| Sunday,
October 21, 2001 It's done. You can now order the Windows
version of Roberta's reading program. Alas, we still have an
installation problem with Windows XP: I cannot much recommend the install
program we bought to use with this. It seems to do many things in a
complex way.
We did the program in Delphi rather than Visual Basic. That may also
have been a mistake: Microsoft seems to have made things needlessly
difficult for applications designers who aren't using Microsoft's
development tools. I suppose I should be shocked.
But the program works, it raises reading levels something wonderful,
and at the end of the 70 some lessons anyone who speaks English can read
it: the reading vocabulary is the speaking vocabulary, plus with phonics
you can read words like dimethyldiethyltrichloroethane even if you have
not the foggiest notion of what they mean. You can also read words like
horseless carriage even if you have never seen either word before...
The world just changed: Linux for Desktop may be more likely than we
thought. I have opened a new reports
page on Star Office. I haven't myself run it due to a lot of things
happening, but that will not be long. Meanwhile, read what Joel Rosenberg
has to say. I think you will be pleased.
And Microsoft has, I think, some competition in applications.
There are tanks in Manger Square in Bethlehem. US troops are on the
ground in Afghanistan. We have worked hard in the past to be admired and
loved. It is now time to be feared. I doubt the Arab Coalition will last
with Israeli troops in every major city in Judea and Samaria, and now
there are Christian Arab casualties as well. The Israelis have clearly
chosen to be feared. I doubt we can do less.
Anthrax in the Capitol Building: less of a worry than Pakistani nuclear
weapons. Can the Pakistani government hold? We will know more by All
Souls' Day.
And on that score we open today's mail with a letter
from Joel Rosenberg arguing the case for Empire.
I have just done and am doing the processing for the new subscribers.
Thanks! to all of you who keep this place open.
When I get them all entered I will send a mailing, probably tomorrow or
next day so if you didn't get it don't panic. And a gentle reminder to
some of the early subscribers, it's time to renew...
I find
www.palmbooks.org
looks to be a pirate site. I don't have fast enough web access to be
able to navigate around it much, so I have not found any actual books: I
only know that over on the SFWA site there seems to be the impression that
there are many books including Harry Potter and some others.
I don't know what to make of it: the place is clearly professional in
appearance and took a lot of work and I presume a fair amount of money to
get going.
I find Legacy of Heorot appears to be there in zip form. This is
interesting since I am certain we haven't authorized this. What is
this place, and why?
I have opened a Reports
page on this, and I'll put stuff there as I learn it. First from
Roland on who owns it, and some Internet Lawyer stuff he found there...
Monday Morning
Whoever telephoned that person and apparently frightened the site
owner's 4 year old daughter is doing no one any good. Assuming that story
is true, because I find it hard to believe one of my readers would do
that.
I am told that the owner of that odd site -- it appears to have been
taken down -- thought that since someone emailed him copies of the books
he put there, they were in the public domain. It was all a naive mistake.
Then, I am told -- but here is a science fiction writer:
Jerry--
We've got a major problem.
Steele Smith (cc:d above) is proprietor of
PalmBooks.Org. He is, to put it charitably, a wee bit shaky on copyright
law, though he's learning rapidly.
He posted one or more of your books on his website.
When he did so, he did not realize (implausible though it sound) that he
needed your permission to do that thang. Someone sent him the e-copy of
the book through the Internet, and he thought that meant it was in public
domain. You and I both understand how stupid an assumption that was, and I
believe Steele is beginning to catch on.
You responded by posting his name, address, and
phone number on your website. As a result, his four-year-old daughter has
received threatening phone calls from some of your fans.
Jerry, this is flat-out unacceptable. Once upon a
time, you had a four-year-old girl. Would you think it okay for her to
have been scared that someone was going to kill her because of something
you did?
