congratulations are due to EFF and
Doctorow. They have won their battle to defend the rights of scribd to post
whatever it wanted and leave it there until properly served with the right
notices: but apparently even scribd is having a few second thoughts. Pity
they didn't have them a week ago. None of us would have had to go through
this. Now they are apparently sufficiently frightened by public reaction to
try some remedies. I repeat: SFWA tried to get them to do what they are now
doing without any success whatever; it took our sending DMCA takedown
notices, the Doctorow - ars technica - EFF reaction, and our responses
including my explanations here, and the resulting public reaction when many
readers began to understand just what EFF and scribd were defending, namely
the right to have thousands of copyright documents available for download
without any permission from copyright owners, and to leave them there until
precisely drafted DMCA notices were sent for each and every such document)
to generate any kind of change of policy. My thanks to all the readers
who have taken the trouble to find out what was really going on, and to
respond.
For those who wonder what ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION
does, please go to http://blog.scribd.com/
and read the letter EFF sent on behalf of its client scribd.com to the
Science Fiction Writers of America. If you support EFF, you should see
them in action, and take pride in what they do. See how they cover
themselves with glory, and how helpful they are in protecting author's
rights.
Having read this, go to
yesterday's view to see scribd's statement on their view of the matter.
I will leave it to you whether, given the EFF letter, the
process of getting scribd to pay attention to the rights of authors and
their widows is onerous.
Scribd is trying to make some semblance of amends; I trust
that I won't seen unduly cynical if I doubt their good will, since they had
weeks to be cooperative and stonewalled, then started their war and sent
their EFF lawyers to their aid, and are only now acting as if they have any
concern for the rights of authors and creators.
=============
I note that Macdonalds is advertising on scribd. That
certainly tells me something about where to buy hamburgers.
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