I am very angry, Jerry. I was working with Steele
Smith to resolve this situation, and we were making great progress. Then
your fans started calling his home, and scaring the shit out of his little
girl, because you'd put his phone number on your website.
This is flat-out unconscionable. I know you've got a
temper, but this goes way over the line.
Get Steele Smith's address and phone number off your
website immediately. This isn't a request, Jerry, it's an order, and you
will fall in. You have fucked up an amicable resolution of this situation,
and you have sent a four-year-old girl to bed with nightmares. I will not
tolerate that.
Leave Smith's email address on your website. He
deserves all the spitemail he gets.
But goddamit, leave his little girl alone.
I am not sure I believe any of this. First, why is a 4 year old
girl answering telephones? There is zero evidence that ANYONE
spoke with his daughter. Steele Smith pretended not to know that he was
pirating books; he had previously told one SFWA member that she was a
terrorist when she tried to get him to stop; but our heroic official of
the Science Fiction Writers of America, protesting that he is protecting
children, chooses to attack me first off. Which tells me more than I
wanted to know. And as the first things I saw this morning did manage to
upset me more than it should.
Leave all that. I have a conference I have to be at in an hour or so.
Apparently it is all my fault, and I have endangered an amicable
resolution and --
But whatever is the problem, I have taken the address and phone number
off although most of you know precisely how to find it. If one of
you did in fact telephone and speak to a 4 year old girl in a threatening
manner you must already be ashamed of yourself, and certainlfy I do not
need that kind of "help"; but I find that story a bit hard to
believe.
In any event, the site appears to be down as of this morning.
The above occupied my time so that I didn't see this, which is in
response to the letter I sent to the site's owner immediately upon
learning of its existence; the reply came many hours later:
Dear Mr. Pournelle,
Thank you for your kind words regarding the
palmbooks.org website. I truly appreciate them, as well as the comments on
your own site saying that I look "professional". I am in the
process of removing all links to downloads for your books on my site.
Until this is completed, I have suspended access to the members portion of
the site out of respect to you and others.
> > So far as I know all my books are
copyrighted, none are in > the public domain, nor are any of those by
Larry Niven, nor > any of those by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
I do have a posted policy regarding copyright
violations. It can be found here: http://www.palmbooks.org/faq/defaultcopyrightprocedure.asp
Since Mr. Dobbins appears to have done all this
research, I am surprised he did not point this out to you. But as they say
water under the bridge.
> I am not sure what you are doing here,
or why. Apparently > you list as "public domain" a lot of
books that do not appear > to me to be out of copyright. > > Have
you some theory to the contrary?
I do have a strange theory. All the books that are
found on my site are from other publicly available websites or sent to me
from other users. I publicly state that I do not do any copyright searches
on anything that I post. I have a separate section of the website for
books that I *know* are in the public domain. If you read the first page I
only state I believe they are in the public domain. (I found them in
electronic format or received them in e-book form previously) so I assume
that they are in the public domain. But without an adequate search.. I
don't know. > > Your site is well done, but it looks to me to be a
large act > of piracy attached to something that might be useful. Am I
mistaken?
I will let you form your own opinion on this. I do
not charge money to/from anyone to access the site. Access is free and has
been for a very long time.
I do have a specific request from you. Please remove
my phone number and address from your website immediately. I have already
received 14 phone calls regarding this and all were threatening. MY 4 YEAR
OLD DAUGHTER was spoken to in a manner that was not appropriate at all.
It's harassment and you and I both know that you are providing the
ammunition for your fans' guns. If the calls went to me that is fine, but
it effects my daughter its not. Please ensure your fans are aware of this.
Now that I am aware that your books are not in the
public domain, they will be removed immediately.
Sincerely,
Steele Smith
As I said, I have no thanks for anyone who would annoy a young child; I
also wonder why a 4 year old girl is answering telephones in what must
have been late evening or night.
As to ammunition for guns I fear I don't understand the reference at
all. What guns?
But it is interesting that it is all my fault.
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